Squirrels clearly know fall is approaching based on the calls coming into the Master Gardeners help desk telephone line and homeowners bringing in handfuls of small oak twigs. Squirrels will on an annual basis collect, hide, and eat a great many acorns in anticipation of winter, it is what they do...

Where you place your dwarf fruit tree home orchard, or even the one or two fruit trees you are going to grow, makes a big difference in how the fruit tree grows and performs. A major consideration is the soil in the area you are considering for your fruit trees. Fruit trees are no different than...

Lots of tree planting happened in the Fox Valley this past fall. The replanting has been pushed by the continuing tree population decline from the Emerald Ash borer, a boring insect that has now killed millions of ash trees in the Midwest. The other major reason homes have replanted trees has been...

Cucumbers, Squash, Zucchini, Pumpkins and Melons are all considered vine crops out there in the garden. Cucumbers are known for attracting cucumber beetles and a disease called cucumber wilt. Squash attract the squash bug and squash vine borer and a disease called powdery mildew. Pumpkins have...

July has brought us a mild summer with a fair amount of rain. It was not until the end of July that our yards and gardens began to look more typical – drying ground with some cracking showing up as the soil did begin to dry. If you missed some of those weeds, by now they are well established in the...

Young fruit trees in the home orchard should begin to fruit once the tree has become established. Several conditions will need to be met before that happens and some of them we can help with. The four big factors are tree health, weather, typical age for the tree to bear and proper pollination....

Our summer season has moved along enough that the some of the flowers in the garden have finished their bloom show and now are in need of bit of help. Deadheading is simple enough, you just remove the old spent blossoms. For flowers with individual blooms, removing those spent flowers will...

All this cooler weather especially at night is having an effect on all our plants in the landscape. The temperatures we have been having at night especially have caused changes in how the plants have changed from actively growing to getting ready for dormancy. Some of our plants that are used as...

Our daily routine during this time of year is often interrupted with time away from home, having family and friends stop by, planned or unplanned. One of those pleasant interruptions is the live holiday tree and the holiday gift plants you give or receive. Taking care of the tree once it is up and...

This very erratic spring weather is really making it difficult to plan the spray program for the home orchard. Fungicide sprays for Apple Scab and Cedar Apple Rust need to be started at the right time. Both diseases begin with our cool wet weather early in the year. The spores really like the cool...

In China it is the year of the snake, but here in the Midwest most gardeners will agree it seems to be the year of the weed. Weeds are everywhere and are not even slowing down as summer moves along. Master Gardeners have been very busy with clientele bringing anything from a single weed to an...

This column has talked about the many impacts of our 2012 drought and why our trees, shrubs and evergreens have had such a struggle regaining their health and returning to a good annual rate of growth over the past 2 years. Lawns were clearly a victim of the drought too and so many calls to the...

Storm damage can now be added to our list of what has happened to our landscape plants. The drought of 2012 started things off creating lots of stressed trees, shrubs and evergreens. Recently planted and very mature plants were affected as well as everything in between. Jump ahead to the winter of...

Spring is a good time to be planting trees, shrubs and evergreens in the home landscape. We have lost so many trees to the Emerald Ash borer, other wood boring insects and diseases lately that some communities look bare, especially when all the street and parkway trees were ash. Since the drought...

Most of the spring blooming shrubs and small ornamental trees in the home landscape already have their flower buds ready to go right now. The flower buds were created last summer and have overwintered protected by insulating bud scales. As cabin fever has just about hit the peak for a lot of us,...

Just about now, you can see holiday trees sitting in the front or side yard, waiting for the assigned pick up date to be collected and mulched. This is one way to be sure your holiday tree gets recycled to the benefit of the environment. The follow through to getting your tree composted in a...

January 2013 was recorded as the second warmest in 35 years. The high for January 29, 2013 was 62 degrees. That memory has likely faded away deeper and deeper as we shovel our 33+ inches of snow we have had this winter. While we are not so happy above the snow, plants below the snow cover are...

The weather has caught us all by surprise and there can be some leftover gardening projects still unfinished. If that bag or box of spring flowering bulbs is still sitting in the garage, the ground is not frozen and planting those bulbs will be easy. Follow the directions for proper planting depth...

There has been some recent press covering cicadas in Illinois this summer. While we can have a few cicadas every year, the brood of concern will be invading northwestern Illinois in the summer of 2014. According to the experts that follow cicadas, this is known as the Iowa brood (also called the...