We've gotten many calls and samples concerning fire blight this season, and the same goes for our plant clinic on campus in Champaign-Urbana according to their recent report. The majority of the samples submitted to the plant clinic identified fire blight on pear trees and ornamental pear trees....

As gardeners I'm sure many have heard the folk tale that ants are needed to help open up the buds on your peonies. I've always heard this as well, but logically, never believed that to be true. In my head I just always pictured muscled up ants prying open the peony buds. Not very likely. Well...

Plant of the week is back! This week I'm featuring the Bridalwreath Spirea (Spiraea prunifolia or Spiraea vanhouttei). You may have noticed it's lovely white flowers blooming now. Bridalwreath spirea has clusters of white, double flowers in mid to late...

Plant of the Week! This week's plant is not only an ornamental, but it's also edible. Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla) will produce fresh white, orange, yellow, pink, or red leaf stalks making it a colorful addition to the vegetable garden, as...

Winter can be a tough time for greenhouses. Even if you're not growing anything in your greenhouse for the winter, there is still care to be take to protect your structure from heavy snow loads this time of year. In a recent article in the...

Plant of the Week! This week's plant is an unusual one that you don't see planted too often. The Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) is a perennial, hardy to zone 7, which is closely related to globe artichoke. I've seen this unique vegetable growing in various...

Buying bargain plants at the garden center can be very tempting, but before buying that marked down plant, it's important to give it a good inspection. Usually when a plant is marked down it's either because it is towards the end of the season for that plant, or it's because there is a problem...

Plant of the week! This week's featured plant is Trumpet Honeysuckle(Lonicera sempervirens).This vine is blooming beautifully in my garden right now. Honeysuckles get a bad rap because of their very invasive cousins the Exotic Honeysuckles (...

Were you able to dry some of the herbs or flowers you grew in your garden this summer? If so, there are a multitude of easy gifts you can make for the holiday season using those herbs. And if you're not an herb grower, don't worry, they're just as easy to purchase at the grocery store! We made the...

Plant of the Week! On a tour of the Illinois Executive Mansion in Springfield this week, it was hard not to notice the beautiful Bottlebrush Buckeyes (Aesculus parviflora) blooming! The bottlebrush buckeye is a multi-stemmed, suckering shrub that suckers...

Plant of the Week! If there ever was a quint-essential perennial that instantly reminds me of summer, it's got to be the Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida). This dependable perennial is blooming beautifully right now. More than likely if you've got...

Plant of the Week! This week the Tiger Lilies (Lilium lancifolium) are blooming beautifully in my garden. Tiger lilies are actually a bulb, similar to how all other true lilies grow. This lily in particular grows to about 4 ft in height and has formed a...

Last week I wrote about the browning that is occurring on evergreens this spring, but we also have some other problems that are being noticed on evergreens throughout the landscape. The first is caused by those pesky deer.Deer can feed on and damage terminal and side branches of small trees and...

The popular First Detector Program, is returning to northern Illinois next year, this time with more new topics. Kelly Estes, Agriculture Pest Survey Coordinator, announced the dates for the 2015 Illinois First Detector Workshops last week. This is the third year the First Detector Workshops will...