Along with the warm, sunny days of summer comes a scourge of pests – spider mites. These little arachnids, related to spiders, look like tiny moving dots. The eight-legged, oval shaped adults live in colonies, primarily on the under-surfaces of leaves and a single colony may contain hundreds of individuals. They overwinter as mated females …
Did you know you can unwittingly expose pollinators to harmful pesticides? Some plant growers still use strong insecticides when growing their garden plants. Neonicotinoids, commonly referred to as “neonics,” are very toxic to pollinators, beneficial insects, and aquatic invertebrates, and are the most widely used class of insecticides in the world. The active ingredients in …
Ever stick your nose to inhale the perfume of a rose, and see teeny-tiny bugs jump? Likely you’ve just met some flea beetles. Named for their well-developed hind legs, they jump like fleas when disturbed. While these insects can be a nuisance to roses, they don’t do any real damage. They’re more commonly found on …
If you’ve grown tomatoes for a few years, chances are you use plants known to be free of and resistant to two common deadly fungal diseases, fusarium and verticillium wilt. But did you know that the blackened branch on a prized Japanese maple, towering ash, or verdant pepper tree may be the result of infection …
Your garden is growing like crazy as we head into summer. Is it time to feed the lawn, the tomatoes and veggies, roses, and other flowers? Before you haul out bags, boxes, or bottles of plant food and sprinkle, spread, or pour them on, consider whether you really need to. Are the products beneficial to …
Grrrrr – while merrily tending my roses, I’ve come across another victim of the dreaded beast – the gopher. If this is not one of the gardening challenges you face, you can stop reading now. Since I live in gopher heaven, each season I have to deal with the damage from this voracious pest. And …
Traps are the Most Reliable Way to Manage Gophers Read More »
One of the unwanted visitors to the spring garden arrives just about now. That pulsating mass of tiny pests that cloak the new growth on your roses, viburnums, or peach trees are at best an unsightly nuisance and at worst, creatures that can damage tender new growth on plants and spread disease. Welcome to the …
Noticed any branches of your pear or apple trees that look like they’ve been torched or scorched? Might be a case of fire blight, a nasty bacterial disease. It most frequently affects pome fruit trees (apples and pears) and related plants – crabapple, ornamental pear, pyracantha, and quince. Infections may appear scattered throughout the crown …
If your last crop of apples featured a worm inside that big, juicy fruit, it likely was the larvae of the codling moth, a serious pest of apples that also attacks pears, large-fruited hawthorns, and walnuts. This insect pest can be a bane in the home orchard. The moth larvae tunnel into the fruit and …
You don’t need a calendar to tell you that spring has arrived, and along with it – bugs. A portion of a tree, suddenly stripped of its leaves that’s now home to a wiggling clump of fuzzy caterpillars. A pulsating mass of tiny pests cloak the new growth on your roses, elderberries or peach trees, …
