As we draw nearer to fall, it's time to start thinking about bringing houseplants back indoors for the winter. Many houseplants are native to tropical and subtropical climates and, while they may do great outdoors during the summer, cannot tolerate our cold temperatures. When the thermometer starts...
A tale of two articles
Have you read some of the headlines lately concerning monarch butterflies? “Monarch Butterflies are Thriving!” “Monarch Butterflies are Endangered!” Both these headlines (or something similar) recently saturated newsfeeds for Americans. Considering these stories came out...
Spider mites are a common pest on many types of plants. The most commonly encountered species is the twospotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae). While we often think of them ...
The Big Three Mowing Tips
Each year I try to write a couple of articles about lawns. Each time I’ve written one of these, I have assumed you, the reader, care about your lawn. Turns out, there are a lot of people who have lawns, that don’t care about having a perfectly manicured turf. You just...
Have you ever gone out to pick a peach only to find they have a large brown, mushy spot? Or perhaps you've brought some peaches home from the farmers' market only to have developed these same spots a few days later. The likely culprit is brown rot.
Brown rot (Monilinia spp.) is one of the...
A local problem with widespread implications
What is a watershed? No matter where you live, you are in a watershed. All of Illinois, minus that sliver of land bordering Lake Michigan, is in the Mississippi River Watershed. But we can break down this massive watershed into more local streams and...
A tale as old as time
I’ve been there. It is late fall and there is a hard freeze about to hit. A wise gardener once warned leaving a hose connected to a spigot during a hard freeze could lead to disaster! As water freezes it expands and any water trapped in the nozzle or spigot could expand to...
Many years ago, when emerald ash borer (EAB), had just arrived in northern Illinois, a colleague came across a flatbed trailer loaded with cut ash trees at a gas station. At that time Illinois counties confirmed with EAB had a quarantine that restricted moving ash wood outside of the county.
Most...
There are a variety of insects that will feed on squash. One of the more troublesome, and potentially devastating, is the squash vine borer. If you've grown squash and had a runner or two start wilting, there's a good chance you've had an encounter with squash vine borer.
Squash vine borers (...
The summer of 2012 saw my first year as an Extension horticulture educator; it also was one of the driest years on record. Illinois saw massive shortages of rainfall that year- complete with water restrictions, loss of crops, and the demise of many ornamental landscapes. It was a summer that will...
