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After the Flood: Garden and Landscape Plants

Recent torrential rains have brought about flooded conditions in many gardens and landscapes. As flood waters recede and folks get about the business of putting homes and lives back together, questions arise as to the safety of produce from flooded gardens, as well as potential damage to landscape plants.  For those who have actually had a chance to put in early cool-season crops, the issue of food safety from the garden is best handled with […]
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Q. I have a ficus plant that was a gift in the fall of 2001. Recently, it started to drop leaves. It started out with a few leaves, then last week it dropped two-thirds of all its leaves. I have checked the plant for mealy and scale bugs but do not find evidence of them. I thought maybe it was getting too much sun in our solar area, and I moved it. When I checked the […]
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Sunflowers for Summer Fun

Sunflowers have long been included in the typical Midwestern garden, but modern hybrids have greatly expanded the palette of choices for today’s garden. Whether you want short, medium or tall; yellow, burgundy, bronze or brown; seed for the birds; or just pretty look at, there’s a sunflower for you. Gardeners will find two different types of sunflowers available from garden centers and mail-order catalogs: Those that are grown for their edible seeds, and those that […]
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Treated Lumber in the Garden

Gardening in raised beds can be just the answer for would-be gardeners who would love to grow their own vegetables and flowers but lack the space or physical ability for a traditional garden. However, recent controversy regarding chemical wood preservation treatments has left many gardeners wondering about the safety of treated lumber. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that lumber treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA) will be phased out for use in consumer/residential […]
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Q. Help! Something is boring holes in my silver maple tree. There are four holes at a time in a horizontal line. These holes are a little bigger than a pencil eraser and deep enough that the tree is oozing lots of sap. What could be doing this? Will my tree die? Do I need to plug the holes and with what? What can I do to prevent this from continuing? It has happened three times […]
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Annual Versus Perennial Flowers

Comparing annual and perennial flowers is a little like comparing apples and oranges. Each type of flower has its own characteristics and advantages. Annual flowers are those that complete their lifecycle in just one growing season. In other words, you plant a seed (or a seedling plant), it grows foliage, then flowers, seeds and then the plant dies, all in the same year. Annual flowers tend to bloom from spring until autumn frost. Although they […]
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Fire Up for Hot Peppers

Chilly days call for warming up with a steaming bowl of hot chili. And we can thank the peppers known botanically as Capsicum for that warm sensation. Although they are native to Central and South America, Capsicums traveled around the world before they were introduced to North American culture. Explorers brought Capsicums to Europe in the 1500s. The Spanish named it “pimiento” after the black pepper called “pimienta,” which is the unrelated Piper nigrum. As […]
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Q. I read your article on fire blight. We have a bad case of fire blight on one of our pear trees. You spoke of doing a pruning of the diseased parts, and we were wondering when would be the best time to do the pruning–spring or fall? — Linda Am Rhein, Scipio, Ind. A. Fire blight-infected limbs and branches should be pruned during late winter when there is much less chance of spreading fire-blight bacteria on […]
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Pruning Evergreens

Evergreens require a bit different manner of pruning than other landscape plants. Although a plant is not likely to die from improper pruning, it is important to note that most evergreens cannot replace lost growth the way that deciduous plants can. So while other landscape plants might be able to outgrow an errant pruning job, evergreens can suffer permanent disfigurement. Individual plants should be assessed for pruning needs. Evergreens that have been sheared into formal […]
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2002 Year of the Vinca

Each year, the National Garden Bureau selects a flower to promote, and this year the annual garden flower known as vinca is the star of the show! Vinca is a popular annual bedding plant in the Midwest with loads of single-flower blooms in shades of red, pink and white. More accurately identified botanically as Catharanthus, there is much confusion regarding the name of this plant. Catharanthus is the sun-loving, summer-flowering plant that is grown as […]
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