Why I Oughta...

One of my Dahlias - a Melina Fleur variety - that is planted in a protected spot (against the house) on the southside in (mostly) full sun has been pretty busy producing blooms the past few weeks.  But, I started to notice that some of the foliage was starting to get eaten up.  Not lace-like, but holes at the tips and in the middle of a number of leaves.  And, those holes kept getting greater in numbers.  A week ago, I sprayed the plant with Neem Oil, thinking that I might get whomever/whatever was eating the leaves.  But, that didn't seem to slow it down.  So, I went in for a closer look.  And...sure enough...I found a couple of different pests on the plant.  The first were these fuzzy caterpillars.  There were like 30 (that I could find) that I picked off and stomped on.  I also clipped off a number of the partially-eaten leaves.  See below for the backside of the leaf with two (large) and one (tiny) caterpillars below: The other ...

What a difference two weeks make.  Earlier this month, I posted about our Disneyland Roses and described them as 'struggling '.  This is the second year where they 'struggled' - including an infestation of Sawfly Larvae.  The three bareroot ones didn't come back this season and I suspect it was the result of the pests.  As I've done in previous years, I've begun to feed the three remaining Floribunda roses with a combo fert + systemic insecticide on the first of the month (May, June).   But, that wasn't enough.  The leaves of the roses were lace-like and the plant seemed to be in decline. That's when I took drastic measures and first sprayed Neem Oil on them every few days follwing by  bombing all three of them with Eight insecticide dust .  The remaining foliage had a ghost-like quality with the white dust clinging to the leaves and stems.  For days and (now) weeks.     These Disneyland roses grow in 'flushes'.  At ...

After battling a vast aphid invasion on our Cardoon plant (planted IB2DWs last Fall and came back this year), appears ready to burst with a couple of big, spike-y blooms.  I planted it on a whim late, late last year based on seeing this in the Fragrance Garden at the Morton Arboretum and didn't know what to expect.  At the time when I bought it, the sign at The Growing Place called it a "Biennial" - which I think means that it won't bloom the first year - so this is the bloom year.  This piece from the University of Wisconsin talks about how you don't normally see a bloom in cooler climates (like ours), so we might be in for a real treat.   See below for a look at our Cardoon buds/blooms as they grow up/out before they open: I went at the aphids pretty hard with both Neem Oil, our hose with a high-pressure setting (just to try to blow the aphids off) and then, ultimately with a insecticide dust.  I'm hoping the aphids didn't get these to a place where t...

Last year, we had three established Disneyland Roses and three bareroot plantings.  All three of the bareroot floribunda roses didn't come back this Spring.  And, the three established ones - while blooming very well this year - are showing signs of struggle with their foliage.  Last week, I gave them their second feeding of the season and used a 'combo' fert + systemic treatment granular that is billed to handle both insect/pests and fungus/diseases. Last year, I saw the foliage of these roses start to decline and while I'm PRETTY sure I had some sawfly larvae (lace-like foliage), I don't know if that was ALL that I was dealing with out there.  Fungus?  Other disease?  Perhaps. Last December, I posted about my Sawfly Larvae experience and that's how I was thinking of approaching this season :  combo fert+insect systemic and periodic spraying with Neem Oil on the leaves.  As I mentioned, I've applied two treatments of fert+ this year.  And.....

I threw down 15K area of coverage of this Grub Control granular from Menards.  A June application was in my 2023 lawn plan , so this is a 'check the box' activity.  I ran my spreader over the lawn in the front and back as well as some of the beds to apply the grub killer to those areas, too. I have to spot-treat some of the weeds this month, too.  Then, coming out of the July 4th holiday, I'll be applying the first treatment of an organic material (biosolids from Menards) after doing two synthetic lawn applications this Spring.  I'm calling my March, April, May and (now) June - in terms of lawn care - a success.    I've done:  Lawn lime, a pre-emergent + fert, a weed-and-feed and now insect and grub control. 

Our Disneyland Roses (at least the ones that have been planted with southern exposure a few seasons back) get their first flush of flower blooms in early June.  They bloomed in early/mid June in 2022 and in early/mid (10th of the month) June in 2021, too .  This year is no different as the first sets of blooms have hit our Floribunda roses.  Below are some photos - first showing some of the flowers that I clipped off and have put in a vase in our kitchen. The Disneyland Rose - in Zone 5b - get at least three full flushes of blooms.  June (now) is the first.  And the last one is in October.   There is another one in-between in August or so.  At least...that's what I think happens.  Perhaps they get four flushes?  I'll have to observe more closely this year.  While the bloom schedule is right on track, I'm seeing something that is new to me:  leaves being eaten up and destroyed by SOMETHING.  See below for a look at the tat...

One of the things that I've had on my last few annual 'to do lists' in the garden is to keep up with various seasonal tasks like feeding, treating, pruning, etc.  Basically....good garden and tree maintenance.  This year, it came in at #16 on the list and included items like feeding the roses ( which I did last week for the first time this season ) and dividing perennials, protecting everything from winter and rabbits and... treating trees.  For the past few years, I've had the fine folks at Davey do an annual deep-root feeding treatment of everything in the yard (in the fall) and I've complemented that application with one of my own on a few select trees.   Start back in 2020, I noticed that our Greenspire Lindens were being covered in Yellow Jackets and upon inspection, it appeared that the trees were inhabited by aphids - which in turn created honeydew - which was what the Yellow Jackets were after.  In order to get rid of the Yellow Jackets, I had to...

A couple of weeks ago, I took some steps to head off the annual aphid infestation that has been occuring on our Greenspire Linden trees that leads to them being swarmed by Yellow Jackets who are eating the aphids.  Back in mid-May, I applied a Systemic Soil-Application insecticide and - just to be doubly sure - I also sprayed a persistent contact spray to the leaves just to kill whatever might already be on the leave s.   As a reminder, this is what the underside of the leaves looked like when the Linden Aphids were living on them (back in late Summer 2020).  Doing this check-in on the Lindens (which...are currently espalier'd in a horizontal Cordon, btw), I looked at the underside of the leaves.  And, while I don't see any of the aphids like I did last year, I do see some white, hairy spots at the intersection of the leaf veins.  See below for a zoomed-in shot of the leaves: I've done as close of an inspection as I can on these photos and I can't tell ...

For the past few years, I've put nothing but organic/natural products down on the yard to control weeds, feed the turf and improve the soil.  But, this year, I skipped the application of a pre-emergent and I'm dealing with A LOT more weeds in the backyard than I normally have at this time of year.  I don't know if skipping the pre-emergent has to do with the weeds or if it is just a coincidence. But, I needed to take some action.  I bought a concentrate to spray the weeds and applied that a couple of weeks ago.  It worked - in spots - but wasn't enough.   So, I went with what I consider a drastic measure:  I bought a bag of Weed and Feed from Menards and threw it down in the backyard .  I looked around for a weed control ONLY granular product, but didn't see something that would work, so I decided to use this combination product.  Here's a look at the bag: Here's a closer look (below) at the makeup of the herbicide product including Dimethyla...

Last week, I posted a photo of my horizontal cordon espalier Greenspire Lindens as they were about to break bud for the Spring. The trees are starting to really fill out and look like I wanted them to look - now in their fifth growing season.  But, last year something happened.  These trees were swarmed by yellow jackets .  And, after a little bit of research, I discovered that the trees were inhabited by Linden Aphids - which is (apparently) quite common.   Last Fall, I took the first step to trying to treat the Aphid infestation - and figured out that there are two ways to treat trees:  with either persistent contact treatments or systemic treatments . Persistent contact sprays - they kill what they contact.  And they'll last from a few hours on the leaves up to a few days.  They're good for more immediate results, but they have some downsides in that they may harm non-targets (meaning...they will kill not just aphids). That's what I tried to ...