Why I Oughta...

Back in the shady parts of our yard, along the fence, we have these plants that come up in various spots.  My assumption is that they're weeds of some sort and for the past few years, I've been pulling them.  But, this year, I learned about Mayapples from Erin the Impatient Gardener .   Looking at what she shows off as Mayapples , I wondered if this mult-lobe'd plant was, potentially Mayapple.   The Missouri Botanic Garden has a listing up about Mayapple - or Podophyllum peltatum  - where they talk about it being used in naturalized gardens and talks about how it disappears during the Summer : ...native Missouri wildflower that occurs in both moist and dry woodland areas throughout the State. From a single stem, each plant grows 12-18" tall and features one or two, deeply-divided, palmately-lobed, umbrella-like, pale green leaves (to 12" diameter). Excellent for naturalizing in woodland settings, wild or native plant gardens. Because plants natur...

Back a few weeks ago, I posted some photos showing how Yellow Jackets covering our espalier'd Greenspire Linden trees due to (based on what I found line) what appeared to be aphids infesting the tree.   Recently, we had a couple of nights of frost (overnight) and that has killed away all the yellow jackets.  So, I could finally get close enough to the tree to inspect what is going on.  My assumption was that the frost likely killed off WHATEVER was eating the leaves and causing the Yellow Jackets to feast.   But, I was pleasantly surprised when I grabbed a leaf and turned it over.  The lace-like leaf had a couple of inhabitants on the underside.  Here's what I saw: See them?  Here's a closer look: Two guys that are yellow and black striped and hanging out on the underside of the leaf. But, what are they?  Pretty sure they are Linden Aphids.  The Bug Guide has a photo that sure looks a lot like these things and, ummm, they're on a ...

This is the first season that I've taken a high degree of interest in our lawn.  This is also the first time that I'm cutting the grass (in the front) by myself.  For the past few seasons, we've used a service to cut the front (while Go-Go - our Automower - cuts the back) and I wasn't ever really pleased with how they worked our lawn.  They came every week, no matter what and that, I think, made for a less-than-ideal lawn for us.  There were some ruts that I fixed this Spring with seed and I think generally, they were cutting it too short and coming EVERY WEEK just to put in the billings.  I get that.  They're running a business.  But, when the price increases came this Spring, I just decided to buy a lawnmower.  My FIRST lawn mower and cut it myself.  The front itself isn't very big (including the parkways and the side strip on the other side of the driveway, we're talking less than 2,500 square feet), so it doesn't take long.  And,...

Earlier this month, I posted about I was taking down a few Buckthorn trees on our property as part of early Fall/late Summer yard maintenance.  After peeping at the leaves on those Buckthorns and following the recommendation of our landscaper who marked them as such, I was pretty confident in removing them, despite their somewhat mature size.  The benefits of removing them far outweigh their continued survival .  There were, however, a bunch of other trees on the property that I couldn't at first identify and wasn't sure if I should keep or remove. So, after some initial searching on the internet, I thought what I had were Mulberry trees.    You'll notice in the photo above something unique:  The leaves on one branch had very different leaves.  On.the.same.branch!  The leaves at the top of the photo have a few lobes on them, while the leaves near the tip - at the bottom of the photo are more egg-shaped.  Strange, right?  All signs ...

Along the north fence line, about mid-way back in our yard, we have a couple of youngish trees that are 2" to 3" caliper trees about 15 to 20 feet tall.  After looking at their leaves, I went around to the rest of the yard to try to identify if I had more than these two.  As you can see above, the leaves are quite jagged along the edges and they are alternate, not compound.  Meaning, the leaves are not exact opposites of each other, but go one on one side, then the other side, then back to the first side, etc. I tried a few leaf identifying apps and even Google Lense and they gave what I though was questionable results:  they identified it as an Ash Tree.  The issue?  Ash Trees have compound branching .  Also, my parents lost dozens of Ash trees to the Borer over the past decade, so I was surprised to think that I had two Ash trees that had survived.    I wanted to figure out what I was dealing with, so after the web gave me mixed re...