Winter appears to have a death grip on the eastern half of the U.S. for the second year in a row. The thermometer on my car read -6 F on my way into work this morning; with lows of -5, -11, and -2 predicted for the latter half of the week. And to my Northwest friends that have been out mowing their grass already, may the bird of paradise fly up your nose. At this point I don’t even remember what my lawn looks like.… Continue reading this article “Plants for winter interest: Going for the Gold”
Author: Bert Cregg
The Walking Dead: Christmas tree edition
Zombies are big deal these days. Seems like you can hardly turn on the TV these days without seeing someone (or someTHING) coming back from the dead. Turns out Christmas trees are no exception. Every so often during the Holidays I will get a call or an e-mail that starts off, “My Christmas tree is starting to GROW!” And indeed they are. Under certain circumstances, conifers that are cut and brought indoors can break bud and begin to grow; sometimes putting on considerable new growth.… Continue reading this article “The Walking Dead: Christmas tree edition”
What’s wrong with my pine tree…? Nothing!
Every once in a while in this line of work we’re actually able to give a homeowner some good news about their trees. A case in point is a call that we frequently get this time of year that starts like this: “My pine tree looks like it’s dying! It’s dropping all of its needles!” If the caller has access to the internet and a digital camera I usually request that the send me a couple of photos; if not, I ask them whether the tree is shedding needles along the outermost part of the limbs or on the interior.… Continue reading this article “What’s wrong with my pine tree…? Nothing!”
What about fall fertilization?
Posted by Bert Cregg
We had a question on the Facebook site regarding fall fertilization of landscape plants. Fertilization in general, and fall fertilization in particular, is a complex topic and needs a little more room for explanation than the Facebook discussion allows.
As a general rule, most landscape trees and shrubs can maintain acceptable growth and appearance without fertilization. There are a couple of reasons for this. As Linda noted in the Facebook discussion, woody plants are fairly efficient at internal nutrient recycling.… Continue reading this article “What about fall fertilization?”
Don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
Posted by Bert Cregg
Yesterday afternoon I did a little fall garage clean-up and listened to former MSU Extension colleague Dean Krauskopf’s call-in gardening show on the radio. A couple callers in a man phoned the show worried about his Japanese maple tree, which had a near-death experience from this past winter’s severe cold. The man had heard this coming winter was supposed to be just as bad as last winter and he wanted to know how best to protect his struggling tree from further calamity.… Continue reading this article “Don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”
When worlds collide
This past week I was in Alnarp, Sweden to present at the International Urban Tree Diversity Conference. Lots of interesting talks, posters and field tours. Much more to discuss than I can fit into a blog post, but if you’re interested you can read the presentation abstracts.
One of the best features of the conference is that the presenters and participants included not only arborists and urban forester but also landscape architects and urban planners.… Continue reading this article “When worlds collide”
Another close shave…
Life is full of surprises. A case in point is some recent work on our Social Media Designed Tree Establishment Study (SoMe-Ded-TrEeS). One of the objectives of the project was to determine the impact of root-ball manipulations to remove circling roots on container-grown trees. When we planted the trees (‘Bloodgood plane trees in 25 gal. containers) two years ago, we ‘shaved’ the outer roots on one-third of the trees, ‘teased’ apart the circling roots on one-third, and planted the rest as-is (‘pop and drop’ in Linda’s vernacular).… Continue reading this article “Another close shave…”
You and me Baby ain’t nuthin’ but mammals…
As spring slowly makes it appearance in the Midwest, homeowners and landscapers are likely to continue discovering damage from our record-breaking winter. While brutally cold temperatures and heavy snow loads took their toll in many areas, some of the most severe damage that occurred to landscape trees and shrubs this winter was caused by mammals.
Our long, harsh winter resulted in heavy feeding damage by deer, rabbits and voles, also called field mice. Depending on the age and type of plant and which animal was feeding on it, mammal damage can range from light pruning to death of a tree or shrub.… Continue reading this article “You and me Baby ain’t nuthin’ but mammals…”
Go ahead, weed, make my day…
Ridding an ecosystem of invasive plants is never easy. We can bring in goats to munch on offending plants or force armies of schoolchildren into slavery to pull them out; but, in all likelihood the sneaky little devils (the invasive plants, not the schoolkids) will be re-sprouting and back with a vengeance before we can turn around. For many invasive plant infestations the most practical long-term solution is chemical control – in other words, herbicides. Of course, herbicides have their issues such as drift and potential impacts on non-target plants.… Continue reading this article “Go ahead, weed, make my day…”
Feel the burn…
One of the most obvious impacts of this winter’s winter is rapidly becoming apparent in Michigan and other parts of the Midwest: winter burn on conifers. The primary symptom of winter burn is needle browning, especially on evergreen conifers in exposed locations. Needles may be damaged by extreme cold or the browning may be associated with winter desiccation as needles lose moisture during brief warm-ups. Winter burn is one of those situations that draws a lot of attention because it can look devastating; yet it often has relatively little long-term impact on plants.… Continue reading this article “Feel the burn…”