Category: Cool Research

Two new postings on compost tea efficacy – and safety

We just don’t have enough excitement on the blog, so I thought I’d bring up two new items that just crossed my virtual desk.  The first is today’s Garden Rant posting from Susan Harris.  I won’t spoil her well-written blog, but if you’ve been following the debate on the disease-control properties of compost tea, you’ll be interested in reading it.

The second was in an email from a colleague at the EPA on a new journal article. … Continue reading this article “Two new postings on compost tea efficacy – and safety”

A rose by any other name…

This past week I got to spend three days doing one of my favorite things; talking about conifers.  Wednesday I was a last-minute guest lecturer for a landscape design class and Thursday and Friday I did my ‘Conifers for Connoisseurs’ talk for our MSU Extension ‘Plants of Distinction’ program.  One of my favorite conifers and one I often recommend as a large specimen tree is Alaska yellow-cedar (the name I learned in Mr. Chance’s Botany class at Olympia High School) or Nootka false cypress (the usual common name for the tree in this part of the world). … Continue reading this article “A rose by any other name…”

Better Red than Dead!!!

David, one of our newer readers, asked why his red-stemmed roses seem to be more cold hardy than the green-stemmed cultivars.  So today’s blog will be dedicated to a brief discussion of why it’s better to be red than dead.

The brilliant red, blue, and purple colors seen in flowers and fruits are due to anthocyanins (and the closely related betacyanins).  These water-soluble, non-photosynthetic pigments are also commonly found in stems, leaves and other vegetative tissues.  … Continue reading this article “Better Red than Dead!!!”

Pop Quiz!

Bet you weren’t expecting this on TUESDAY, eh?
Heh, heh.

Situation:  these photos are from a grad student project.  We wanted to create, observe, and record nutrient deficiency symptoms, so we grew the plants hydroponically in a made-from-scratch nutrient solution, containing everything except one particular nutrient. There were 12 separate batches of solution, one missing each essential mineral nutrient (N,P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Fe, Mn, Cu, B, Mo, Zn – couldn’t exclude Cl as it’s too common in salts). … Continue reading this article “Pop Quiz!”

Wonderful wood chips

I’m in love…with arborist wood chips.  These are not your beauty barks or other packaged mulches, but the chipped branches and leaves fresh from the tree crews. It’s a great way to keep this resource out of the landfill – and don’t even get me started about using this great mulch material for a “biofuel!”

I’ve written about wood chip mulches a lot, but thought today I would post some photos to show you how well they work in suppressing weeds and promoting growth in restoration sites. … Continue reading this article “Wonderful wood chips”

My Favorite Class Project

Every year  I teach a class called nursery management.  In this class students have the opportunity to try all kinds of different growing techniques out in the nursery.  They get to use a tree spade and prune and all kinds of other stuff.  But something else that I have the students do is to make hydroponic systems for growing plants.  No, hydroponics is not a common technique for growing plants in a nursery, but to grow plants hydroponically you need to know what you’re doing, and so this is a convenient way to make the students think about the plants they grow and what these plants need to prosper.… Continue reading this article “My Favorite Class Project”

Eat your veggies! (But not the arsenic, or the chromium, or the lead…)

vegetables_jpg.jpgThe last few years have been a perfect storm for the resurgence of home vegetable (and fruit) gardens.  Grapevines are trellised along sidewalks, herbs replace the grass in parking strips, and tiny gardens of carrots and lettuce are shoehorned into any available spot.  It’s all good  – but we need to be particularly careful about what those plant roots might be taking up along with nutrients and water.

urban%20soil_jpg.jpg

1)  Contaminated soil.  Many urban (and suburban, and even rural) soils are contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, and/or industrial wastes. … Continue reading this article “Eat your veggies! (But not the arsenic, or the chromium, or the lead…)”

Shoot your favorite ash

One of the biggest issues facing urban and community forestry in the eastern half of North America is the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB).  As most people are aware, EAB was accidentally introduced in Michigan some time in the late 1990’s.  By 2002 when the insect was found and identified, thousands of ash trees in and around Detroit were dead or dying.   Since then the insect has continued to spread, partly by natural dispersal but also by hitchhiking on logs and firewood.… Continue reading this article “Shoot your favorite ash”

Voles are Pickier Than You Think

…and it’s not just the scientifically-proven inverse correlation between the price of the mail-order perennial and likelihood it will get chomped within six months. The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is notorious throughout central and eastern North America for laying waste to many a well-tended garden. Much of what’s out there in regards to herbivory of ornamental plants (said chomping by deer, voles, bunnies, etc.) is simply anecdotal, yet repeated ad nauseum as fact. So it’s exciting to see some new research in that field, published in a recent HortTechnology journal.… Continue reading this article “Voles are Pickier Than You Think”

Take it all off (cue bow-chicka-bow-bow music)

OK, I know there are skeptics out there including many of my dear colleagues.  Though it seems that at least some of my photos are making an impression.  So here is another little photo tour through bare-rooting – this time with a bigger tree.

This demonstration was given at the 2006 ISA conference in Washington.  This is a good sized tree…

…that we plopped into a Rubbermaid watering trough after removing the burlap…

…and washed off all the clay. … Continue reading this article “Take it all off (cue bow-chicka-bow-bow music)”