The great urban potato experiment

I don’t grow vegetables at home, mostly because I don’t have the space and partially because I don’t have the time. But I did want to try the potatoes-in-a-barrel method, which I also tried last year. But this year I planted about 6 weeks earlier (end of April) than I did the previous year (mid-June).  Here’s my mid-October harvests from both years:

October harvest  IMG_7560

Next year I’ll try planting even earlier. It’s not a huge harvest, but it’s fun to do, especially with kids.… Continue reading this article “The great urban potato experiment”

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!”

Cool plant of the day: Canary Bellflower

I’m such a plant nerd that a few years ago I actually decided to get Canarina canariensis, the Canary Bellflower, for no other reason than that it is one of the very few members of  the campanula family that has red-orange flowers instead of the usual purple-blue ones.

Okay. Maybe that isn’t the most normal reason to add a plant to one’s garden, but I am VERY happy I did.

That color!

I’ll admit, it isn’t a plant that is particularly well adapted to life here in Michigan… as the latin name suggests (twice!)… Continue reading this article “Cool plant of the day: Canary Bellflower”

Walnut warfare

Recently, a question about using black walnut chips for mulch was posted on our Garden Professors Facebook group page. As gardeners know, black walnut has a reputation as a chemical warfare species that will kill anything growing underneath it – a phenomenon called allelopathy. So it’s logical to wonder about the lethality of walnut chip mulches.

To get a good feel for the science behind black walnut’s allelopathic abilities, I was fortunate to find a relatively recent review on the topic (Willis, R.J.… Continue reading this article “Walnut warfare”

Digging these wasps!

After writing about the unusually bad scourge of Japanese Beetles earlier in the month, I thought I’d continue on down the “garden bugs” path. The Japanese Beetles have died down, but now we have oodles of these pretty black and yellow-spotted waspy things around. They’re everywhere, and in large numbers. I planted some buckwheat over our potato garden bed, and it is covered up with them. The point of the buckwheat was as a primo late-season nectar source for our honeybee hives as they prepare for winter.… Continue reading this article “Digging these wasps!”

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?”

One tree’s leaves… over 400 kinds of bacteria!

Okay… this bit of research just blew my mind.

Researchers took leaf samples from just ONE tree in Panama, and identified over 400 different kinds of bacteria making their home there. Sampling 57 different tree species, the total number of bacteria types ballooned to over 7,000. You can read more about the study here.

 

That’s a lot. I love this kind of research because it just reinforces how LITTLE we know about this world we live in.… Continue reading this article “One tree’s leaves… over 400 kinds of bacteria!”

What’s wrong with this picture?

The  Seattle Times recently had a front page story on what Seattle’s new waterfront might look like. Back in 2009, the city began work on this project, hiring “rock-star landscape architect James Corner, designer of the celebrated High Line in New York City” to develop the big picture. (Note: I’ve been to the High Line and have posted on it before – it’s fantastic.) As you can see from the linked article from the Times, many of Corner’s architectural renditions for the greenway are presented, including this one:

waterfront2
COURTESY OF JAMES CORNER FIELD OPERATIONS AND CITY OF SEATTLE
An architectural rendering shows what a Pioneer Square beach at the foot of Washington Street could look like.… Continue reading this article “What’s wrong with this picture?”

Beetlemania

File this under “if it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
Which may be, upon further reflection, the most profoundly absurd statement ever when it comes to gardening. It’s nature! Of course there’s always something!
Here in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, we’ve had insect pests come and go, with each summer featuring something different.

Two years ago? Chewing up everything in the vegetable garden plus lots of perennials… Blister beetles!

Last year we had record rainfall, which brought out the gnats in gnumbers we’d never seen before.… Continue reading this article “Beetlemania”

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”