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 … Continue reading Cool plant of the day: Canary Bellflower
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 … Continue reading What’s wrong with this picture?
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 … Continue reading Don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
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 … Continue reading Feel the burn…
The line ‘How cold WAS it?’ has been a lead-in for stand-up comics for years; as in, “It was so cold politicians had their hands in their own pockets…” or “It was so cold the mice were playing ice hockey in the toilet bowl…” Like everyone, I’ve heard lots of discussion these days about just … Continue reading How cold WAS it?
The good news about being a landscape extension specialist is you get to comment on a variety of landscape tree problems. The bad news? You get to comment on a variety of landscape tree problems. In an average week I probably get 10-15 tree-related calls or e-mails from homeowners, landscapers, growers, extension educators, lawyers, newspapers, … Continue reading Going off half-cocked
What a difference a year makes. This time last year our growing degree day accumulations were nearly a month ahead of normal and we had already experienced temperatures in the 80’s, with more than a week straight of 70 + deg. temperatures. This year, of course, is a different story. But spring will come eventually. … Continue reading Protecting plants from frost
If you read my postings the last few weeks, you know that I’m doing a webinar on Wednesday on searching academic databases for information of interest and use to gardeners. While researching one of the suggested topics (should we mow leaves into the lawn or bag and dump them?) I found a 2012 article* entitled … Continue reading Up in smoke
Over the weekend our blog was inaccessible. The server room in Pullman (where this blog is housed) overheated and everything was shut down. I apologize to those of you who tried to comment and/or post. Things are back to normal, at least for the time being.
I know Linda normally handles quiz duties, but I received a couple of intriguing pictures last week. Rather than just tell you all what’s going, I thought we’d have a little sport with it. The photo below was taken last week ago at a container seedling nursery in western Michigan. These are trays of container-grown … Continue reading Monday pop quiz time!