Especially at this time of year, if you do much gardening and yard work, you’ll be carrying things. If it turns out to be a lot of things, then consider a garden cart, tote or wheelbarrow. The kind of work you’ll be doing, how often and how heavy the load is will help you choose.... Continue Reading →
Gardeners Are Optimists
For better or worse, another gardening season is over. This week, we could talk about reviewing your gardening year, selecting disease resistant cultivars, proper pruning, watering or mulching techniques, or keeping garden records of success or failures so next year’s growing season goes better. But sometimes, you just need a little commiseration to lighten your... Continue Reading →
Pruning Raspberries
Raspberry crowns live for many years, but their canes are biennial meaning they live for two years. Each year new shoots grow from buds in the crown. Late in that first summer, these new canes develop lateral branches with fruit buds on them. Early the next spring, fruit-bearing shoots grow from these buds. After fruiting,... Continue Reading →
Our Gardens—Designed or Accumulated?
“A garden that didn't change and grow wouldn't be a garden at all." Ken Druse How did your garden become what it is today? Is it just as you planned it and imagined it to be? Did it happen just like that, with all of it coming together in one year or one growing season?... Continue Reading →
Bald Cypress
With winter coming sooner than we want, our trees are starting to go into their dormant state. One tree that tends to confuse people with the manner in which it goes dormant is Bald Cypress. Bald Cypress, Taxodium distichum, is a deciduous conifer that has needles that look like most other conifer trees, but looses... Continue Reading →
Rose Winter Protection
Winter is a difficult season for roses. Rapid temperature changes, sometimes as much as 20-30° F degrees in 24 hours, is very hard on plants. Unseasonably warm temperatures in January and February, along with repeated freezing and thawing of the soil can do a lot of damage. What can you do this fall to help your roses... Continue Reading →
Daffodils for Early Spring Color
Planting flowering bulbs is a fall tradition for many gardeners, and there is still plenty of time to get your bulbs in the ground this fall. In eastern Nebraska, bulbs can be planted from late September through the end of October, ideally when soil temperatures are below 60°F degrees. This allows the root system to develop before the ground... Continue Reading →
Garden Sanitation – A Good Way to Reduce Next Year’s Pest Problems
Garden professionals often talk about sanitation as a way to manage insect and disease problems in a garden or landscape. But what exactly is garden sanitation and how does it help with pest problems? Pest Overwintering Strategies Many disease organisms carry over from one season to the next on infected branches, leaves or fruits. Diseased... Continue Reading →
The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug
The brown marmorated stink bug is a nuisance as well as a destructive pest and, like its name implies, puts off a nasty odor when crushed. This nonnative invasive pest has been in Nebraska since 2012. The damage the BMSB causes is from its needle-like mouthpart that punctures, resulting in sunken bruised areas on fruits.... Continue Reading →
Cemeteries Offer Park-like Settings and Much More
Some of the largest planted and managed landscapes in our communities are cemeteries. Though they’re not used for recreation or other large—or even small—public events, they’re historical, necessary and deeply valuable both personally and community-wide. Even more, they have to continue into the future and in some cases are already centuries old. They are extremely... Continue Reading →