Your home outside the city limits.
In the late fall, it can be hard to find a lot of color in the landscape. Many of our flowers are starting to fade for the winter and the days are getting shorter and colder. One of my favorite things about fall is all the wonderful leaf colors through the landscape. One of my... Continue Reading →
A colorful bowl of bright red tulips or yellow daffodils can bring a touch of spring to your home in the middle of winter. With very little effort, you can create several containers now and enjoy a good supply of flowers during the dreary days of January and February. Many types of bulbs can be... Continue Reading →
Growing up, there was bittersweet growing wild near my house. My siblings and I loved to hike through the wild tree stand along the edges of a railroad line, the “weeds” as we called them, to find and collect beautiful clusters of orange fruits for fall decorations. A wild, unfinished location is a good place... Continue Reading →
Every gardener knows that mulch is beneficial for their trees, shrubs and ornamental plantings, right? So how accurate is your mulch knowledge? Test yourself by answering the following true or false questions. Mulch is applied in the fall to keep the plant and the underlying ground warm.Plants that die during the winter are killed by... Continue Reading →
It's been hot! And windy. In unwatered portions of the landscape you are probably seeing lawns turning brown, soil pulled away from driveway and sidewalk edges, and possibly even scorch symptoms in trees. These are all good indications that our landscapes are dry. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, droughtmonitor.unl.edu. Lancaster county is edging toward... Continue Reading →
Most perennial plants need periodic division to maintain their vigor and achieve maximum flower production. This may need to be done annually with very vigorous plants, but is usually only necessary every three to four years. Some perennials, such as Baby's Breath (Gypsophila paniculata), should never be divided. When to DivideThe time of year when... Continue Reading →
Whether for fruit production, habitat or beauty, serviceberry is an excellent addition to any landscape. You might know these plants by other names such as Juneberry, named for the month when fruits ripen, sarviceberry, and shadbush referring to the plants bloom time "when the shad (river herring) run". There are about twenty plant species within... Continue Reading →
The appearance of dead foliage clusters scattered throughout the canopy of oak trees is very noticeable right now. Some of these twig-and-foliage shoots, called “flags”, are breaking away, littering the ground below. This is symptomatic of the oak twig girdler, Oncideres cingulata. Oaks are the most common trees to be afflicted with the oak twig... Continue Reading →
In the late summer it is hard to find things that are blooming, most of our plants are starting to succumb to the heat of the summer and are not looking great. For pollinator gardens, we need to make sure that we have something blooming all through the spring, summer, and fall. One great plant... Continue Reading →
It seems like many landowners are jumping on the turf type tall fescue bandwagon, switching from perennial ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass. It’s understandable - the number of problems that these species have caused many homeowners to look for other options.
It’s difficult to imagine, as we sweat our way through early August, but in just 8 weeks we’ll be talking about early frosts. Fall is a great time to get many landscape tasks accomplished, so here’s a quick rundown of some common landscape projects listed in order of attack. Lawn Seeding August 15th to September 15th is... Continue Reading →
In mid-summer, it’s easy to forget about the needs of patio planters and houseplants moved outside for the summer. There are 5 areas to focus on to keep them thriving.
