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Powdery Mildew Verses Downy Mildew
Two common diseases in both vegetable gardens and ornamental gardens are powdery mildew and downy mildew. While the two diseases have many similarities the pathogen is different, symptoms are...
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Ornamental Garden Calendar For August
Photo by Kimberley Pacholko Trees and Shrubs Continue to watch your lilacs, flowering crabapples, ninebark and currant bushes for signs of powdery mildew and continue your protective treatments....
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Fasciation Causes Unusual Growth of Flowers, Stems, or Fruit
The word fasciation comes from the Latin word fascia, to fuse, and that is often what this growth abnormality looks like. Affected stems, fruit or flowers appear as though 2 or more have been fused or...
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Trees and Shrubs Wrap up any pruning the first half of the month then stop pruning so you do not create a flush of new growth that will not have a chance to harden off before winter. Do not prune...
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Trees and Shrubs Spruce spider mite proliferates in the cool temperatures of spring and fall. They can cause substantial damage to spruce, hemlocks, and junipers. Examine yellowing needles on spruce...
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Rudbeckias
Rudbeckias with their daisy-like flowers and long blooming time are real work horses in the mid-summer to mid-fall gardens. They are all native to North America, easy to grow and relatively disease...
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Identifying Vole Presence and Damage
Voles are small mouse-like rodents that can be highly destructive to lawns, ornamental gardens, vegetable gardens, orchards, forests and some field crops. They tunnel around underground creating an...
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Hydrangea Wood Borers
Hydrangea Wood Borers tunnel through the inside of stems, branches, trunks and larger roots, damaging the vascular system that is essential for the transportation of food and water for the plant. This...
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Tar Spot on Maple Leaves
Tar spot is a common fungal disease of maple trees. The fungus attacks maple leaves in the spring causing pale spots that continue to grow in size, turning yellow then eventually to raised black spots...
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Pear Slugs (Caliroa cerasi) on Purple Leaved Sand Cherry
Pear slugs or pear sawfly (Caliroa cerasi), are also known as cherry slugs. They are pests of several fruit trees primarily pear and cherry (including purple leaved sand cherry), but also plum,...
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Black-and-Yellow Garden Spider
The black and yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia) goes by many names including writing spider, zipper spider, black and yellow Argiope, golden orb-weaver, and corn spider. The names describe the...
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Oak Sawflies
Oak Sawflies are tiny fly-like, nonstinging wasps. The short-lived adults feed on pollen and nectar and do not cause any feeding damage, but their caterpillar-like larvae, on mass, can create...
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Hosta Pests and Diseases
Insect Pests of Hosta Leaf Nematodes Leaf nematodes are microscopic round worm that enter stomatal openings on hosta leaves to feed on the inside of the leaves. They are unable to cross the veins from...
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Peony Pests and Diseases
Peony Insect Pests Foliar Nematodes Foliar nematodes are microscopic organisms that feed within plant tissue. They require a layer of moisture in order to move about on the outside plant surfaces. The...
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Yew Pests and Diseases
Usually, when there is a problem with your yew (Taxus) the first symptom you will observe is a yellowing of the needles. Yellowing needles however can be caused by a variety of things such as the soil...
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Black Vine Weevils
Black Vine Weevils (Otiorhynchus sulcatus) are a serious insect pest of many broad leaf plants, both woody and non-woody. Although the genus Otiorhynchus consists of hundreds of species, Otiorhynchus...
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Needle Cast Diseases of Spruce
Needle cast is a fungal disease of coniferous trees that causes the inner needles to turn brown and fall off the tree (cast off). The disease typically begins on the lower and inner branches, where...
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Pruning Roses
Pruning roses is very intimidating to many gardeners but it needn’t be. You don’t need to be a rosarian and know all the rose categories and classes in order to prune roses. What is most important to...
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Choosing the Right Geranium (Pelargonium) for Your Home Garden
The word Geranium, scientifically speaking, is a genus of perennials commonly called cranesbill. The word geranium also commonly refers to a large group of annual geraniums scientifically known as...
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20 Common Summer Weeds In Ontario
This is a follow up post to my popular article 20 Common Spring Weeds in Ontario. There has been much interest out there for an expanded list of weeds. This is the second, in what I hope will be a...
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