How to kill your evergreens this winter

salt damage on yews

It's simple!  Just be sure to use LOTS of salt to de-ice the walkways near them.  Come spring, you will have something unique: striped evergreens!  Actually, excessive use will also damage trees, perennials, and lawns, with newly planted things at highest risk.

salt damage on boxwoods

Better to use as little of the salt product as possible, and only after removing as much as you can of the ice and snow by other means.  Definitely don't pile salty snow on top of plantings. You can also mix salt with sand or kitty litter (the cheap unscented kind); 50 pounds of sand mixed with 1 pound of salt will work to improve traction.  A dilute mixture such as this won't do much to melt snow and ice.

When spring returns, flush the area heavily to help wash remaining salts out of the root zone.  There are plenty of trees, shrubs, and perennials that are salt tolerant.  Here's a link to a great article on winter salt injury as well as a comprehensive list of salt-tolerant landscape plants:

Winter Salt Injury and Salt-Tolerant Landscape Plants

Speechless at the Morton Arboretum

 I'm just going to recommend that you visit the Morton Arboretum at dusk sometime.  And bring a real camera, not your phone.

Beech

"Beeches have Beautiful Buds"

Praying Mantis

We found a visitor on the water jug - way too creepy for me to hold.  Apparently it's strong and it sure looked like it meant business.  This is the second praying mantis we've encountered this year.

Fall Surprise

It's good to plant fall - blooming bulbs because most of the time I forget to expect them, so I get a welcome surprise in September. 

 And they go with everything.

Here's a vignette from my front garden:

The pink flower is Colchicum cilicicum, planted with Euphorbia myrsinites (bluish donkey-tail looking plant), chartreuse Aquilegia 'Woodside', and no-name Columbine. You can see a bit of blue-flowered Ceratostigma plumbaginoides in the background and Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' to the right (little yellow flowers).  Also, I hate to admit, there is a huge happy plantain in there pretending to be a hosta. (Right rear)

Colchicum

Colchicums are corms, and they will bloom even if you don't get them in the ground soon enough.  Which of course, is not recommended practice, but, ahem, it does happen.  They are great for low-maintenance gardeners, because they don't actually appreciate a lot of water when they are dormant in the summer. 

They'll put up fat leaves in the spring,

 then die down until the leafless September show. 

They come in white,

 light and dark pink, lavender, and a cultivar called 'Waterlily' 

which has a lot of petals but fails to impress in my garden, anyway.  See how in this (not from my garden) photo the flowers flop?  That's characteristic of the bloom.  Sadly, there always seems to be a rainstorm about the time my white ones bloom and they get muddy.

Plant yourself a surprise this fall.  You can find Colchicum corms at better nurseries and online.

Garden Oddities, or Alien Fruit

Weird.  Jack-in-the-Pulpits are the show-offs of the woodland.  Their flowers are just slightly naughty looking, which no doubt accounts for their prudish name.  "Um, yes, and that's a preacher!"

Arisaema triphyllum: native Jack-in-the-Pulpit

However, their best feature comes after they've been pollinated - bright red aggregate fruit!

Aggregate fruit of Arisaema

The stalks are lying over because the plants are entering dormancy - they're still quite alive and will make their appearance in the spring.  I'm going to propagate these plants from seed as well as from their tubers.  It's an interesting process when you have these fleshy fruits bearing seeds within. They have to be soaked for a couple of days so the soft part can be rinsed away, and then they are given a cold treatment before sowing.  If all goes well, I'll extra plants for my inventory.  

Closeup

Tropicalismo + Beetles

Here's my attempt at Tropicalismo in the Midwest, although it's hardly a new attempt around here.  My friend Sally shared rhizomes of her cannas with me last year, and I saved them over the winter in vermiculite (in the basement window well).  I thought I'd separated the red-leaved ones from the green, but when it came time to pot them up in spring I couldn't tell one from the other.  Luckily, even though I shared most of the rhizomes, I managed to save two for myself, one of each color.

So why the rattiness?

Our icky invader, the Japanese Beetle, has been busy, although I didn't see any today, so I think they've done most of their damage this season.  By the way, although I know all the organic remedies for them, I just didn't feel like doing battle, so I left them to their own and Nature's devices.  Really, the damage in my yard was minimal - a few rose flowers and leaves chewed up, but they are re-blooming.

The beetles were all over the green-leaved canna.










But check out the red-leaved one right next to it: NO DAMAGE!  I can't tell why this happened, but since I like the red leaves better (they both get red flowers), guess which one I'm keeping for next year!

These rhizomes multiply heartily, so of course I'll have some to share - if you're local and would like some, let me know.  I mailed some to my Mom in Tucson and, let's just say, hers have the real Tropicalismo look.  Hmph.

Parsley Visitor

I was perusing the parsley when I noticed most of the leaves gone.. and then this lovely visitor!  It's the larva of the Swallowtail butterfly.  It does a bit of damage, especially when you only have one parsley plant, but the leaves will grow back.  A day later, the caterpillar was gone, to what fate I don't know, but I hope a happy one.  Butterflies in the garden are always some kind of blessing.

After a trip through the chrysalis, it will look like this:

The Squirrel Defeater

Nothing is more satisfying in the garden than thwarting an enemy: in this case, the neighborhood squirrels.  Years ago I bought a "squirrel proof" bird feeder at Wal-Mart and I have been able to enjoy squirrel antics without them emptying the feeder.

It's too wide for them to reach in, and the lid is a slippery slope that they (repeatedly) slide off of.  If they try to jump onto the feeding ledge, their weight causes the opening to close.  Brilliant!  And entertaining.  Every year the new kids on the block figure they will be able to solve it, but none ever has.

 Note the dejected ejected squirrel. 

Creaky Spring

I read the calendar, I know it's only May 26th, but I want it to feel like summer.  Instead, I content myself with roaming around my garden looking for hopeful signs (there are plenty).

First a funny story.  When we moved into our current home, I was eager to make the gardens my own.  Not being flush with cash, I mail ordered a few things in very small sizes from Bluestone Perennials.  Cost effective.  But note: this little Cayuga Viburnum has bloomed for the first time - the first time - since I planted it in 2003.  It now stands about 1 foot high, and you see the extent of its branching structure (one).  To be fair, it did "live" a few years under an Austrian Pine, where nothing much does well.  Still, underwhelming.


 Another find was the Japanese Maple 'Peaches and Cream', which I ordered from Wayside Gardens in September of 2003 for the princely sum of $34.95.  Today it stands maybe 3' tall, but when it's all leafed out, or just even starting, I am in love with it.  In fall it turns a beautiful shade of orangey-yellow, also worth the wait.

 The moral of these stories is, buy larger when you can afford it!

I see some hopeful signs, such as the late emerging Baptisia.  First it looks like asparagus, but it quickly takes on an impressive shrub-like aspect.

 I love the way the buds begin to break with a little white line.  This is Baptisia Starlite Prairieblues.  Um, kind of clunky name there, but a gorgeous improvement on the species.

 Probably my favorite color this time of year: the emerging new growth of any blue spruce, especially the darn cute Picea pungens 'Globosa.'  I am not generally a fan of meatballing shrubs, but I like the idea of a round little blue ball in the front garden.  So as this gets just a little bigger, I'll shear it to be really round.  Spruces have the advantage of dormant buds all over their stems, so you can cut just about anywhere and it will put new growth nearby.

So, while I wait for summer to really get here, prowling around the garden helps me feel better.

Forsythia's a signpost

When the Forsythia blooms, it's a reminder that the soil temperatures have reached germinating temperature for our foe crabgrass.  So now's the time to apply a pre-emergent on your lawn.  These products keep weed seeds from germinating: crabgrass seeds, other weed seeds, and newly sown grass seed too.  So don't use on areas where you WANT seeds to grow.  If you use corn gluten, it can safely be used in flowerbeds as well - it's an organic alternative to Preen.

nasty

Cute!

I sort of like the enthusiasm of Forsythia; this is what it does if pruned a little bit and then left to its own devices.  If you are going to prune a shrub like this against its natural inclination, then I think you should commit.  Yes, much cuter.


Just remember to prune right after it's done blooming, because it will be busy growing new flower buds for next spring soon after.  Prune by June 15th and you too will have cute yellow shrubs next spring.

Emerald Ash Borer in Naperville - get ready to do battle!

The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) made its unpleasant debut in southwest Naperville in 2008, and in the ensuing three years, has spread to many subdivisions in town.  Many of us have ash trees gracing our parkways or properties and we are rightly concerned about keeping them.  Should we treat our trees, leave them alone, or remove them?

The EAB is such a threat because of its life cycle.  It is a small, 5/8” greenish insect that feeds on the leaves of the ash tree, and then lays eggs in the bark.  The main damage is done by the larvae which hatch and tunnel around under the bark, effectively girdling the tree.  Symptoms do not show up until significant damage to the tree has occurred.  On top of that, since the insect has been confirmed in the near vicinity, it is very likely that most of our trees already are harboring the pest.  The best chance of saving our trees is early treatment, before the insect larvae multiply enough to cause irreparable damage.

Symptoms of infestation include yellowing and thinning of the foliage, excessive sprouting from the base of the trunk, vertical bark splitting, evidence of enthusiastic woodpeckers, and on closer inspection, 1/8” diameter D-shaped exit holes in the tree trunk.

The homeowner must weigh the value of the tree in regards to shade, beauty and emotional value.  Removal is not recommended unless the upper branches show at least 40% dieback; at this point the tree will not recover from the infestation even with the help of insecticides. Taking down a large tree and its stump might run $1000 or more plus the cost of a replacement. 

There are insecticides that have demonstrated effectiveness against the EAB.  These consist of soil injections or drenches, trunk injections, and bark/foliar sprays.  They are either systemic, which kills the larvae inside the tree, or external, which kills the leaf feeding insects. 

Small trees up to about 10” in diameter can be treated by the homeowner, typically with Bayer Advanced Tree & Shrub Insect Control.  It is available at hardware and home improvement stores.  The directions must be followed precisely; more is not better.  A mid-April application gives the best chance of control.  However, most of our parkway trees are much larger than 10” in diameter.  Treating them will require a professional’s help and can run $200-300 per tree per year.  Treatment is a long term commitment, or at least until a nearby replacement tree grows large enough or a “cure” is found.

Unfortunately there are not any feasible organic options at this time, but ongoing research suggests parasitic wasps may be of future help in controlling the insects.  Since the EAB is non-native, it does not have significant natural predators built into the local ecosystem yet.  It is always helpful to reduce stress on the tree, so keeping our trees well watered in the heat of summer is a good idea.  Whatever fertilizer is used on the surrounding lawn is sufficient for the tree as well.

If professional help is sought, always use a certified arborist.  They have access to the latest information and formulations of the product that work on larger trees.  There are other products available to them, such as Tree-Age (“triage”) that has shown excellent effectiveness for at least 2 years, even with very heavy insect pressure.  Sometimes different products are applied in combination or in spring and fall.

If you decide to treat your ash trees, please complete the Naperville Emerald Ash Borer Treatment Form (http://www.naperville.il.us/emplibrary/EmeraldAshBorerTreatmentForm.pdf) and return it to the Department of Public Works each time the tree is treated. If an arborist identifies an emerald ash borer infested tree anywhere on your property, please notify the Department of Public Works at (630) 420-6095.

In summary, we are not helpless against this invasive pest; we have effective treatments available to us and removal of our trees is not mandatory unless damage is irreversible.

Thanks to these certified arborists for their assistance with this article:

Joe Krupke

The Davey Tree Expert Company

630-293-9336

Steve Potter

Tree Concepts

630-768-0080

Carl Schultz

Horticultural Consultants

630-851-1898

It's Spring in Chicagoland!

If it's lovely and warm today, snowy and cold tomorrow, it must be Spring in Chicagoland!  One warm day reminds us that it's time to do something outside.  First up: stroll the estate and see if anything's coming up.  Seems like everyone else's snowdrops had appeared before mine, but on March 17, they made their entrance (9 days later than 2010).

Snowdrops

Winter Aconite

I see a lot of downed sticks to pick up but I'm going to allow the fallen leaves to stay and decompose in place.  They won't hurt anything.  Any nice day now would be fine to cut back ornamental grasses and any perennial seedheads left standing for winter interest.  Don't prune spring blooming shrubs!  No flowers this year if you do.
No rush on these tasks, but they are fun to do while we wait for spring to really get underway.  If you don't feel like taking these tasks on, call Fraser Landscapes!  We of course, love that kind of thing.