What is the definition of a slug?A snail with a housing problem! I know. It’s a very old joke. But its punch line truly is the primary difference between a snail and a slug. They are both in the mollusk phylum, and both are gastropods (literally, … [Read more...]
Knock Out Roses Won’t Bloom – How To Get Knock Out Roses To Bloom
We buy rosebushes typically for the beauty their blooms will add to rose beds, gardens or landscaped areas. Thus, it is cause for major frustration when they do not bloom. In some cases, roses will form nice big buds or clusters of buds, then … [Read more...]
Wise Watering in Dry Times
We gardeners don’t need a weatherman to know it’s been an abnormally dry year in the Charlottesville area. Federal weather data confirms what we’re seeing in our yards: total precipitation for our locality is around four inches below what we would … [Read more...]
Downy mildew in garden cucumber and other cucurbit plants
This disease can occur anywhere throughout the eastern US, even in a garden with just one cucumber plant and no past occurrences. This is because the pathogen spreads via wind-dispersed spores that can be moved long distances and be deposited by … [Read more...]
Wild Bird Diseases: What You Need to Know
Seeing sick birds at your feeder can be a concern. Learn about the most common wild bird diseases and a new mystery bird disease, and how you can help. MORE SOURCE: … [Read more...]
How to Harvest and Store Garlic
Thanks to its delicious taste and reputation as a healthy food, garlic (Allium sativum) is popular with gardeners. But growing this relative of the onion takes a fair amount of space and patience. It is an unusual plant in the vegetable … [Read more...]
COLEUS
Coleus plants (Coleus scutellarioides) are prized for their colorful foliage, which may combine shades of green, yellow, pink, red, rust, and maroon. New introductions of this popular summer annual plant have been selected for increased sun and heat … [Read more...]
BUILDING BIODIVERSITY
Nature loves a layer. She cements courses of sediment into solid stone. She laminates an annual succession of circles into living trees. She layers an onion in pungent iterations of itself, one inside the other. And, sandwiched between the strata of … [Read more...]
The Eastern Carpenter Bee: Beneficial Pollinator or Unwelcome Houseguest?
The eastern carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, is a native pollinator found throughout eastern North America, as far south as Florida and Texas and north into Maine and southern Canada. MORE SOURCE: … [Read more...]
Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance
The following is a list of landscape plants rated according to their resistance to deer damage. The list was compiled with input from nursery and landscape professionals, Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) Cooperative … [Read more...]