Recent content by CritterHill

Through the magic of email notifications, I am back! Honestly this was so long ago, I can't recall much about this incident. The bush is still there so with or without my help, it appears to have won its battle with powdery mildew! I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast. Trying to...

And the winner is... POWDERY MILDEW! He was surprised that it killed my wisteria - but in retrospect, the play house was installed right next to the wisteria the year it was having trouble, and I wonder if the truck didn't crush the roots... The lilac with this issue (the one on the pics)...

Ok, the extension folks were very timely in getting back to me, but I have been having so many back to back emergencies, I haven't been able to get the sample to them! I am going to try today... Dunno if that will happen, but I will try!

It looks like they are feeding. The drumming I hear in the woods sounds like jackhammers. This is a very dainty, peck, peck, peck. I'll keep an eye on it. Figures, my brother-in-law is a certified tree expert and has a PhD in forest management or some such related thing, but he lives in...

Funny cleome story. When we bought this house a few years ago, we had NO idea what was in the beds. And, well, if anyone has never seen a cleome sprout (before the flowers pop) they have a distinct resemblance to pot plants! Well, these things came up ALL OVER THE PLACE in our flower beds! OMG...

They do look cool, but they drop all those poky seed things that stick in the bottom of your feet when you go out barefoot. We have a wonderful carpet of moss in the back yard that I would LOVE to run barefoot across, except for the #$%@ tulip poplar seed caltrops! It seems like all we have are...

Alright, I won't go into full blown panic mode yet. I'll just keep an eye out for actual holes. As my husband likes to say to me "If you are worrying about *this* your life must be going pretty good." (not having any real issues to worry about that is) Thanks.

Tulip Poplar. It is leafing now and looking pretty healthy, but there are a lot of woodpeckers pecking around on it...

We have a large mature tree (really close to the house) that I have noticed a seemingly unending stream of woodpeckers pecking at. I know woodpeckers mean bugs, but does it also necessarily mean the tree is not long for this world? Or is it normal? The last couple years of my life, I have been...

It is leafing out and I see no damage to the leaves. I will be really sad if I have to cut it down. I only planted it 2 years ago and this is the first year it is starting to flower! I sent email to the extension folks. I'll report back if I get any answers.

This lilac _was_ in trouble last year. It had what in retrospect looks like it may have been powdery mildew last summer (now that I have done GIS for that as well). The mealy bug pics don't seem to line up with what I am seeing. I just went out with a flashlight and scraped some off. No...

Wow, all this help and where was I? Out at the circus all day. I will go squish some up tomorrow morning and report back once it is light out! (off to google mealy bugs...)

Can anyone tell me what this stuff is and how to get rid of it? It was all over my wisteria last year and I ignored it - now the wisteria looks like it is having problems (I had no idea you could actually kill a wisteria vine, I thought they were indestructible) Now I see it all over my lilac...