Insects are not spontaneous. Those which suddenly attack your garden plants have probably been hiding during the winter. Some hibernate as eggs on dry plant stems, some as worms in cells in the soil or under leaves, and others as adult beetles, moths, or flies in piles of plant debris. With warm weather in the … Read more
Question: What is wrong with my raspberry bushes? Some of the leaves have turned dark green and curled. They bloom and produce berries, but the berries never fully develop. At first, only one or two were like this, but every season more are affected. Answer: This sounds like leaf curl, a virus disease that causes … Read more
Every home garden area in the United States harbors, on average, some 10,000 to 20,000 individual insect pests during the summer. This is more understandable when we consider that one single insect egg hatching on a tree can multiply into millions of insects within a few months or that one pair of insects can produce … Read more
Most garden diseases are caused by invisible agents — fungi, bacteria, and viruses. We cannot see them without a microscope, but we can see the diseases they cause, such as leaf spots, blights, and root or stem decays. If you have not yet seen evidence of the more common diseases in your garden, state and … Read more
The three rust diseases of apples are the following: Apple Cedar Rust (Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae) Hawthorn Rust (Gymnosporangium Globosum) and Quince Rust (Gymnosporangium Germinate) And they are caused by three fungi that live during a part of their lives on cedars and junipers and during the remainder largely on the apple, the hawthorn, and the quince. Effect … Read more
Sooner or later, every indoor gardener finds that his collection of houseplants has an exuberant crop of insect pests, seemingly moving in overnight. Of course, the insects don’t just appear—they have to get into the house by some means. “Where do they come from?” queries the house plant enthusiast, almost as often as he asks, … Read more
A new regime in pest control nears reality as portable mist blowers appear on the market. The chief merits of these blowers, in comparison with old-style spray and dust outfits, are their ability to do a thorough job with vast savings in materials, time, and labor. Smallest And Newest Of The Mist Blowers The smallest … Read more
The word mildew means many things to many people. To the housewife, it may be any discoloration or growth caused by fungi on the vegetable matter or any other substance, including old shoes. To the greenhouse hobbyist and commercial grower, it may be any one of three distinctly different fungus diseases: Black mildew, which appears … Read more
The alert observer of the out-of-doors soon learns to expect the unexpected, but it. At first glance, it is difficult to believe that “pine cones” are growing on pussy willow twigs. Only careful observation will determine that the “cones” occasionally seen on the tips of willow twigs are not cones but are terminal buds that … Read more
Now that the leaves have fallen, examine bare stems of lilacs for oyster-shell-shaped scale infests several kinds of shrubs and trees and is especially fond of lilacs, Lombardy poplar, and ash. Heavily Infested Plants Heavily-infested plants are gradually weakened and may be killed if control measures are not followed. This scale is difficult to control … Read more