| Information on Insects and Diseases:
Index
• Ants in Cedar Mulch .... Q&A (July 16, 2004)
• Butterflies and book review: Insects and Gardens: In Pursuit of a Garden Ecology (July 27, 2003)
• Deer-resistant plants. (February 1, 2003)
• Deer-Proofing Information (and web links) (May 26, 2005)
• Ground Hogs ... Q&A (December 20, 2005)
• Iris Borer Control (includes cultural info on Siberian & Bearded Irises) (May 5, 2005)
• Leaf Miners ... Q&A (May 12 , 2005)
• Slug-resistant plants. (July 21, 2003)
• Vanquishing Voracious Voles (October 5, 2005)
• White Grubs in Lawns (May 6, 2005)
Diseases:
• Day Lily Rust . (July 21, 2003)
• Maple Wilt Jitters and Request for Arborists in the Ottawa area. (October 5, 2002, 2002)
• Peony Botrytis Blight and other fungal diseases a problem this year. (October 5, 2002)
Information on Organic Gardening:
• Gardening and Pesticides. (April 27, 2004)
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Articles:
Insects:
Ants
The following was distributed July 16, 2004. It was a toss-up as to where to post it ... here or with the mulch material.
A customer wrote :
Hi Phil, I am hoping you could provide a bit of advice for me. I used cedar mulch on my garden this year to help retain moisture, but now there seems to be a lot of very large ants living in it, and I am worried about what damage they might cause. The ants are different from any that I have seen before--they are very large, and have a red section on their bodies. Have you had any experience with this problem, or can you offer any advice?
Thanks, J.
Phil's reply:
Good morning J.,
I haven't had any unusual problems with insect infestations in our bark-mulched gardens. I have heard people talk about ants being associated with bark mulches but that is as far as my personal knowledge goes. So I went on an internet info. quest about ants and mulch use. I have come up with a couple of useful links to pass on to you.
The following link is a very informative 12-page document, from Iowa State University, titled 'Using Mulches in Managed Landscapes'. It is a good primer on all of the issues around the proper use of mulches.
Click here to get the above document:
I also found a useful ant identification site. The source is a supplier of ant eradication chemicals but the background info. on ants is useful. We have used 'Mule Team' Borax (obtained from Loblaws) as a cheap source of the the same chemical used in the product mentioned in the web site. We have a number of reoccurring ant hills in our lawns and gardens and mulch has played no part in our ant colonies from a location or number basis - they just are part of our property's ongoing ecological system.
Click here for info. on ants:
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Butterflies (July 27, 2003)
Some of you may know that I was trained as a biologist (B. Sc., Carleton University, 1968) and have an extensive working background championing environmental issues. With this background, I run our nursery with an ecological focus. For instance, those of you who have recently been exploring our gardens have probably seen the large, black-banded "caterpillars" on our carrot-family plants such as bronze fennel and rue. These plant-munching caterpillars will soon transform to Black Swallowtail butterflies. Also, we'll soon begin to see fair numbers of Monarch butterflies in the gardens. They'll favour purple coneflowers (echinaceas), milkweed (asclepias) and, of course, butterfly bushes (buddleias). I'll consider it a season's success to again see these beauties fluttering from plant to plant.
This leads me into introducing a great book that I read earlier this spring. The following is a book review prepared for publication in the newsletter of the Ottawa Valley Rock Garden Society.
Insects and Gardens: In Pursuit of a Garden Ecology
Eric Grissell
Timber Press. Oregon
ISBN: 0881925047.
2001.
(345 pages)
Reading entomologist Eric Grissell’s insights into the insect world was a delightful bedtime retreat from our hectic spring schedule. Insects and Gardens: In Pursuit of a Garden Ecology is filled with over one hundred art gallery quality photographs which superbly convey the realities and beauty in the insect world. There are great photos of insects moulting, feeding, mating and being preyed upon. Grissell, sometimes not too subtly but often humorously, takes pains to point out why humans should understand, respect and have awe for the insect world. He reminds us that we really do depend on the insect world for our very survival even if a few insects give us personal grief once in a while.
As a nurseryman, I sometimes need to confront insects threatening the health of nursery plants that are the source of our income. Reading Grissell’s book is a great reminder that problem insects are really only a problem when they reach population levels that healthy plants cannot cope with. He points out that insect problems often become evident after plants have developed some sort of initial health stress due to other causes - often nutritionally or environmentally related.
While the descriptive initial chapters were interesting in themselves, it was the final chapters of his illuminating book that drew me to the book in the first place. I was interested in his professional experiences/insights, both as an entomologist and gardener, leading him to champion a position of tolerance of most insect outbreaks and advocate using chemical control techniques only as a last-resort. He ponders what it will take to convince backyard gardeners that purely physical imperfections from feeding on leaves and flowers are not justification to roll out non-specific chemical arsenals that obliterate all insects indiscriminately –both millions of good/essential insects serving us well and the few insects giving us moments of grief.
I encourage all gardeners to spend a couple of evenings contemplating Grissell’s insect-tolerance message. Our gardens and local insects (and ultimately we ourselves) will be healthier for any changes that we can make in our bug-reduction practices.
You can also click here to read another great review of this book.
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Leaf Miners: Birch (May 17, 2005)
A couple of customers have asked for information on controlling Birch Leaf Miners on their birches. They were wondering what chemical controls are available since Cygon is no longer available. Since we do not use or sell inorganic insecticides I am not current on the range of such products available to Ontario consumers.
However, the questions prompted me to search out web-based information on Birch Tree Miner life cycles and organic control recommendations. For those interested, the following links provide some timely info on idenifying insects attaching birches and sanitation and garden clean-up procedures to help limit the spread of the responsible insects. If you decide to use systemic soil or bark treatments, Forsythia blooming time (now or just past for many of us) is the recommended time for this treatment.
Universit of Guelph Pest Diagnostic Clinic information (click here for the info,) includes pest identification and control straetgies. It is however weak on indicating available chemicals.
Information from the University of Maryland is also very useful. Click here for photos of Leaf Miner damage and photos of the larvae nd adults of the culprit - sawflies.
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Leaf Miners: Columbines ... Question (May 12 , 2005)
I'm having a hard time with leaf miners in my columbines this year. This didn't happen last year and strangely, I know a couple people with the same problem this year. Is this a bad year for leaf miners? What can I do to prevent this from happening again next year (I'm presuming it's too late to save the plants this year).
J. H.
Phil's Response
Leaf miners in columbines are a wide-spread problem - we experience them too. Chemical applications are not advised as it is possible to provide control by regular maintenance practices. Your chore is to disrupt the life cycle of the small fly responsible for placing its eggs inside the columbine leaf. When leaf miner damage appears, cut the foliage all the way back to the ground and discard it (but not in your compost pile!). Healthy, new growth will emerge quickly. Flowering time will be delayed a few weeks as a result, but you should have healthy plants and bloom to reward you for your vigilance.
You can click here for more information from the University of Manitoba.
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Deer-resistant plants. (February 1, 2003)
Our local deer population is on the rise. One of our Corkery-area gardening friends has installed a state-of-the-art deer-proof fence around acres of beloved gardens that deer have been considering 'deer salad'. Not everyone has the inclination to go this route, but it is possible to make deer-dining a bit less pleasant by choosing plants with unpalatable traits.
The following web site has a great list of plants with bad taste, rough edges, or spines. An added feature of the list is that you can click on each listed item to get the underlying info on what makes the plant unpalatable and what growing conditions each plant requires. We stock many of the listed plants that are hardy to our zone 5 (USDA Zone 4) climatic conditions.
Click here to go to: http://www.turleysflorist.com/deerproof/
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Deer-Proofing Information (May 26, 2005)
As members of the Perennial Plant Association we are sent quarterly journals publishing great gardening information. The just-received current issue has an article of interest to gardeners faced with deer browsing problems. A quick internet check finds that the article 'Strategies For Protecting Your Landscape From Deer Browsing' is also available on line by clicking here.
While researching the deer issue I came up with some other sites offering deer-resistant plant suggestions. Click on the following titles to go to the articles.
• A Deer-Proof Landscape Plan: Deer-Resistant Plants
• Preventing Deer Damage
• Deer browsing at the Nannen Arboretum, Ellicottville, NY
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Ground Hogs
Roswitha Marsh recently sent us the following: (December 20, 2005)
I want to share with you my secret for painlessly getting rid of ground hogs, chipmunks and other hole and tunnel digging critters.
My invention: well-used kitty litter.
Fill the holes to the brim (with cat-soiled litter) and the poor hogs run a mile. When we moved into this house the ground hogs had made quite a mess of our septic bed. We were advised by the septic inspector to get rid of them pronto. Thank goodness our ancient cat can still perform. The holes were filled and the ground hogs seem to have moved to the hay field across the street. In the other house we had the same success with chipmunks. Try it, you will like it!
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Iris Borer Control (May 5, 2005)
A customer recently asked whether Neem Oil would be effective in controlling Iris Borer. I did not come up with a definitive answer after an hour poking about on the web. Since the larval stage of the iris borer is spent inside the leaf of the iris, I suspect a poor result from Neem Oil application on this particular pest. Perhaps someone in our e-letter network has entomological expertise to offer on this topic.
Click on the following for information on Iris Borer identification and control:
In my web explorations I did also found some excellent information on iris growing techniques. You can click on the following links for:
Siberian iris Culture:
Bearded iris Culture:
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Slugs
Slug-resistant plants. (July 21, 2003)
Shade gardens are more prone to slug damage that full sun gardens. Over the years I've noticed the following plants are more slug-resistant than others.
Sunny area resistant plants
- candytuft, coral bells, coreopsis, balloon flower, bolton's asters, euphorbias, and all fuzzy, gray foliage plants like lamb's ear, artemisias and rose campion
Shade perennials with resistance
- bleeding hearts, foxgloves, jacob's ladder, goat's beard, and ligularias
Let me know if you have additional plants that are slug-resistant. I'll include them in my expanding list.
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Voles
Vanquishing Voracious Voles (October 5, 2005)
The following article is brought to you by the letters 'F' and 'V'. I apologize for the frequency of "F "words - there is some small satisfaction in being able to publicly vent over something causing my grief. My editor-wife (Carole is a former English teacher) has simply rolled her eyes and said I am on my own with the following!
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I wish I were happy to report a new wildlife population flourishing on our property. After all, we are keen on enticing new species to our gardens. But voles? With the damage done to our lawn and flowers they need vilification not glorification.
Ever seen a meadow vole? They resemble little mice - in fact they are often mistakenly called field mice. They are not frequently viewed due to shyness and aversive behaviour. You may accidentally find one which has been victimized by a cat and abandoned before consumption. That's how I acquired my fresh-killed carcass for positive vole verification - one of our less-than- ferocious four-footed felines (aptly named after docile Shakespearean characters Portia and Brutus) apparently played it to death. You may however have encountered their underground tunnel systems. That's how I first noticed them. There were, and continue to be, daily additions of small ridges in our lawns and various gardens which, when poked with a finger, give way to hollow tunnels an inch or two below soil level. These are the underground runways for vegetarian vole families to get from one favored feeding area to another. Voles are common farm field and orchard vermin inhabiting areas offering their preferred protective cover and food - infrequently mown grassy areas hiding their presence from predators and tender bark of young trees and shrubs to provide a veritable feast .
These four-legged tunneling machines never seem to stop breeding or feeding on their customary half-acre territory. Their populations typically rise and crash on about four-year cycles. Contemplate the population math ... they start to breed at about a month out of the womb, have 5 to 7 young per litter and can have four to seven litters per season. That's a lot of voracious voles per season from one fecund female vole! Perhaps some math major among my readers can figure out how many voles that finally becomes! Too many for my fancy however because our floriferous fall gardens are under full attack. Which gardens? They are having a field day (actually a garden night) burrowing under newly planted shrubs, hostas and hellebores in one area and under rapidly growing violet verbenas surrounding our bird feeder in another area. Along their tunnel systems tall sedums, such as Autumn Joy, are freshly felled, chewed at soil level, for fun ... not food. In both locations voles have easy digging in loose, freshly-cultivated soil and have aboveground visual protection from predators provided by thick vegetation or mulch cover.
So far there has been minimal flowering plant damage in the gardens but it is time to undertake population control measures to prevent further feeding frenzies, under winter snow cover, on succulent young shrub bark. To date my less radical and futile control efforts have been with a hose and forceful jets of water to try to flood and flush the (I dearly wanted to use the socially unacceptable 'F" word here for alliteration purposes!) critters out of their underground sanctuaries. I am having fun fabricating soggy soil pools and applauding the subsiding soil sinking into their tunnels. I am visualizing the veritable underground panic I am creating but I am also, the next day, seeing evidence of the critters reusing their tunnel systems.
After reading voluminous vole control articles on the internet and conferring with Neil Ritchie of Ritchie Feed and Seed, I have chosen to use a blood anti-coagulation product, called Wilsarin, containing broadiolone to eradicate my vole intruders. To reduce potential consumption of the poisonous bait by wildlife predators (owls for instance) and pets, I have created a series of vole bait stations with 1 1/2 inch ABS plastic plumbing pipe. The physical arrangement of the piping is an exaggerated upside down "T" - two short 12" pieces connected by a "T" coupling with a 36" piece forming the upright bait-charging piece. The short pieces of ABS are placed on the ground forming an easily vole-negotiated tunnel which protects the bait from rain. As per internet advice, I'll place about a half-dozen of these bait stations throughout our half-acre of gardens (10 per acre recommended) and secure the upright arm of the ABS piping in place using metal stakes pounded into the ground. Plumbing supply vendors also sell blue-coloured plastic caps (sized for various tubing dimensions) that fit securely over the upright arm so that easy access is provided for pelletized bait refills. About 15 days of feeding should bring the vole population under control and my visceral vindictive tendency will have vanished.
We'll keep you posted on fatalities - my last 'F' word from this want-to-be victorious vole vanquisher.
Want to read more on voles? Try clicking on the following:
a) Vole photo and life history:
b) More than you ever wanted or needed to know about voles:
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White Grubs in Lawns (May 6, 2005)
A customer asked about control of white grubs in lawns and whether his gardens should also be sprayed to rid his entire property of the offending insects.
As I am unabashedly philosophically against toxic chemical spray control programs as a first response to pest problems, I was of little help to him on this procedure. But I was able to point out two informative articles for his consideration.
The first, Controlling Lawn Grubs Organically, is written by a garden writer for Organic Living Newsletter. Click here for this article.
The second, Control of Japanese Beetles and White Grubs, is an informative article written from a chemical treatment perspective. It also points out that how and when watering is done is very important in controlling beetle populations. Click here for this article.
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Diseases:
Day Lily Rust . (July 21, 2003)
How are you at identifying Daylily Rust? What do you do if you have Daylily Rust? This fungal disease is something to be on the watch for.
Click here for information on Daylily Rust.
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Maple Wilt Jitters and Request for Arborists in the Ottawa area. (October 5, 2002, 2002)
We had a forester-customer buying plants last week and Carole got talking to him about the state of our maples ... we have been noticing some branches losing their leaves prematurely and some premature yellowing of leaves on one tree in particular. Carole asked for his advice. Cut down one tree before it falls down and get some pruning help ASAP for the others showing any leaf problems.
Like most of you I do not have a ready list of arborists able to provide the professional services we need. There are 'tree-fellers' by the dozen ... but that is not who we want. We want our trees to be knowingly tended. I'd love to have everyone's recommendations of competent arborists working in the Ottawa area. [We ended up having Ottawa employees do the work as our trees are on City property - they were excellent and the price was right (free). In 2005 we had two more maples removed as the disease was not just confined to the first two symptomatic trees.]
What is maple verticillium wilt and why should we/you be concerned? I spent a while on the internet to come up with a link with great information and a few photos of trees with maple verticillium wilt symptoms and disease treatment suggestions. Click on the following link to go to the University of Wisconsin site:
http://cf.uwex.edu/ces/pubs/pdf/A2537.pdf You'll note in the publication (also an observation by our forester advisor) that root injury from tending our gardens under the maples may be one contributing factor to infecting the trees with the fungal disease. Drought stress may accentuate the disease symptoms too -- and around here we've had drought stress in spades this season.
The next link gives you access to a wide range of horticultural factsheets also produced by the University of Wisconsin. Wisconsin is in USDA Zone 4 ... they have similar environmental conditions to the Ottawa area. http://www.sustland.umn.edu/maint/links.htm
Peony Botrytis Blight and other fungal diseases a problem this year. (October 5, 2002)
A disease of peonies - Peony Botrytis Blight – was one conversation at a friend’s Sunday evening dinner table. Because it does not often present a significant problem to peonies in this area, one of our keen gardening friends at that table suggested I alert our customers to its presence and menace this season.
Be on guard for this peony disease that appears quite widespread this growing season. We too have not escaped its presence and want to alert you of what to look for and how to keep your peonies as healthy as possible.
The long, cool and very wet start to summer was just the condition favouring the development of many fungus diseases. The botrytis fungus (and many other fungi for that matter) is commonly present in all soils where it is just waiting to proliferate when conditions are to its liking. Healthy plants can be untouched by the fungus, but weak or previously injured stems can provide a point of entry for the fungus to gain a foothold in the plant. Injury can be as simple as a bruised stem from a hoe or cultivator.
The two most noticeable visual symptoms of peony botrytis blight on early season peony plants are stems which have fallen over at ground level and decaying portions of these stems at ground level. At bloom time, some buds may turn brown and not open.
The key is action NOW! Key to controlling this blight is not allowing it to spread in your gardens. This means disposing of infected plant parts in your dump-bound garbage - not in your compost pile. Placing botrytis-affected plant parts in compost is creating a massive botrytis incubator – you don’t want to reapply the disease to your gardens next season!
While you are examining your peonies in mid to late season, keep in mind other diseases may be causing stem wilt or leaf discolorations such as spotting or larger areas of decay.
Look for individual leaves with brown patches or whole stems that are ‘limp’. These are indicators that you should identify what disease is present before embarking on a remedy.
Below are four excellent university web sites on peony diseases and what to do about them. With your internet browser (e.g. Netscape or MS Explorer) open/launched, just click on each URL to go directly to each site. If this fails to work, copy and paste each address into your browser’s search window and you should get each fact sheet.
Click on each of the following links for more peony disease information.
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/plantdiseasefs/450-602/450-602.pdf
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG1153.html
http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/FactSheets/botrytis/botrytis_peony.htm
http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/FactSheets/botrytis/botrytis_blight.htm
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Information on Organic Gardening:
Gardening and Pesticides. (April 27, 2004)
Our family’s personal health and our nursery business depends on good water quality. Being rural residents, we don’t have treated municipal water piped to our door and we do have farm fields and farm practices (including routine crop spraying) on the other side of our fences. Talk about proximity of competing interests! We have three wells (two dug to about 20 feet deep and one drilled to 175 feet deep) on our one-acre property. These provide both our personal drinking water and water for irrigating our nursery’s plant stock. Recognizing that ‘water runs downhill’, anything we (and our neighbours) apply to our land eventually finds its way underground into our family’s drinking water aquifer.
We have been on our property for 30 years and we are ever-vigilant about what products we apply to our lawns and gardens. You can be sure that we have never applied persistent toxic chemicals to our side yard lawns and gardens – the location of our drinking water well dug in our famously gooey clay soil. We have also been lucky to have a good-neighbour farmer who has turned off his sprayer (at our request) as he passes our property with his spray equipment. This has given our well a buffer of an extra 25 feet from his routinely chemically-managed crops. Has this been enough? We are still here and seemingly in good health and continue to drink from our property’s surfce water well. For the past 20 years however, the water that we drink has passed through a UV light sterilization unit and a charcoal filter as an extra precaution .
However, many in this country and others have not been so fortunate with environmental impacts. Cancers and immune system diseases, commonly directly connected to long-lived toxic chemicals applied to local environments, have caused a network of international family physicians to raise health alarm bells. (Click here for an article titled Why Canadian Physicians are Concerned about the Policies Regulating Pesticide Use.) Increasing public concern about chemically-managed lawns has started to turned the lawn care industry upside down. Many lawn care companies have banded together in an anti-environment lobby group to lobby municipal decision makers that there is undue concern about their turf management practices. Shame on them! (Click here for a lawn care industry newsletter featuring their Canadian lobbying mistakes.) A few lawn care companies have read the public mood and are offering a new organic approach to weed and lawn management. Good for them!
Until this year, we have not sold fertilizers and weed control products. But we think by offering only the most environmentally-appropriate products we can make it easier for concerned gardeners to reduce the use of the persistent toxic chemicals of concern to environmental and health researchers.
Lawn & Garden Care Products for 2009
Neem oil.
Gardeners with Lily Beetle problems will be interested in this naturally-derived product. Canadian regulations don't allow us to tell you what it does to lily beetle larvae. The label claims Neem oil is useful as a leaf shine! Using it will allow your lilies' leaves to really survive and thus shine! (Wink, wink, cough, cough!) Lily beetles are now emerging and can be seen around your Asiatic lilies and other members of the lily family. Now is the time to apply it as a soil drench.
Trounce - Safer's® Yard & Garden Insect Killer
Trounce Yard & Garden Insecticide is a fast-acting, short-lived product. It is effective on a broad spectrum of insects including aphids, caterpillars, leafhoppers, earwigs, beetles, and whiteflies. It can be used on fruit trees, ornamentals, flowers, shrubs and vegetables. Trounce is safe on edible crops up to and including the day of harvest. Wash fruits and vegetables before using.
Defender - Safer's® Defender Fungicide
Safer's® Defender Fungicide is a sulphur-based fungicide which controls most common fungal problems such as powdery mildew, black spot and rust. Defender actual defends the plants by covering them with a protective coating. This product is ideal for roses as it does not have the strong smell often associated with sulphur-based products. Our supply of Defender is a concentrate.
End•All - Safer's® End•All Miticide/Insecticide/Acaricide
End•All controls all stages of aphids, spider mites, whitefly, spittle bugs adult and nymph stags of thrips, flea beetles, caterpillars, mealybugs, scale insects and sugar ants.
Note: The above insecticides, even though they are derived from organic sources, will kill beneficial insects too. Use any insecticide with regard to the overall magnitude of the deleterious effects of your problem insect. Sometimes it is better to leave small populations of problem insects to provide food for their predator species- the ecological balanced approach to gardening.
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