The extent of the invasion of Birdsfoot Trefoil in Ohio is now being revealed through a canary yellow floral display. The yellow flowers are smaller than dandelion flowers, bigger than those of black medic, and resemble buttercups from a distance.

Oystershell Scale has long presented a management challenge given its wide host range coupled with limited insecticide targets. However, this armored scale has been largely supplanted by the Japanese Maple Scale in Ohio owing to a combination of misidentification leading to the miss-targeting of insecticide applications.

The name “scorpionfly” sounds like a dangerous combination. Like some freakish creature buzzing out of the Upside Down or lurking in a Jurassic dominion. Of course, scorpionflies aren’t flies with scorpion stingers just like pineapples aren’t apples growing on pines. The contractions tell a story; pineapples were so named because they resemble pine cones.

Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense) is not Canadian. It’s native to southeastern Europe. Exactly how it got to North America is not known but our friends up north got blamed even though there’s evidence it arrived in the U.S. and Canada at around the same time. Thankfully, Ohioans weren’t involved in the name game; it could have been called “Michigan thistle.”

Spotted Lanternfly nymphs have begun the hatch from an infestation that was discovered last year in Amherst, Ohio.

Skeletonizing damage produced by an oak slug sawfly on oaks belonging to the white oak group is becoming in southwest Ohio. The upper leaf surface appears bleached with leave veins remaining apparent. Flipping the leaves over reveals the slug-like culprits stuck to the underside of the leaves.

The Hydrangea Leaftier Moth (Olethreutes ferriferana, family Tortricidae) is so named because the caterpillars tie together developing leaves on wild and cultivated hydrangeas to produce oddball “leaf-purse” structures. The caterpillars are completing their development in southwest Ohio but their handiwork remains.

Look closely at trees and shrubs festooned with last season’s Common Bagworm (Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis) bag-abodes. Overwintered bagworm eggs are hatching in southwest Ohio meaning the “bagworm season” is now underway.

This article was authored by Lee Beers and Erika Lyon both are OSU Extension Educators and can contacted at beers.66@osu.edu and lyon.194@osu.edu.

While I was outside taking pictures of the Red Buckeye, my wife asked if I wanted to see another “gotta’ have it… Beautiful Buckeye”.   Intrigued because I thought I knew every plant in the Drapescape, I said “Sure, show me”.  I was literally stunned when she showed me an incredibly gorgeous, jaw dropping Paeonia officinalis x P. lactiflora ‘Buckeye Belle’ (BB) that she had snuck in amongst her other peonies.  It was truly the “Belle of Buckeyes”… alright, alright, it is not a woody ornamental tree, which is why I claimed that I...