In a recent bygl-alert (https://bygl.osu.edu/node/944) I posed this challenge: More wicked (sometimes) plants this way shall come, culminating with Halloween, bygl alert-style. What are your candidates for the ultimate in plant wickedness? E-mail me at chatfield.1@osu.edu.

 

Or at least spookiness of some sort. Here are a few of your responses:

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What are control strategies for managing oak wilt disease? What do we know about beech leaf disease? Does rose rosette virus affect ‘Knockout’ roses? Which crabapples have good genetic resistance to apple scab disease and how does this compare to 20 years ago? Does apple scab on the fruit matter (as seen on the lead slide for this bygl-alert)?

 

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While writing my bygl-alert on Aesculus parviflora yesterday afternoon, Joe Boggs was sending me photos: his latest bottlebrush buckeye beauties. I opened the message, and above and below are those images.

 

Glorious fall! 

 

 

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My, oh my, buckeyes, oh my, the weekend beckons, but for now, let us praise Aesculus parviflora. “No better plant could be recommended as a lawn shrub”, according to W.J. Bean, as quoted in Michael Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants. “Bottlebrush buckeye, is my favorite shrub” from an unnamed source in Holden Arboretum’s Plant Profiles, probably Brian Parsons.

 

 

  I concur. Palmately compound leaves with 5-7 leaflets, lovely in spring, summer and fall. Multi-stemmed...

Calico Scale spends the summer as crawlers attached to the main veins on the underside of leaves. Detection can be a challenge with crawlers distributed on foliage throughout the canopy. However, as fall approaches, the crawlers move onto stems where they spend the winter. Clusters of crawlers coupled with blackened stems are key diagnostic features for detecting a calico scale infestation.

Fall color is beginning in northeast Ohio. Although the Sugar Maples have not reached peak fall color, other plants including Sassafras, Sourwood, Black Tupelo, Staghorn Sumac, Burning Bush, and Dogwood have exploded in fall color.

“Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud, All plants make faults.”

I posted a BYGL Alert last week extoling the virtues of one of my favorite native trees, American Sycamore [see, Ode to the Buttonwood Tree, October 18, 2017]. I came across a soft scale that I had never seen before on sycamore while taking pictures to illustrate the Alert. I would have included my find in the Alert, but it took me a while to settle on an identification.

Boxelder Bugs were included along with several other notorious nuisance insects in my BYGL Alert titled, Fall Home Invaders are Poised to Enter (Sept. 30, 2017). They may have been poised then, but the bugs are now visiting homes en masse in southern Ohio. Indeed, I visited a home on Wednesday that was literally buggy with the bugs.

  ArborEatum is just around the corner: next Tuesday, October 24. What fun it is: a friendly no-fee gathering of people who love to grow, culinaritize, eat, and drink various foods from landscapes and gardens. Come one come all to the Miller Pavilion at Ohio State University’s Secrest Arboretum, Tuesday, October 24, from 5:00 pm on. Eating and walking. Bring your offerings or just your appetites.

 

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