While in Maryland and Virginia recently our Extension Nursery Landscape and Turf Team of diagnosticians admired crepe myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica) in whites, reds, and lavenders.  Absolutely gorgeous trees for their flower displays and their attractive bark.

What a great response to our Name That Pine query posed last Friday. There were dozens of responses, some on Friday and Saturday, and then again a number today, Monday July 31. At first, this bimodal response rate puzzled me until I realized that some of you do not get bygl-alerts, our just-in-time alerts to your phone via e-mails, vs. the Monday summary of the previous weeks alerts. 

 

 How can you possibly not want to be alerted by phone the very moment that we ask for your pine ID skills and other matters!!! Well, it is imaginable, but if you do want to get those alerts...

What does local foods mean to you? While there is not one definition for “local” food - it is very personal and can vary from person to person. Some people are able to grow their own food. Others grow some food, and also support local producers by purchasing food from them.  And still others only purchase local foods from local producers. 

True pines, as opposed to say, Norfolk Island-pine (Araucaria heterophylla) or Japanese umbrella-pine (Sciadopitys verticillata) are in the genus Pinus, which differs from other genera in the Pinaceae family. Other genera in the family include, for example, spruces (Picea), firs (Abies), and hemlocks (Tsuga).

As we continue traveling south to Washington DC, we were moseying along some backroads in Virginia and suddenly the camera crew began yelling “stop the van… pull over”.  We piled out to run over trying to position ourselves to take photos of a HUGE Albizia julibrissin, commonly known as Mimosa or Persian Silk tree.

 

...

On July 22, 2017, Joe Boggs wrote a BYGL Alert on the "flaming" of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) by the locust leafminer beetle (Odontota dorsalis) in certain areas of Ohio.  These "flamed" trees are easily observed along highways from southeast to northeast Ohio. Interestingly, Curtis Young and Amy Stone in Northwest Ohio seldom see any evidence of locust leafminer beetle.  They have to travel east to at least Mansfield, Ohio before seeing the activities of this leafminer and it isn't because of a lack of black locust trees. 

...

In a previous Tree of the Week, I featured sassafras, but noted that I did not have an image of their very cool-looking fruits, though I once did have said image. I figured that I had electronically misplaced or that it was from all the way back in the Kodachrome Slide Era (somewhere between the Dirt Age and the Middle-Age Anthropocene).  So…

 

Voila. I have seen bright carmine red fruits, and here you can see both the early speckled green phase and cool grape-Kool Aid purple. Sassafras, a lovely native tree.

 

...

It is not too late to attend the 2017 Green Industry Summer Session at Owens Community College in NW Ohio.  The annual event is held the first Wednesday of August.  This year the event is held August 2nd.  Registration begins at 11:00 am with a boxed lunch, with the first session starting at 11:45 am.  The event concludes at 4:15 pm with opportunities to earn ISA, ODA and OCVN credits. 

Joe Boggs wrote a great article “Guignardia Leaf Blotch Running Rampant” the other day, which caused me to reflect on another Guignardia fungus often ignored, but very important.  The other Guignardia, Guignardia bidwellii, is one responsible for causing the disease Black Rot of Grape.

Here are a few upcoming programs to get on your calendars. Registration information to come on websites soon.  All are at Secrest Arboretum at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, except for the Bent Science salons at the Bent Ladder Cider and Winery outside Doylestown, Ohio, and the Why Trees Matter program, at the College of Wooster.