While finally getting around to mulching my perennial beds this weekend, I noticed more spider mite damage on one of my species of Hosta. I am not sure which cultivar it is as it's one that was handed down from generation to generation. i love it because it has beautiful fragrant flowers, but this weekend the foliage was looking a little rough and spotted.

  I was moved by my friend Joe Boggs post about oleander aphids on milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) to add a little to the mix, mainly because I wrote earlier about butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) and because I took a number of pictures of milkweeds in the past few weeks and in previous years. They are quite beautiful with their reflexed corolla (group of petals) and elaborate horn and hood structures, their silky fibers (coma) used for life preserver flotation in World War II and pillows and comforters today, and for their relationship with Monarch butterflies.

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A tree's leaves may be ever so good,

So may its bark, so may its wood;

 

  I picture right now my colleague Joe Boggs trying to relax on this Sunday afternoon as I add this bygl-alert, casually opening the post, and as he reads through it, realizes that I am baiting him to elaborate upon this short teaser. He is the lead author and chief champion of the newly updated “Soil Testing for Ohio Lawns, Landscapes, Fruit Crops, and Vegetable Gardens” Fact Sheet that is now available online from OSU Extension at:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/...

  Last Friday, outside our bank in Orrville, Ohio, I espied a crabapple tree with a carpet of brown leaves underneath the tree. On first glance, I imagined this to be due to leaf scorch and then leaf drop due to recent dry weather. After all, we are almost eight inches below normal over the past three months in many northeast Ohio areas. Made sense. I was simply following Question #4 of the 20 Questions of Plant Diagnostics: What Do You See That Looks Abnormal?

Yellowjackets (Vespula spp. and Dolichovespula spp.) are beneficial insects.  Just keep repeating that to yourself when you're chased or stung by these yellow and black marauders!  Yellowjackets have actually been with us since the beginning of the season.  Each nest was started by a single overwintered queen.  However, this is the time of the season when the ever-expanding nests contain enough individuals for yellowjackets to start making their presence known … sometimes painfully.

 

All species of yellowjackets in Ohio build circular to oblong...

During yesterday's OSU Master Gardener Volunteer Diagnostic Workshop in Licking County, OH, one of the participants asked about the hordes of yellow aphids sucking juices from common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) reserved for monarch butterfly caterpillars.  These are oleander aphids (Aphis nerii) and their appearance reminds us that nature makes no food reservations.

 

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What the heck?  I am gone for a week and the population of two-spotted spider mites on my Baptisia australis (baptisia) exploded!  I don't know why I am surprised because these guys love it hot and dry and can complete a life cycle in five to seven days under these conditions.  

  Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is a lovely native woodland tree which is used more and more in landscaping. It is typically a medium-sized tree up to 30-50 feet in height but the national champion in Kentucky exceeds 100 feet. Leaves are variable, some entire, some mitten-liked and two-lobed, some three-lobed. Fall color can range from attractive yellows to yellow-orange, especially effective as a grove of sassafras trees.

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John Muir wrote: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” This is certainly true of so much of what we see as horticulturists and plant lovers, from insects that induce plants to turn genes on and off and thus produce galls, to the cedar apple rust fungus that traverses its two-year life cycle in obligatory cycling between junipers and rosaceous plants.

Despite the name 'bluebird house', eastern bluebirds are not the only species that call those little wooden boxes home. Bluebird houses (hereafter called bluebird nest boxes) are also used by tree swallows, chickadees, house wrens, and house sparrows. All of the aforementioned species are cavity nesters, meaning they build their nests in cavities, whether naturally occurring (in trees) or man-made (in nest boxes).