This month we are featuring a couple of native wildflowers. Go to our new wildflower website (http://urbanext.illinois.edu/wildflowers/) for information and pictures on over 140 wildflowers.
Culver's Root (Veronicastrum virginicum) flowers for most of the summer. It has showy spikes of small, white flowers. The leaves are whorled around the stem in groups of 3-7. It grows 2-7 feet tall.
Culver's Root prefers full sun to partial shade and moist, well drained soils. Avoid dry sites.
Prairie Dock(Silphium terebinthinaceum) grows 4-10 feet tall, but most of that height is the flower stalk. The large basal leaves may be a foot or two tall. At the top of the tall flower stalk are yellow, daisy-like flowers blooming August through October.
Prairie Dock likes full sun and a moist, well drained soil. This plant has a deep taproot that makes it difficult to transplant.
Emerald Ash Borer in Illinois
The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) has been found in several counties in northern Illinois as well as a couple in central Illinois. This might be a good time for a review of some facts
- EAB attacks ash trees. If your trees are not ash, they are not infested with this pest. Mountain ash trees are not true ashes and they will not be attacked.
- There are many other green beetles in nature. If you see a green beetle, try to capture it, so it can be properly identified.
- Ash trees suffer from many other problems including diseases, other insects, root damage and environmental stress. An ash that looks unhealthy may be suffering from one of these problems.
- There is a native ash borer in the Midwest already (a totally different insect that does far less damage). If you see holes in the trunk of your ash tree, it may be this pest.
- The EAB makes a hole shaped like a capital 'D' (flat on one side, rounded on the other) and is 1/8 inch in diameter. The native ash borer makes a ROUND TO OVAL hole that is ¼ inch in diameter.
A Few "To-Do" items for August-Septemeber
Aug
- plant cool season vegetables, like carrots, lettuce, spinach and radishes for a fall harvest. This spring was not great for vegetable gardening, but give it another try for fall
- continue to deadhead annuals to keep them blooming through the end of summer
Sept
- mid-Sept to mid-Oct is the time to plant spring flowering bulbs like tulips and daffodils
- add some fresh color to the fall garden by adding cool weather annuals like pansies and ornamental cabbage. If the garden centers still have geraniums in stock, add a couple of those as well.
Greener Gardening: Making Better Choices in the Garden (Part 3 of 3)
Mulching is a common and useful gardening practice, but we may want to take a closer look at the materials available for use as mulch. There are synthetic mulches, such as various plastics and weed barriers. When used properly, these products can be very successful in suppressing weeds. However, over time, these products will start to deteriorate and will need to be replaced. This leaves us with something to throw away and send to the landfill.
Organic mulches have the benefit of filtering into the soil and improving it as they deteriorate. Therefore, they provide us with suppression of weeds, soil improvement over time and no garbage to discard. The question now is "Are all organic mulches really environmentally friendly?"
The organic mulch that is surrounded by controversy at this time is cypress mulch. Cypress mulch is not harvested from a sustainable source (areas where trees are 'farmed' or replanted after harvesting) as other mulches are. Cypress mulch is harvested from natural cypress forests and these areas are not being replanted. This leads to injury to the environment since these natural cypress forests are an important part of their ecosystem.
Many gardeners prefer cypress mulch because of its longevity in the yard. This longevity is due to naturally occurring preservatives in the heartwood of the trees. However, this quality is actually being lost because so many young trees are being harvested. These young trees have not yet developed the heartwood that contains the natural preservative. Studies have shown that pine bark and other chipped woods are often as long lasting as the cypress being sold today.
So, while mulching is a sound gardening practice, we always need to select a mulch, based not only on its performance in the garden, but also for its impact on the environment.
An area of the garden that needs to be looked at closely is the lawn. While it gives our yard a green (color) appearance, the lawn is usually the least "green" (environmentally sound) part of the yard. Lawns are often over-watered and over-fertilized. The ideas on proper watering and fertilizing that were outlined earlier in a previous issue should definitely be applied to lawn care.
Lawns also frequently receive far more pesticides and fertilizer than they should. Many lawn products are sold together as a program to be followed regularly every year. Instead of doing that, consider what the lawn really needs. If the lawn has never had grubs, skip the grub control chemicals. Following proper guidelines for watering, mowing and aerating a lawn can produce a thick healthy lawn that greatly reduces the need for weed killers.
To make the lawn an even greener place, take a hard look at your lawn mower. Gas power mowers are big polluters. There are some things you can do to reduce pollution problems. Avoid spilling gasoline when filling the mower. Provide proper maintenance for your mower including periodic tune-ups. Consider an electric mower or even a reel-type (push) mower. Both are much more environmentally friendly. Another way to reduce pollution from the lawn mower is to reduce mowing time. Mowing time can be reduced by decreasing the size of the lawn. Turn lawn areas into flower beds that won't require any mowing.
Look to be a greener gardener by examining and modifying your garden practices. Green can be simple and inexpensive.
