Agriculture

For more than a decade, entomologists to the north have been monitoring a pest that has devastated ash tree populations.

Michigan was the first see the drama unfold, and all told since active monitoring of the emerald ash borer first began, an estimated 40 million trees have been killed.

It was inevitable that the pest would move south, despite active efforts to contain the pest through quarantines, voluntary and mandatory felling of ash trees and a campaign to prevent the movement of firewood out of infected areas.

If you have a garden, chances are you appreciate nature in all its glory.  But sometimes nature gets in the way of our desires to cultivate.

Deer browsing, rabbit munching, squirrel digging, mole trenching and resident vole feasting have all come up in the last two weeks. Though I have no silver bullet for any of these problems, I do have some practical approaches to offset the shared feasting on our gardens. 

The environments of many of our landscapes have changed because of storm damage to trees.

A once-shady refuge beneath a tree may now be baking in the sun.  For a garden with an eastern exposure, this may not be a deal breaker, but if the garden faces west, then the afternoon sun will surely stress shade tolerant plants by the time summer rolls around.

Some rather funny polling from Consumer Reports suggests both good and bad tendencies when it comes to America’s lawn-care habits.

The good news is that 43 percent of the people polled plan to spend more time this year in their outdoor spaces.  Some plan to entertain more at home this summer; others suggest that they are competing with their neighbors to have the prettiest yard on the block.