Category: Uncategorized

What is Pine Needle Scale? Have you ever looked at a pine tree or shrub in summer or spring and thought to yourself, why does it have snow on it? Believe it or not, those white spots on the needles...

“Tree roots extend downward to a depth equal to the height of the canopy above.” The most abundant mass of tree root development is in the top 18 inches of soil. This surface layer of soil is where the feeder...

In the world of tree care and specifically plant health care, timing is everything. The number of insects and pathogens waiting to attack our landscape plants is staggering. Just one species of plant can be a host to dozens of...

Euonymus scale and burning bush scale are two common pests that can wreak havoc on your landscape. These tiny insects may seem harmless at first glance, but their infestations can lead to significant damage to your evergreen shrubs and vines....

In the realm of landscaping, when discussions about fertilizing arise, the focus often turns to vibrant flower beds and lush lawns. However, the importance of fertilizing extends far beyond these herbaceous plants, reaching up into the towering canopies of our...

Last week we identified some desirable landscape plants and their flowering characteristics; this week we’ll identify some less desirable and more aggressive growing plants. These plants are considered invasive, meaning they are very aggressively growing and prolific fruit/seed producers and...

Warming temperatures and spring rains (or occasional snow) means the return of beautiful flowers to our urban landscapes in Illinois. Warming temperatures and longer days are our yearly alarm clock waking our landscape trees and shrubs from their winter break...

Here in the Chicagoland area, we seem to experience the same pattern every year: an early warm-up to spring temperatures in February, followed by a dramatic cooling and seeming return to winter just before our true spring warm-up begins. Currently...

In the last blog post, we discussed the method of ball and burlap transplanting of trees. The ball and burlap method has advantages and disadvantages. Trees excavated for ball and burlap are more susceptible to drought stress, may be difficult...

Traditional methods for tree planting have been in practice for decades. Historically, tree planting has been done with ball and burlap-wrapped trees. A tree would be excavated from a nursery field with a section of the root zone intact with...