If homeowners hoping for a lush green lawn are now starting to see little purple or white flowers in their yard, there’s bad news: there’s not a whole lot you can do about it.
Once the darling of the nursery industry, the Bradford pear, Pyrus calleryana, was originally heralded as the ideal landscape tree. Although researchers at the USDA worked to develop what they believed was the perfect tree, the Bradford or ornamental pear is now a plague unknowingly released upon unsuspecting homeowners and the environment. It’s time to take a stand and cut down ornamental pears in the landscape.
Spring-bearing strawberry plants that were set out this spring should have blossoms pinched off. New plants have a limited amount of energy. If blossoms remain on the plants, energy that should go to runner development is used to mature fruit instead. Plants that are allowed to fruit will eventually produce runners, but those runners will not be strong enough to produce a good crop of berries the following year. For an adequate strawberry plant population and a good crop next year, early runner development is necessary. Early runners will produce far more strawberries than runners that form later in the season.
Wait until mid-April to apply crabgrass preventer, plant expert says
It’s almost time for the Brown County Free Fairs annual fundraiser spotlight auction. This is the biggest 4-H fundraiser of the year in which area businesses and individuals donate merchandise and services to be auctioned off over KNZA radio on March 10 and 11. The flier with this year’s items has been delivered to area businesses to make them easy to pick up shopping in Everest, Horton, Hiawatha and Sabetha.
For cattle producers, bull sale season has arrived. Prospective buyers are flipping through the sale catalogs and studying the pedigree information, performance data and bull pictures trying to determine where they want to make their investment.
Admit it: the thought of speaking in front of an audience makes your palms sweaty, maybe even your knees buckle.
If you have ever seen emerging peach leaves that are puckered, swollen, distorted and reddish-green color, you have seen peach leaf curl. Uncontrolled, this disease can severely weaken trees because of untimely leaf drop when leaves unfurl in the spring. Fortunately, peach leaf curl is not that difficult to control if the spray is applied early enough. By the time you see symptoms, it is much too late. As a matter of fact, fungicides are ineffective if applied after buds begin to swell.