Helpful Toads In Your Home Garden By Joyce D’Agostino

Photo: Joyce D'Agostino 

This spring as I was moving around some bags of soil in my garden, I found a large toad that was hiding beneath a bag. I almost missed seeing it since its color blended in very well with the fallen leaves and gravel to make it almost unnoticeable.

Summer Dragonfly Activity By Joyce D’Agostino

Photo by Joyce D'Agostino

You may have noticed them – large flying insects that look like miniature airplanes traveling back and forth through the air. Their size and shape may make some think that they could be an insect that could be harmful to people but in fact Dragonflies are very active and important insect predators and are not found to be harmful to humans. They prefer to spend a lot of their time catching flying insects including ones that are annoyances to humans such as houseflies and mosquitos. 

Carol Mackie Daphne shrub by Steven White

Courtesy Plant Select

The Carol Mackie Daphne (Daphne x burkwoodii ‘Carol Mackie’) shrub is an outstanding eye catcher in any landscape.  It is so delicate looking that it doesn’t appear to be a plant that does well in Colorado. 

5 Steps to Vegetable Garden Hail Recovery By: Julie Echter

Photo Edamame: Julie Echter

There is nothing more rewarding than starting a vegetable garden and watching your tiny seedlings grow into beautiful, fruiting plants. You’ve spent months preparing your soil, planting, pruning, fertilizing, and watering. Everything is looking great and you are just about to harvest your first couple veggies… then the hail storm hits. What do you do now?

Staying Alive By Nancy Shepard

“Staying Alive” is a Bee Gees song most recently popular for its use in CPR training. The beat is supposed to be the frequency of chest compressions you use when trying to save someone’s life. If it only took a song to resuscitate some of what I thought were dying plants.

The Wonderful World of Insects by DelanceyPlace

From the book:  Buzz Sting Bite

When we gardeners talk about beneficial insects, lady bird beetles, and parasitoid wasps are on the list.

How can you tell a male monarch from a female monarch by Vicky Spelman

Monarch Butterfly Garden.net

Three tips to pick out a sweet watermelon by Mary-Leigh Meyer Texas A&M AgriLife Extension

Courtesy Pixabay

<<A good watermelon is a staple, healthy summer snack, so it is important to know how to pick one, regardless if you are at the grocery store or the local farmers market.

When it comes time to pick the perfect melon, people often make their selection based on three characteristics: presence of seeds or lack thereof, size and ripeness.

Determining ripeness requires some knowledge; how can you pick a ripe watermelon?

Tip 1: Find the yellow belly, or the field spot

Courtesy Pexels

Other than cutting open a watermelon to see the inside, the field spot is perhaps the best indicator of the ripeness. This spot on a melon shows where it was laying on the ground while attached to the vine.

Courtesy Pixabay

If the watermelon is ripe, the field spot should be a large, yellow patch on one side of the melon. If it is ripe, the color should be a creamy, almost butter-like yellow. The bigger the yellow belly and the creamier the color means the more time the melon spent ripening on the vine. However, if the spot is smaller or looks more white than yellow, then the melon may not be as ripe.

Tip 2: Tap the underbelly and listen for a deep sound

Another way to find a ripe watermelon is to lightly knock the outside with your knuckles. A ripe melon will have a deeper sound, as opposed to an over-ripe one that will have a more hollow or flat sound. A duller, more hollow sound can mean the flesh is starting to go soft and spoil.

Tip 3: Look for a dull and heavy watermelon

Although it may not be the most photogenic nor the easiest to carry to your car, the best watermelons will be dull in appearance and heavier than the rest. A shiny melon indicates the insides are under ripe.

On average, a watermelon is 92% water, which makes them so juicy. A heavier melon likely holds more water, which will make it juicier.

This year’s off-the-charts watermelon quality and sweetness may be the best news you will hear all day.>>

Deadheading Myth by Bec Wolfe-Thomas / The Garden Professors

Photo: Bec Wolfe-Thomas

"Tis the season that posts about deadheading start to show up. The myth is that you need to deadhead spent blooms to get the plant to re-bloom. The theory people apply is that the plant will put all its energy into seed development and won’t bloom anymore because it no longer needs to for reproduction. This is false, plants are either genetically predisposed to re-bloom or they are not. To what degree they re-bloom also relates back to their genetics. It is a trait that plants are bred for.

Chelinidea vittiger aequoris nymph by Kimberly Sheahan

Photo: Kimberly Sheahan

Photo of adult cactus bug by Lyle Buss, University of Florida

I love this time of year because my xeriscape yard is in bloom.  I recently signed up to be a citizen volunteer for the Native Bee Watch (you can check out more information here if you’re interested https://arapahoe.extension.colostate.edu/nbw/#theproject).  As part of my new interest in bees, I’ve been photographing them as they pollinate the cacti in my yard. Today I noticed something odd on one of my opuntia sp. pads (prickly pear), it looked like it had a weird growth of extra spines.

Celebrate 4th of July with Plants by Pam Hill

Courtesy: Good Earth Plants

This Fourth of July is the 244^th anniversary of the day in 1776 when the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.  The first organized celebration with fireworks followed in Philadelphia in 1777 and continued through the 19^th century, though the date did not become an official federal holiday until 1941.  

Victory In the Garden - Fertilize For Growth by Erin Matthias

 

 Courtesy IPM University of Missouri

Fertilizing is a must if you want high yielding plants and the best quality produce from your Victory Garden. But, what exactly, do those three numbers on a fertilizer package mean? And what’s best, organic or conventional fertilizer? Finally, how do we know how much fertilizer to give, and when is the best time to fertilize?

Freeze, Drought and Damage to Trees by Heather Duncan

A frost-damaged tree. (Courtesy of Colorado State Forest Service)

In early October 2019, we experienced an extreme weather event when from October 9-11 our front range temperatures dropped from highs in the upper 70’s to lows in the 10’s or even single digits before rising again to the mid 60’s.  Most of our trees had not yet hardened off for winter causing a range of damage. While weaker trees may have suffered more severe damage, healthy trees likely weathered this event with minimal damage such as blackening or browning of leaves on deciduous trees or “grizzled” foliage on evergreens. 

Many of our healthy trees hold enough reserves to handle a single event like this so any longer-term damage would necessitate additional stressors and Mother Nature never disappoints!

Over this past winter, we experienced a short period of drought during December and January.  The front range received only three weather events that brought any measurable precipitation during those months.  The dry winter conditions likely added additional pressure to our trees, especially to those that did not receive any supplemental water during this period.  Signs of winter injury might include browning or rust colored needles on evergreens and sun-scald or leaf scorch on deciduous trees.

Photo: Mary Beth Mainero

Photo: Heather Duncan

Normal Needle Drop
Photo: Heather Duncan

And to add this…in April 2020 temperatures plunged again!  While many spring plants can tolerate light freezes or temperatures of 29º Fahrenheit, we experienced another deep freeze just as many trees were budding and beginning to flower.  From April 10-13 our temperatures dropped from highs in the upper 60’s to lows well below freezing and into the teens.  Not only did this freeze result in a Disaster Declaration for our Western Slope from the USDA, many of our other trees around the state, already stressed by the previous drought and early fall freeze, suffered additional damage such as leaf or flower buds being killed or leaf distortion.

Photo: Heather Duncan

But don’t dismay!  While flower buds are gone for this season and you’ll likely have to wait for next year to see those again, most healthy trees and shrubs have enough reserved energy to form a second flush of leaves.  Many of our trees on the front range have already leafed out again.  Here are some tips and resources linked below on how to manage your trees going forward:

·      Water appropriately:  if there isn’t rain or snow in the forecast, water the root zone to a depth of around 12 inches once or twice per month (even over the next winter) however be careful to not overwater

·      Mulch: applying mulch under a tree may help reduce moisture loss and competition from turf and improve moisture penetration into the soil

·      Hold off on the fertilizer: wait until the tree has fully re-leafed

·      Watch and wait for continued leaf and needle emergence:

o   check for soft/pliable limbs and buds (alive) or dry/brittle limbs and buds (dead)

o   healthy trees will likely form new buds this summer and over the coming seasons will fill in the gaps

o   only prune out dead branches after new growth has emerged and do not prune any living tissue

And for additional information, as always, the Jefferson County Colorado Master Gardeners are here to support you.  Please visit our website at https://cmg.extension.colostate.edu/.

Additional information is available:  Western Slope, Woody Plants, CSU-Woody Plants, 
ColoStateForestService