This time of year just about every grocery, department and drug store features a beautiful display of live miniature Christmas trees as soon as you walk in the door. They are beautiful, healthy-looking trees and include Norfolk Island pines, various cypresses, holly and rosemary. After they’ve served their purpose as winter decoration, many people hope [Continue]
Just as a tree attains the majesty for which it is destined, its roots may begin to rise up from beneath the soil. These surface roots are difficult to mow and trim around and may cause a tripping hazard. While some tree species are more likely than others to form surface roots, the reason they [Continue]
When my father-in-law passed away in 1997, my husband’s co-workers gave us a nursery gift certificate. We chose a nice ‘Autumn Blaze’ maple and planted it in the back yard, a good distance from all the other trees. When Grandma Koch saw the new tree, she immediately said it was too close to a mature [Continue]
Let me guess – when deer season is over, you don’t give another thought to your prime spot until late summer or early fall of the next year. That’s when you go up there and find out that your shooting lanes are overgrown with tree branches and brush so you start hacking away to clear [Continue]
The 4-foot arborvitae shrubs in front of my house were planted almost 40 years ago when the house was built. For the 18 years that they’ve been mine, I’ve dutifully trimmed back the bright flush of spring growth each year to keep them from growing too wide and tall and looking unsightly. This [Continue]
One out of every three bites of food we eat is provided through the work of animal and insect pollinators. The mysterious colony collapse disorder among commercial honeybees, disease and loss of habitat have severely affected pollinators that sustain our food crops and quality of life. Other insects besides bees act as important [Continue]
There are few plants that thrive when planted in late autumn, but red, white and black currants do. The weather is likely to be wetter and there is still enough warmth in the soil to encourage the plants to grow some roots before winter. There is a difference in the way the different [Continue]
Alan Jackson sings, “If money grew on hackberry trees . . . that’d be all right.” Ever wonder what a hackberry tree looks like? Hackbery (Celtis occidentalis) is one of the most versatile shade trees. It is related to the elm and in fact grows in the vase form of the elm, but [Continue]
Tourism officials in Vermont are concerned that the fall color the last four years has been less than spectacular, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars in tourist spending. Many scientists are attributing the lack of vibrant leaf color to global warming. “Leaf peeping” isn’t quite as big a business here in Wisconsin, [Continue]
Need a ground cover? A shrubby hedge? A small tree? There is a variety of cotoneaster (pronounced co-TO-ne-as-ter) that fits whatever your requirements. Cotoneasters are members of the rose family and are native to China. Some varieties may be evergreen in warmer climates, but they are deciduous in Wisconsin. Most of them have [Continue]