Category Archives: Pests and Disease

Mantid Mayhem!

a picture of a mantid and monarch butterfly

Praying mantids have long been subjects of intrigue in the garden. Their discrete lurking and ability to blend into their surroundings, along with their huge eyes and turret head… By Robert Weaver [This article was first published in the September 2019 issue of The Gateway Gardener.] Praying mantids have long been subjects of intrigue in the garden. Their discrete lurking

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What’s Wrong with My Sycamore?

By Robert Weaver If the lawn beneath your sycamore tree looks like this this spring, you might be understandably concerned about the sycamore tree towering above it. Leaves shriveling and dropping by the basketful can certainly be disturbing, but in this case, it’s nothing to get too concerned about. In cool, wet springs, sycamores are susceptible to a fungus disease

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Assessing Winter Injury to Plants

a photo of extreme damage to a white pine from ice storm

By Steven Cline, Ph.D. (This article was first published in the March 2007 issue of The Gateway Gardener.) Regardless of the theory explaining our mild winters, the trend is pretty clear – it’s warming up on average.  The data are now shown in the new plant hardiness map issued by the Arbor Day Foundation challenging the old USDA map with

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