Steven Nikkila

Depending on where you live you could try a gravel pit, a stone yard or a landscape supply place. There are some places listed on the "Recommended sources" page on our website at https://gardenatoz.org/market/recommended-sources/. That list is far from complete and will continue to grow over time.

Here's some photos of some of the wildlife that was in a garden I was at today.

I decided to visit a garden that is very dear to my heart. A garden that is often neglected, but never forgotten. A garden that reflects the beauty of the owners. A garden that I hope never gets forgotten. One wonderful garden with one lens. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did and do!

We've tried a blue corydalis at three or four different gardens and haven't had any luck with it being perennial. The variety we had was "Blue Panda" and haven't tried another one. We do know of some that have survived winter at the display gardens at Arrowhead Alpines and they like 2 of them: Corydalis ex dufu temple is like golden bleeding heart, hardy and seeds around merrily. We've seen it there in August and been very impressed. If only Bob was still around to tell you how much he liked, but Brigitta is still there and she knows! Corydalis elata is better than the likes of Blue Panda, per Arrowhead Alpines. We'd sure love to know how these plants do for others. We think they maybe pretty sight sensitive not just a zone hardiness thing. If enough of us describe the sites they make it in we'll get ahead of the game.

The difference is that the bottom photo was taken on May 10, 2005. The top photo was taken March 26, 2012. I think the colors were richer in 2005. The plant is leafed out in 05 and got some shade from trees that were also leafed out and both of those may have played a part in the richer color.

What is it?

While looking closer at the trunk, we noticed there was something unusual about the woundwood that's formed around the damage. It has some areas that are red, and that's not the normal color for ginkgo wound wood. Then we looked at one of the branch ends from new growth. We found that its growth rate was good but there was a wound near the base of that new growth, and it was red.. Here's a close-up of the canker. We're not used to seeing Ginkgos with disease or pest problems. But this sure looks like it may be a disease, and infection. So we looked further and find that there is an infection beginning to be reported in ginkgo, a bacterial infection. Anyone else seen this? What we plan to do: Prune off the branches with canker. Sterilize our pruners between cuts. Apply an anti-bacterial (we're working on what exactly that will be; might be hydrogen peroxide solution) to the trunk wounds at intervals, to prevent formation of or kill the resting bodies that can spread. It looks like we should pay partcular attention to this while the ginkgo's new wood is soft, because it's the soft new shoots, the base of the year's growth, that are being infected and eventually breaking off as the bacterial canker girdles the branch after a year or two.

I've looked at the burls so many times and see a different number of faces and different faces every time. I'm finding my moods often dictate which faces I see. So sometimes just a simple ent like my all time favorite (so far) is soothing.

Some of the branches in the crown were cut (below) as if it was being pruned to be kept smaller There is a wound on the trunk (below) in an area where a buck would rub the velvet on it's antlers in late summer/early fall There are wounds on the trunk (below) and to the top side of some of the branches/limbs (below)

A friend asked us to look at a gingko (below) that wasn't growing as fast or as large as she thought it would. From a distance (below) it looked ok to our quick look for a young ginkgo, although we don't usually see flat tops on young ginkgos. Any early thoughts?

These photos are of the same quince (Chaenomeles speciosa). Do you notice any differences?

So, Beaufort since you are here, Janet wants you to settle a dispute. This bumblebee has a patch on his back. Janet says "I've petted a lot of bumblebees and I think the patch is more the exception than the norm. In fact this patch looks a little mangey so that maybe I wouldn't have wanted to take up petting bumblebees in the first place." We looked up bumblebees (like to think we might have rusty patch bumblebee!) and do see a bunch of patches. I KNOW most of them have patches. I tried to catch bumblebees in hollyhocks in the alley with a jar with holes punched in the lid and got stung by many a bumblebee and saw lots of bodies! What about you? Do you see more with or without? The spot looks black, then brown, then iridescent depending on the light.

We were talking about bees in general in that article. Speaking of bees on Sunday, March 11, we noticed movement around some of our crocuses. There were many, many bees humming in and out of the crocus. Here's some of the photos I took of them. The first one almost conveys how many bees were really there. After watching them for awhile I noticed they would actually head-butt the anthers to knock the pollen off. Then crawl down into the flower to collect the pollen. The bees worked there way back up the filaments and style. They seemed to act like an addict with their supply at times. At other times they seemed like they were exchanging notes on where the best pollen was.

Just a quick reminder volcano mulching doesn't cause all the problems a tree maybe having. Watch What's Up for more like our caution to crusaders in Level Those Volcanoes.

Here's a couple of photos of Greater Celadine in bloom and it's flower. It does like to run around

On our website this photo of a lotus flower opening is currently on the Home page with a story behind the taking of the photo. We don't have room on the Home page to tell the whole story so here it is. This is the setting for the photo. I saw the flower glowing because of low light, a combination of time of day and clouds, and immedately noticed the dark background provided by the reflection of the Iris plant and the stained water. I knelt down and cropped out all unessesary details and took the photo below.

One more that doesn't need anything extra. Let's just hybridize between the most dangerous barberry species we can find. Don't even ask me which species they are, I just KNOW they are barberry and they are bad dudes!

Hmmm, arm a succulent with a water gun it's the perfect combination. All it has gotta do is grow and it'lll have all the ammunition ever needed!

Post More! Send us suggestions. Read below. Somehow when I posted a pic under the subject of "Tree Ents" by Dennis Groh, my Member title displays as Breaking Bud. I never typed this in. How do I change my "member title"? I go into my account and even there it is listed as Breaking Bud, which is a term I have never used. But when I click on "Member title" it does not give my option to change it. More fitting title should read "Advance Master Gardener". Can you help? N Hi N Our apologies, first. We made you a "Breaking Bud". It's a long story we'll try to make short. 1. The program for this Forum assigns each member a status based solely on how many posts you make. 2. This is a feature of the program we cannot change. (We don't like it but paying to change it was way beyond what we could do). 3. The program's default levels were "Newbie", "Member" and "Advanced Member". We hated Newbie. HATED! (Janet behind that repeat). 4. WE were Newbies at running the program and could not figure out how to change those categories. Furthermore we couldn't figure what other terms to use. We asked some of the best wordsmiths we know to help us out. 5. We decided we thought it was not worth delaying the launch to figure this out. We launched and said we'd get it as soon as we can. 6. Then we forgot, so many other things were going on. Our wordsmiths also unable to come up with words hid in their rooms were glad we forgot to remind them. 7. Last week all of a sudden we (Janet) noticed that stupid "Newbie" is still there. In desperation and forsaken by our wordsmiths we seized on the only three plant related "getting larger" terms we could come up with. We didn't like Seedling which sounded way too inexperienced for anyone in this group. So we took "Breaking Bud" to acknowledge at least a years growth under your belt. 8. The good news is (we hope) that all you have to do is post 9 more times even the tiniest posts and you will get to be.... 9. If you have three good words we will be GLAD to consider them. Be sure to include in your member profile that you are an Advanced Master Gardener and any other information about yourself that will help others decide how applicable to their situation your post might be. I meant this to be short, then Janet got in on the act. Steve

Hi everyone, We are so sorry to have been closed for a while. A Spammer's computer found us and was overloading us with nonsense messages. We saw it right away, closed to stop it while we increased security, then had to clean up. Even as quick as we were -- and we were very quick -- there were hundreds of messages to clear away. Oh, if we could be so productive in a garden as a Spammer is with a hacking program! The silver lining here is the reminder that being safe on the Internet means, in large part, not clicking on anything suspicious. NOT AN ISSUE: a hyperlink within a post here that's integral to a normal sentence about potato bugs or whatever you have been discussing in that folder. That's almost certainly fine. TO BE AVOIDED: A message here or anywhere that is disjointed or odd. Delete the message and or/report it to someone who can. (None of you would have been fooled by the Spam we just dealt with. It was ugly and disruptive. It was in its sheer volume that it might have "harvested" an accidental click.) As always, we've learned by doing and if anyone would like to know more we would be glad to share the helpful parts. Post questions, advice or comments here if you'd like. Back to the garden! Janet & Steven

Sorry those of us who have been touched by poison ivy often tease each other about it. By using the scientific name we forget that many people don't know what the heck we're talking about. I'll try to always use the common name first then the scientific name like this, poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron), when I'm discussing plants. Thanks for posting and reminding some of us that others may not know what plant we're talking about.

Paul, I believe it may be a celadine poppy (Chelidonium majus). I've asked a couple of the other moderators to see what they think it might be.

Yeah just one IRRITATING charactestic that prevents me from even getting close to it, but it does do well in many areas.

I know we would love to go, if possible. We were speakers at the 2011 Conference and really enjoyed meeting and talking to Master Gardeners from many different states with many different gardening issues, but with a couple of things in common, we all love it and want to help in our communities! Here's a link for more information: http://www.uaex.edu/imgc2013/. Maybe we'll see you there.

Came in via email and we hazarded a guess. Help! Greetings! I am trying to grow cucumbers indoors again for the third winter. I have had very little luck in the past, so this year I used “Manny Hybrid Greenhouse Cucumber” seeds from Territorial Seed Company. They started fine. I transplanted them to bigger pots and provided a netting for them to grow up onto. They are in a semi-controlled room where the temperature is low at night to 60-65 and high during the day to about 70. There are windows, but I have also provided lights for them as well. They have grown well, and are now producing numerous flowers. My problem is that the leaves are starting to turn brown, getting spots on them. I don't see any insects on them. I don't know what I am doing wrong. I water, provide feedings. Do you have any suggestions? I have many house plants in this room that are doing well, and also have some tomato plants that are doing fine and show no signs like these cucumber plants have. I would be more than happy to send you photographs if you feel that would help. THANK YOU! W. C. Sounds like mildew and so air circulation and humidity may be the issues. Ironically, calling for higher humidity and more air movement. But we're not cuke experts -- even though this fits our indoor plant expertise! -- so we're going to post your question and this reply on our Forum and see what those who do more greenhouse growing and veg growing, have to say. You can watch there, at https://forum.gardenatoz.org in the Vegetables and Fruits folder.