A noun. A verb. A blog.
So-called-summer 2009 has been the summer of love for lily leaf beetles. Since I wrote about them on June 1st, they’ve been arriving by the thousands, camping out and making music. And they’re hungry. Turn your back for an instant and you’re growing poles, not lilies. The whole stem is defoliated, leaving the bulb nothing […]
The snail population in my garden took a spike about fifteen years ago when our daughter adopted one and gave it a home on a punky log I’d been thinking was an ornament (add air quotes) in my front garden. It was, like all snails, of two-for-one gender. I think she named it Snaily. Many […]
It has been a wet few days. The roses have been slurping up that water and their growing tips and buds are nice and juicy. Mmmmm, say the bugs, the rose buffet is now open! Not for long, bugs. First, meet the leafroller – larva of one of a number of common moths. Leafrollers produce […]
Witness here the final moment of a pretty but destructive Lily Leaf Beetle (Lilioceris lilii), an imported pest now chewing holes in your leaves and buds — and not only of lilies. [Update: What I should have said, two years ago now, was that although it likes lilies best, the lily leaf beetle will nibble […]
Spotted during the Toronto Women’s Half Marathon in the Don Valley this morning (with my 15-year-old daughter; her first race) — masses, and masses, and masses, and masses of dog-strangling vine or swallowwort (Vincetoxicum rossicum, syn. Cynanchum spp., from the Greek meaning “to choke a dog”) I’ve written warnings about this pernicious weed before: here […]
As it’s growing in challenging conditions, the round boxwood (Buxus) planted by my front door has always been plagued by boxwood psyllids (Psylla buxi). They’re the tiny sucking insects that cause the tips of boxwood leaves to deform into cups. Unless you looked closely at your box foliage, you might not even realize that this […]
If you plant lily of the valley, you had better love lily of the valley. And your neighbour had better love it, too. If not, your neighbour had darned well better love you. Lily of the valley (Convallaria) is a plant that doesn’t do things by halves, and it’s no respecter of fences. Given the […]
There aren’t many native sugar maples on our street. Most are Norways. So I like to check in with our sugars from time to time, as you would an elderly neighbour. About a week ago, I was horrified to note that the trunk of one across the street, whose rich leaf colours I’d photographed last […]
When skunks and other critters begin to forage this way in your garden, they’re actually doing you a favour… by ridding you of white grubs. That’s little consolation when you see the damage they do by digging, usually in what in most small city gardens passes for a lawn. Though the foragers will dig among […]
While we’re (almost) on the subject of overgrown trees, take a look at this little linear forest (shown in two seasons). This was once a hedge. That is, it was a hedge till someone put away their shears. If you pay attention to the city’s garden archeology, you can spot these runaway hedges all over. […]
Amongst the refuse of last year’s greenery, you might now be noticing the evidence of past crime: the dried pod casings of dog-strangling vine (Vincetoxicum rossicum) [Update: This weed is also known as swallowwort, Cynanchum spp., from the Greek meaning “to choke a dog”)]. In my continuing quest to do my part to eradicate this […]
The Toronto Star today contained this article about the sad and coming total demise of the city’s ash tree population over the next ten years. It’s all thanks – or no thanks, depending on your perspective – to the beautiful but deadly emerald ash borer. Through a tree course I took at Ryerson some years […]