- Author: Belinda Messenger-Sikes
Pesticides and fertilizers applied around homes, residential or commercial landscapes, school sites, and other areas can enter our creeks, rivers, and oceans, degrading water quality. While pesticides and fertilizers can be useful in controlling pests and helping plants grow, their overuse and misuse can harm the environment and human health.
To find out more, see our updated pages on urban pesticides, fertilizers, and water quality. These pages feature plain language definitions of toxicity and water quality and explanations of how pesticides and fertilizers get into our waterways. There's also information about how you can protect our creeks, rivers, and oceans when managing your home and landscape.
Learn about urban...
What you do with firewood this upcoming 4th of July (and year-round!) can impact more than just the s'mores on your campfire. If you move firewood around the state, you could spread deadly plant diseases and invasive insects. Don't take firewood with you if you travel or camp this holiday weekend.
Bringing firewood from home, even dry, aged, and seasoned wood, can spread pests. Once you arrive at your destination, pests can emerge from the firewood and spread to the surrounding area. Invasive pests like the emerald ash borer, shothole borers, and
- Author: Lauren Fordyce
The University of California Statewide IPM Program (UC IPM) has an exciting, newly updated resource to help you better understand pesticide active ingredients and the risks different active ingredients pose to people and the environment.
The Pesticide Active Ingredient Database is designed for urban audiences including the general public, Master Gardeners, nursery and garden center staff, pest control operators, landscapers, and more. The active ingredients included in this database can be found in many commonly available pesticide products in California. The database contains a variety of pesticide types, including...
- Author: Lauren Fordyce
If you've used disinfecting wipes to clean surfaces in your home, an herbicide to control weeds in your garden, or insect repellents while on a hike, then you have used a pesticide. A pesticide is any material (natural, organic, synthetic, or even homemade remedies) that is used to control, prevent, kill, or repel a pest. Pesticides are designed to be toxic against certain pests like weeds, insects, or bacteria. But when they are not used properly, pesticides can also be toxic to people and pets, and harm the environment including water quality, pollinators, and natural enemies.
February is National Pesticide Safety Education Month, a time to raise awareness about...
- Author: Mackenzie Patton
The Invasive Pest Spotlight focuses on relevant or emerging invasive species in California. In this issue we are covering brooms, a group of invasive shrubs.
Invasive Broom facts
Brooms are upright shrubs in the legume family that typically produce small, yellow, pea-shaped flowers. Shrubs range from 3 to 10 feet tall. They produce flowers from mid spring to summer and produce seed pods in late summer. All brooms are prolific seed producers, with a single shrub producing as many as 2,000 to 3,500 pods containing up to 20,000 seeds.
While brooms are attractive plants, they grow in dense stands that outcompete many native plants. These dense stands are highly...