- Author: Janet Hartin
[From the Spring issue of the UC IPM Retail Nursery & Garden Center News]
Most disorders impacting landscape trees result from abiotic (non-living) disorders rather than attacks from biotic (living) pests like plant pathogens, insects, and vertebrates. Damage caused by abiotic and biotic disorders can appear similar, making diagnosis difficult at times. For example, discolored leaves on a Ficus nitida tree could be due to drought stress, a fungus, or a nutrient toxicity or...
/span>Winter is an ideal time to prune deciduous fruit and shade trees, since the trees are dormant and you can more easily see the tree canopy. In many cases, pruning can also help prevent or control certain insect and disease problems.
For help with pruning, visit the UC IPM web page called Pruning fruit and shade trees and shrubs.This page provides links to plant-specific pruning information for fruit trees, nut trees, landscape trees, and others. You can also find links to diseases and environmental disorders that commonly affect fruit and shade trees, as well as additional information on the topics of landscape management and videos on...
Mistletoe hung in doorways is a traditional holiday decoration, but when it's growing on trees in the landscape, this parasitic plant may not seem quite as charming.
There are two types of mistletoe: broadleaf and dwarf. Broadleaf mistletoe is evergreen and can be found growing on common trees such as flowering pear, ash, and birch, while dwarf mistletoe attacks firs, pines, and other conifers.
Mistletoe robs trees of both water and nutrients. If you see small amounts of mistletoe growing on healthy trees in your landscape, it's probably not a cause for concern. However, if a tree is heavily infested, individual branches may be weakened or killed, and trees affected by drought or disease may be stunted or even...
It's hot outside, so like a lot of people, you try to park your car under a tree in parking lots and on the street for some shade. You choose to park under a big hackberry tree, but when you return to your car, you notice droplets on your windshield and sticky stuff on the sidewalk, other cars, and the parking lot. What is this?
The sticky substance is called honeydew. The honeydew is excreted by a number of sap-sucking insects such as aphids, whiteflies, mealybugs, certain scale insects, and few others. On hackberry trees (widely planted in some cities), an insect called the woolly hackberry aphid produces a large amount of honeydew.
If you examine the tree's leaves, you may see bluish-white masses that are actually...
- Author: Igor Lacan
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
- Author: John A Roncoroni
[From the May 2017 issue of the UC IPM Green Bulletin]
It's among every landscape professional's worst nightmares: returning to a landscape recently treated with an herbicide to find previously healthy trees looking “strange.” These strange findings could be leaves with bleached-out veins, twisted shoots, dying twigs, or stunted new growth appearing in unusual places.
This nightmare situation occurred several years ago on coniferous trees in many Midwestern landscapes where a presumably “safe” herbicide labeled for use...
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