As the days become marginally shorter, it is safe to say the leaf raking season is on the horizon. The weeks leading up to the cooling weather can be productively spent on a variety of tasks or idled away thumbing through the library of last spring’s gardening catalogs which are by now pretty shopworn. While…Read more
The opening of 2024’s tenth month has cooler weather on the horizon, finally. While the lawn mowing schedule slowed during September with the shortening days, the unusually warm weather kept turf growing at a rapid pace. The impending seasonal change dictates several behavioral adjustments when it comes to the proper care and maintenance of yard…Read more
Autumn has finally arrived, at least on the calendar. Weather forecasts still predict some days in the low 90’s, but at least the humidity has moderated a bit. While some residents of panhandle Florida consider working in the home landscape a chore, many view it as a means of enhancing their personal environment. One of…Read more
Simple, easy and low maintenance are not normally terms applied to growing vegetables in panhandle Florida, or anywhere else. To every rule, however, there are a few exceptions, and gardening is no different.Gardeners in the coming cool season have many advantages to go along with the challenges. Insects are few to non-existent, there are far…Read more
September is a month of curious contradictions and juxtapositions, at least for gardeners in panhandle Florida. Depending on the individual characteristics of the environmental factors of the year, events and occurrences can, and often do, cancel each other. Still, much can be accomplished during this transitional period from summer to autumn. The summer of 2024…Read more
As described in Monday’s release, there are four walls plus the branch collar that the tree uses to block the spread of decay. Below are the descriptions of these walls as listed in the order of weakest to strongest response: Wall 1 limits the vertical spread of decay up the tree. It is the weakest…Read more
There are many ways trees can be damaged. I am always amazed at how trees manage to respond when subjected to injury. Mechanical injury, such as lightning strikes and storm winds. Construction damage by vehicles, grading equipment and soil trenching equipment. All can cause damage to limbs, trunks and roots. Although we do not often…Read more
The weather forecast currently states there is likely a reprieve coming from the hot and dry weather being experienced by the residents of Florida’s panhandle. Some locales in the northwest portion of the state have already experienced rain and cooler (albeit not cool) weather. While the change cannot come soon enough for the human residents,…Read more
Ever since June 20 of this summer, the days have been getting gradually shorter. On Sunday, September 23, 2024 the autumnal equinox will occur and the days will continue to get inexorably shorter. This change in the length of daylight is so subtle it is not noticed by most of the human residents of panhandle…Read more
Florida is one of the world’s highest lightning strike regions. Securely grounding homes and buildings is a common practice (and building code requirement) to mitigate the damage done by random hits from these high voltage events. This same type of system can be used on trees to improve their chances of surviving a lightning strike….Read more
