Homeowners Guide to EAB Insecticide Selection, Use and Environmental Impact

Good morning –

The Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association is disseminating a GREAT publication from the MN Dept of Ag about Emerald Ash Borer treatments and their environmental impacts.

It explains when treatments should be done and which are more likely to affect groundwater and aquatic life. Be sure to read this before you do any EAB treatments.

Click on the photo to the right or the link below to download.

Homeowners Guide to EAB Insecticide Selection, Use and Environmental Impact

Have a great day!

Brad

Iowa’s First

Good morning –

After a beautiful weekend in Minnesota – 75 degrees, sunny and a nice breeze – I’ll bring you back to earth today with another Emerald Ash Borer infestation reported. This one is Iowa’s first and actually doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

EAB was first reported in 2009 in Minnesota with a large infestation near Victory, WI near the Minnesota and Iowa borders. An infestation has recently been discovered in Houston County Minnesota just across the state line from the Victory site so it is very expected that an Iowa infestation would be found.

EAB Trap (photo from city of Roseville)

You’ll see purple traps throughout Iowa and Minnesota this summer looking for more sites where EAB has invaded to attempt to limit the spread of this nasty bug.

Click here to see all the information we have posted about Emerald Ash Borer.

Have a great day!

Brad

Slow Trees

Good morning –

How have you been? I hope all is great! It has been a busy busy busy spring. Got an early start and everything is rolling!

Each year there are some plant materials that don’t react really well to some event – known or unknown – during the winter. The past few years spirea and evergreens were hard-hit. This seems to be the year of the maple.

We have quite a few maple trees throughout our sites that are very slow to get moving this spring. They are leafing out and I’m confident they will be ok, but property managers need to be sure to not be too quick to write them off. Be sure to also pay special attention to them throughout the growing season to watch for long-term problems that may be evident.

Have a great day!

Brad

Visit the MN Arboretum this Week

Yesterday was a bit cool and windy but that weather was easily trumped by the beautiful trees, bulbs and perennials that are in bloom at the MN Arboretum right now. The Minnesota Arboretum (or Artabreedum as Jean insisted) is a great place for Property Managers to discover plants they might want to incorporate in their landscapes or just leave that to me and enjoy the beautiful walk. Here are some pictures from yesterday:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

You can check out all of our photos on flickr.com/quercusinc.

Have a great day!

Brad

PLANET Day of Service 2010 Recap

Good morning!

The Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) introduced a great program in 2009 celebrating Earth Day called PLANET Day of Service. Volunteerism and service to our community is an important part of why Quercus is successful and a huge part of our philosophy.

This year PLANET Day of Service completed over 200 projects with 3,000 volunteers throughout the US. Three of those projects were in Minnesota with Landscape Renovations completing a project at Central Park in Woodbury, we planted shrubs, trimmed trees and cleaned beds at the Scott County Historical Museum and Wild Ways to Garden cleaned up the shoreline of Lake John in Annandale, MN.

Our project went great this year. Our employees volunteered their time and we made a big difference in the gardens around the Stans House at the Scott County Historical Museum. Here is a video with some photos from our day. You can also see more photos on our Flickr page.

I hope everyone had a great Earth Day and keep it in mind every day of the year. I will soon be posting about what Quercus does on an ongoing basis for a better world.

Have a wonderful day!

Brad

Lightning Green Grass

Good afternoon!

We had a very happy thunderstorm come through the Twin Cities last night. A nice rain, beautiful lightning with not too much wind. There was a bit of hail but I didn’t notice any damage.

You ask, “What does this mean for property managers?” I assume many of you know this but it never ceases to amaze me that lightning makes grass greener! This time of year is when it is most evident. Why does this happen?

Green Grass in Kansas City

Turf is a very needy plant. You have to perform a lot of maintenance on it to keep it green and looking great. The nutrient in the soil that is most responsible for the green in your grass is nitrogen. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the Earth’s atmosphere (and nearly all of Pluto’s atmosphere.) However, nitrogen can not be used by plants simply as nitrogen, it needs to be fused with oxygen as a nitrate in order for a blade of grass to utilize it to make more chlorophyll and go green.

Nitrates are actually tough to create. Plants like soybeans, peas – members of the legume family – pair with a bacteria to create them. WWI bomb-makers created nitrates with high temperatures and high pressure and along the same process lightning creates nitrates by combining nitrogen and oxygen in the air with its extremely high temperatures. The nitrates are formed and then rain to the ground, helping green your grass.

UPDATE 4/13: Just recorded how

Lightning Greens Grass

as a podcast. You can find our podcasts in our Knowledge Base under podcasts or subscribe in iTunes!

Have a great day!

Brad

Beware the Emerald Ash Borer Sales Pitch

Good morning!

The past few weeks I’ve had a few property managers and friends ask me about Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) treatments. Tree companies and landscape vendors are are coming to them and saying “You need to get it or their trees will die!” They are 100% accurate, but that isn’t the whole story.

Treatments have proven to be extremely effective in preventing trees from EAB infestations. It is generally a chemical injected into the tree’s vascular system and kills insects that try to make a home inside it. These treatments are expensive and must be done every year!

UPDATE 4/13/2010: I have been informed there is a new product on the market that can be effectively applied every two years. However, this does not change our philosophy on the long-term costs associated with treated ash trees for EAB.

Only treat trees that you REALLY want to keep: old ash at main entrances or trees that may have historical value (like at the state fairgrounds). In my opinion, there aren’t too many ash trees that are worthy of yearly treatments. Ash are not high-value trees or long-lived so you are generally better off using the money you would put into treatments and diversifying with other tree species and waiting for the existing trees to succumb to EAB which probably will not be for many years.

Here is our previous post about EAB that explains a little more in depth Quercus’ approach to EAB.

Emerald Ash Borer

Have a wonderful day!

Brad

Early spring is full of promise but a little ugly. We can help!

Good morning –

Yesterday morning, I left the house and was greeted by beautiful crocus blooming in my frontyard! Early spring is one of the most promising times of the years but is one of the least attractive. Everything is dirty and still dormant.

Question: What can a property manager do to make your sites more appealing in this time of year before the trees burst into color and the grass greens up?

Answer: Plant bulbs and install spring color in containers

It is too late this year for bulbs, but if you are loving the little hints of color you’re seeing right now with crocus and snowdrops to be followed very quickly by daffodils and tulips plan now to install them next fall. They are fairly cheap and most bulbs come back every year. Here is a quick rundown.

Crocus

Crocus (photos)

A very early-blooming bulb. Grows about 3-4″ tall and comes back every year. It will multiply and spread through the landscape. Resistant to deer and rodents.