Pheromone Traps
Insects use pheromones to attract their mates and communicate with each other. Ants use pheromones to tell fellow ants where to find food. Aphids use pheromones to warn each other about potential predators. And all insects use pheromones to call for a mate. So what...
Bot Rot: Sweet Viburnum’s Achilles Heel
Sweet Viburnum (Viburnum odoratissimum) is thought of as being an ironclad landscape shrub, generally a rapid, healthy grower free of insects and disease. However, this spring, many Sweet Viburnum specimens across the Panhandle have experienced varying degrees...
Woodland Pinkroot Adds Vibrant Color to Spring Landscapes
This week I have been noticing some of the beautiful perennials blooming at the Jackson County Extension office, and one struck me as especially beautiful. Indian Pink or Woodland Pinkroot (Spigelia marilandica), it turns out, is native to several counties in the...
Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE! Program Summary: Citrus in the Home Landscape
This month’s program focused on Citrus for the Home Landscape. Citrus is a wonderful addition to your landscape. You may have tried it before and run into some issues. This episode of Gardening in the Panhandle seeks to demystify these trees. Below is a summary of the...
Easy Care Roses for the Gulf South
Due to several unique challenges home gardeners and nursery owners are often baffled when trying to incorporate roses into landscapes. Consequently, they ignore roses altogether or limit themselves to cultivars in the knockout or drift series. While knockout roses and...
“Symbiotic Serenity: Ant-Aphid Farming Dynamics”
Why is ant taking over my plants? Welcome to the world of symbiotic serenity, where ants and aphids work in harmony to create a thriving ecosystem. Ants farming aphids is a fascinating phenomenon in nature, where ants tend to aphids, protecting and nurturing them like...
White, Fluffy Tufts in Lawns May Be Trampweed
Do you have a low-growing weed that is producing tufts of white, fluffy, dandelion-like seeds, which float in the wind when disturbed or mowed? This is Annual Trampweed (Facelis retusa). I did not see this weed in North Florida until recent years. It’s native to South...
Take the Summer Off, Grow a Cover Crop
Take the Summer Off, Grow a Cover Crop As gardeners in the northern states plant and harvest crops until fall, those in the south know that summers can be brutal. In Florida and other areas in the deep south, temperatures can reach triple digits by the summer...
Sesame Surprise
Last spring, I attended a seminar at the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy hosted by the Gardening Friends of the Big Bend (GFBB). Brie Arthur was the guest speaker and taught us about foodscaping, gardening with grains, and other...
Grass Looking Bad?
Does your yard have patches of dead grass or areas that look thin and weak? The last two summers of heavy rain and the stress of December’s freezing weather have contributed to widespread outbreaks of Take-All Root Rot, a soil-inhabiting...