Ramsey County

June 10, 2009

Howdy!!!

Do you believe it, the sun is shining and sounds like the rest of the week is get even warmer, COULD SUMMER BE FINALLY HERE?  The other morning I heard Darrell on “First News” say that we set a record that has stood since the later 1800’s, Temperatures in the 50’s for a period of 4-days and I am thinking

There might be an extra day as that next day was miserably cold as well. 

Relay for life garden tour is fast approaching and if you don’t believe me, just ask.  This tour is for a very good cause as it provides additional financial support for life and it is also a great time to gather new ideas for your own yard/landscape design.  I have been attending the tour for three years now and have found things that I have incorporated into my landscape design.  The nice thing about these tours is you will not find one landscape that looks like another, which is good as we all have different likes and dislikes.  Well, last year I agreed to be on the tour this year and let me tell you it puts the pressure on.  Finley McClain stopped by one day to inform me that Deb and I would be on the tour this summer.  “Oh my lord, the pressure is on”.  We started working on our yard just cleaning and the bad part of this project is the more we cleaned the more we thought we could change or add.  I better stop here and say the more I would come up with something to add or change.  Deb gets a little fired up when I start talking about new or different ideas.  The comment is always “what does it matter you are going to go ahead with it anyway”.  We did add two new landscape ideas and have added many new hosta’s.  Every time I stop by a greenhouse I check out the hosta stand to see if there is anything new, that we do not have.  To this point we have about 65 different hosta’s.  We do 95 percent of our gardening supplies locally.  This was also another year of my lawn taking a back seat to a poorer stand.  We had issues with snow mold and too much thatch, even though I collect my thatch every time I mow.  Back to the garden tour, we have been busy.  One day Finley stopped by and asked to be taken off of the garden tour, JOKINGLY and the response was over my dead body.  I took that to mean things were in order for a stop at our home.  We will be ready whether we are ready or not.

We have been having many ash trees losing their needles this season.  The reason for the leave loss is Anthracnose.  The leave pressure from the cool/wet cycle has created this problem.  With some warm days ahead the trees should provide additional leaves and maintain a nice appearance.  I would recommend however a light nutrient application and during this same process include a tree and shrub insect systemic.  Both products need to be watered in.  This combination will protect the tree until full recovery has occurred.  The worst case scenario is having the same tree lose their leaves in more than one year.  This could create an issue with the tree as it is losing the process of keeping the tree alive.

524 4th Ave NE #5, 2nd Floor Ramsey County Courthouse
Devils Lake  ND  58301
701-662-7027
email - NDSU.Ramsey.Extension@ndsu.edu

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