george bonnema
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistMarch 16, 2021It’s Monday and I am thinking of all the pruning I got done last week. Now I’m looking at a blanket of the whitest and heaviest snow we have seen in awhile. But hey, the frost came out of the top layer of soil so this will be wonderful moisture to help replenish the deficit from last year. So, we get a couple of days off but we do want to get the pruning done whenever we get the chance because…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistMarch 09, 2021I haven’t been submitting any garden articles for the paper for a year because I thought I had all of you educated enough so I could retire. Someone recently reminded me that we are humans and we forget … “so what’s wrong with refreshing our memories?” Well, that’s not a hard task for me, so here goes. … We have survived winter, and if there is one good thing about extreme cold (other than higher…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistApril 28, 2020It seems that we are on track for an earlier than average spring, and that means that this is the time to apply crab grass preventer. Crab grass is an annual weed. The seeds don’t germinate until the ground temperature is warm, and that is happening now. This is a pre-emergence herbicide, so once the seed has germinated, the product will not be effective. This is also the time to…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistMarch 31, 2020A couple of days of 60-plus weather has certainly inspired me to get to work cleaning up my flower beds. While working, I noticed the daffodils are already poking through … that was encouraging but also a reminder to get the work done before I would be damaging them by my cleanup activity. Every year I remind you that the first plant on the cutback list should be the tall ornamental…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistJanuary 07, 2020In response to the problems we are encountering with our popular and reliable shade trees, it is important to make sure the new trees we plant are getting the best care we can give them. Young trees like linden and maple have smooth bark and are very prone to sunscald damage during the coldest part of winter. This problem usually affects the southwest side of the tree trunk and is the result of…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistOctober 15, 2019Our 2019 garden season is pretty much finished, and now as we contemplate cleaning up perennial flowerbeds and the landscape, we have to decide what to cut and what not to cut. I am not a fan of clear-cutting the perennial garden in the fall. Plants that hold their form add interest to the winter landscape. Additionally, those stems catch snow, which helps insulate the crown of the plant,…
By George BonnemaSeptember 17, 2019Just a reminder that if you have had some indoor plants vacationing outdoors for the summer, now is a good time to begin acclimating them to being indoors for the winter. Place the plant in the spot you intend for it to grow for the winter season. Keep it in for a week and then bring it back out for a week. Repeat this a few times and the plant will have acclimated to its new home without…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistSeptember 10, 2019So here we are in September, the best time to do lawn seeding — renovation, if necessary — and the best time to rid your lawn of weeds. If you are seeding a new lawn, as the ground temperature drops, most weed seed will not germinate; however, the grass seed germinates better in cool soil so the weeds are not competing with the grass. The new grass has plenty of time to get established before the…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistAugust 27, 2019Vegetable gardens are at their maximum production and that quantity of fresh produce can be almost overwhelming, but this is the vision for every gardener. Beans are being produced in quantity, and you may get tired of harvesting. But if you don’t keep picking, they stop producing, and beans produced late in the season are amazing. Onion tops have kinked over, indicating that they are finished…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistAugust 20, 2019Driving in the county on Saturday, I was surprised to see so much wild cucumber vine. It was growing on fences, through trees — especially evergreens — and along creek banks. I even saw it climbing up on corn stalks. Now that it has started blooming, the airy white flowers make it very visible. Yes, it is attractive but realizing its potential to become extremely invasive quickly takes away that…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistAugust 13, 2019My trees are dying!!!! I’ve had a few people question the leaf loss of their trees, and most often the trees they are alarmed about are flowering crab trees. This year is exceptional for infection of a fungal disease called scab. The infection starts mid spring, and the first symptom is a black spot on the leaf which most people don’t notice. Later the leaf turns yellow and drops, and that is…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistJuly 30, 2019It seems that my sprayer has been in my hand for most of the summer. Wet is good to a certain extent and then it becomes an ongoing invitation to blight and fungus infections that are hard to control, and that is where I am right now … so the battle continues. I am seeing a lot of the lower leaves of fall-blooming purple dome asters turning yellow and dry. Most often this is the symptom of damage…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistJune 25, 2019I have been appreciating the stunning foliage of my assortment of hosta varieties. To preserve that magnificent display, it is important to protect the plants from slug damage. Slugs feed at night, so you seldom see them, but you notice the damage they wreak … first just a few small holes, then more and more, until the leaves look pretty much “shot” up. Prevent the damage by applying slug bait at…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistJune 18, 2019We are into the right temperature and moisture conditions for lots of fungus issues to attack our plants. For roses, black spot is a serious disease that shows up first as a black spot on the rose leaf. The leaf then turns yellow and falls off. This fungus normally starts on the lower leaves where the foliage is fuller, thus restricting air movement so the leaves stay wet longer when we have…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistJune 11, 2019If you followed my advice for using systemic rose care for your shrub roses when I first wrote about it this year, the product should be reapplied three times per season at six-week intervals, and this is six weeks after that initial application, so give them another treatment. Most roses are at their most vigorous growth period right now, so they will reward you later with more and bigger blooms…
By George Bonnema, Luverne HorticulturalistJune 04, 2019Driving back from Detroit last weekend, I saw several trees infected with tent caterpillar nests, and believe it or not, we have them in Rock County, too. So if you see that white webby mass in the crotch of a tree branch, they’ve found a place to call home. Usually they prefer apple, crabapple or plum trees as a food source. You don’t have to get real radical like cutting the branch out. Just…
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