Fall is an ideal time to complete many lawn maintenance practices. This is the most important time to focus on mowing, fertilizing, aerating, weed control, and seeding. The work you do on your lawn in the fall helps it recover from the stress of summer and prepares it for winter, allowing it to look its best next spring.
Garden Trivia
What is the best way to propagate your favorite apple tree?
Along with mums and pumpkins, ornamental is often used to decorate homes in the fall. Ornamental corn can be purchased at farmer’s markets, roadside stands, craft shows, garden centers, and other locations. Ornamental corn can also be grown in large home gardens.
Bulb forcing can bring the bright colors and fragrances of spring indoors during winter. Daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, crocuses, and other spring flowering bulbs can be forced indoors from December through March. Learn all about how to force spring-flowering bulbs indoors!
Have a little fun and watch the latest episode of The Undergrowth. We speak to celebrated scientists and eminent educators about plants and pests. Join us as we embrace knowledge together on this expedition into mysterious realms. Sebastian speaks with Dr. Jeff Iles, an extension horticulturist, professor, and Horticulture Department chair at Iowa State University about caring for trees.
A common sight in the Iowa landscape this summer has been patches of ~2-10 dead leaves occurring randomly scattered throughout oak tree canopies. Most leaves, however, remain unaffected. This condition (called flagging) does not discriminate between the various species of oak and has been reported on red, white, and bur oaks but seems most prominent on older oaks than young or newly planted trees.
Knowing when to harvest your grapes is a crucial skill for any grape grower. Unlike some fruits that continue to ripen after being picked, grapes reach their optimal ripeness on the vine. Therefore, it's essential to ensure they're ready before you start harvesting. Learn how to harvest grapes!
All-America Selections has been trialing edible and ornamental plants for over 90 years, presenting awards to entries that will impress home gardeners with their performance regionally or nationally. There have been plenty of exciting new winners that merit a place in your garden that will be highlighted in this series.
Multicolored Asian Lady Beetles (MALB) and Fall Fruit: Why you should look before you eat
Multicolored Asian Lady Beetles (MALB) are a beneficial insect that often feeds on soybean aphids. One negative of the fall crops dying off is that some of the insects that were living in those fields are now looking for alternative food sources such as apples, grapes, and fall raspberries. As a result, some fruit growers have seen increases in the populations of MALB.
If you have a favorite apple in your backyard but do not know what variety it may be, it's not possible to go to the garden center and buy another one just like it. To get more of the same tree, propagating it by cuttings or grafting is the best option. Apples are highly variable from seed so the apples that develop on a tree grown from seed will not be the same as the parent. (Although it is a fun project to grow apples from seed!)
