Pest Management

You might be surprised to learn that a few of your favorite ornamental plants are invasive to California and can “escape” your yard causing big problems in the wild. When plants escape landscape and garden boundaries, it is often due to seed distribution or aggressive roots. An invasive plant species can…

Winter rains and damp conditions in many parts of California may have brought a surprise visitor to your lawn: mushrooms! A few mushrooms sprouting in your lawn can be a good sign: it means there's plenty of organic matter in the soil. But if patches of mushrooms are sprinkled across your lawn, something…

Jacqueline Champa, UC Master Gardeners of Placer County  From The Curious Gardener, Fall 2010All summer you looked forward to your first, fresh-picked apple of the season. Picking a beautiful apple off the tree, the only imperfection is a slight red spot on the skin---somewhat like a blossoming…

By Elaine Applebaum, UC Master Gardeners of Placer County Q: I have a lot of nectarines on my tree this year but most have ugly brown and yellow scabby-looking scars on them. They’re also much smaller than the ones in the grocery store. Some of the leaves are curled and distorted, too. What am I…

By Elaine Applebaum, UC Master Gardener of Placer CountyQ: Last year the Master Gardener Office diagnosed nematodes as the cause of my tomato crop and told me to change the location of my tomato bed next year. Unfortunately, I forgot all about it and planted this year’s tomatoes in the same place. Help…

Laurie Meyerpeter, UC Master Gardener of Placer County From The Curious Gardener, Winter 2012Mistletoe. It’s weird, it’s poisonous, it’s a parasite, and yet we love mistletoe so much we manufacture plastic likenesses of the plant to hang it in our homes every winter! Is that weird or…

by Ann Wright, UC Master Gardener of Nevada County From The Curious Gardener, Spring 2022 Weeds—these harbingers of spring can be tough garden pests, challenging even the most seasoned gardeners. There are many ways to manage these unwelcome plants that crowd our new seedlings, sometimes harboring…

By David Warman, UC Master Gardener of Placer County From The Curious Gardener, Winter 2021            Every gardener and homeowner is concerned for the safety of themselves and their family, particularly their children and pets. Using pesticides responsibly will help…

By Bonnie Bradt, UC Master Gardener of Nevada County From The Curious Gardener, Fall 2021Many of us “Foothill Dwellers” love it here, for the enjoyment of the natural world surrounding us. Sometimes however, that natural world comes in the form of critters, large and small, that love the same veggies,…