Maureen Wise

Ticks are parasitic arthropods that feed on the blood of mammals. (What a gross sentence!) They’re kind of like tiny vampires that can give their hosts debilitating diseases. It's fair to say that everyone wants to prevent getting a tick attached to their body, their kids or their pets. We are happy to share some Earth-friendly ways to prevent ticks in your backyard, without chemicals that can be harmful to beneficial insects, pollinators, pets, kids and waterways.

In the Spring, we get excited about caring for our lawns and gardens after a cold, white Winter. Not many flowers are blooming in the gardens in the Midwest in April and May but yellow dandelions and purple violets are blooming in the lawn. Your neighbors may not like these flowers but we want you to reconsider your ideas about Wild Violets.
We encourage you to embrace the Wild Violets in your lawn.

Hairy Bittercress, ​​(Cardamine hirsuta), is a member of the mustard family and is considered a Winter annual weed. Sometimes the weed can act as a Summer annual or biennial, depending on the weather and climate. In the Midwest, it’s a Winter annual, which means the seeds overwinter, germinate sometime in the late Fall, and start growing in the Spring. Hairy Wintercress is one of the first weeds to emerge in gardens after the snows melt.

Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea) is known by many names including Creeping Charlie, Creeping Jenny, field balm, cats-foot, ale-hoof, and inch weed (because it spreads an inch a day). This weed is very hardy and is found in gardens, lawns, sidewalks and driveway cracks, as well as along building foundations. Unfortunately, this creeping weed is a perennial and so remains year after year and usually continues to be green during milder Winters.

Our waste and what to do with it is a big part of our world’s climate change solutions. Left over, scrap, and uneaten food is part of this problem. If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gasses in the world, behind China and the United States. Happily, food waste is something we can address at our own homes and don’t need to rely others to do the work for us.

Nimblewill (Muhlenbergia schreberi) is a dense, fine-textured, perennial, warm-season grass that stays green in hot weather and turns brown at the first frost when the weather turns. Nimblewill grows best in moist, shady conditions but will grow in sunny, dry locations as well. It has a light to blue-green color and patches can look fuzzy compared to the rest of a green lawn. This weedy grass spreads through both seeds and by stolons (above ground roots) and tends to creep...

Yellow Nutsedge ​​(Cyperus esculentus) is a common turfgrass weed in the Midwest. It looks a lot like grass, but is brighter yellow-green and shinier than turfgrass. It also grows faster than grass at the height of the Summer and therefore pokes above the rest of the lawn. When picked, you can tell that Yellow Nutsedge is not grass because the stem is not flat, but instead triangular.

Moles are small rodents that dig tunnels underground. They’re smaller than you think, only six to eight inches long, which is about the size of a chipmunk. There are only six mole species in the United States and only three that hang out in lawns in the Midwest: the Eastern Mole (Scalopus aquaticus), Hairy-Tailed Mole (Parascalops breweri), and Star-Nosed Mole (Condylura cristata).

Japanese Beetles (Popillia japonica) are invasive species originally from Japan where they cause little damage. They were discovered in New Jersey in 1916 where they were accidentally introduced and have since spread to much of the United States, moving westward. They have no effective natural enemies in the States, and therefore thrive in the Midwest, as far west as the north-south line from Minnesota down to Arkansas, and every state east of the Mississippi River,...

What Is Moss?
There are many varieties of mosses that grow in the Midwest but we are going to just “clump” them all together for the purpose of this conversation. Mosses are generally low-growing, herbaceous (non-woody), flowerless, non-vascular (no xylem or phloem system) plants. They do not propagate via seeds, but use spores thrown to the wind to spread.

If you cook, you have food waste. After meal prep, you’re left with the onion skins, the carrot tops, the lettuce nubs, the corncobs, the zucchini ends, the broccoli stems, the pepper innards. There are also chicken bones, salmon skins, and beef fat. We are also left with tea bags and coffee grounds.

Soil is more than just the dirt under our feet that helps plants grow. Soil contains millions of tiny organisms including algae, bacteria, and fungus, as well as minerals, water, and other organic matter. The value of soil is often overlooked, but its importance to the quality of the plants it grows is obvious. If your grass and landscaping are lacking luster, you may have poor soil.

What Is Lesser Celandine?
Lesser Celandine is a low-growing perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family. It’s also known as fig buttercup or pilewort. Its scientific name was changed from Ranucuculus ficaria to Ficaria verna. The plant has thick, dark green, heart-shaped leaves. Lesser Celandine has glossy, bright yellow flowers with seven to twelve petals that grow one per stalk. Stems of the flowers are tall for the short leaves.

We know that most people consider Spring and Summer to be the most important times of year to maintain and care for their lawns. In Autumn, most homeowners are more concerned about getting rid of fallen leaves and putting up Christmas decorations. We’d like to encourage you to keep paying attention to your lawn for a few more months!