SACANDAGA GARDEN
CLUB - by Barbara Henry
Courtesy of the Edinburg
Newsletter
A couple of nasty little critters
to remind you
about this month. First the Emerald Ash Borer
that you may have read about in the newspapers
recently since an infestation was found in
Cattaraugus County.
The adult beetle is a metallic
green, around a half inch long. The adults are
active May through August and the ash trees upon
which they feed decline quickly and can be dead
within a few months as the larvae bore into the tree
and cut off its supply of water and nutrients. The
DEC has set up traps to check population and they
have put some in Fulton County. If you see any of
the beetles, do call the DEC and let them know
where and when.
The Asian Long Horn beetle has been
deemed an invasive species in North America.
It infests many hardwood trees – maples, horse chestnuts,
poplars, willows, birches to name just a few. It is a
large black insect, with white spots dashed
irregularly on its body which is about one and a half
inches long. The distinctive long antennae that give
the beetle its common name are as long as the body
in females and almost twice the body length in
males and are also splashed with white. Like the
ash borer, the larvae tunnel into the tree and
disrupt the water and nutrients flow, eventually
killing it. During the summer months the females can chew up to
90 holes into a tree’s bark and they
lay an egg in each of the holes. The eggs hatch in
10-15 days and start chewing. They dig deeper into
the tree as they grow and eventually pupate and
live inside the tree over winter emerging from
spring through as late as October. Watch for
perfectly round exit holes a little less than an half
inch round. Usually they will lay eggs in the same
tree but when the population gets too high they will
migrate in the spring to some other unlucky tree.
Unfortunately no good
controls exist for either beetle though research has shown some
promise. If
you see either of the beetles, do kill them. I’m not
usually in favor of killing anything but wasn’t it Mr.
Spock who said that the needs of the many
outweigh the needs of the few? So in this case, the
survival of our forests and hardwoods definitely
outweigh the life of the emerald ash borer and the
Asian long horn beetle. Also remember that it is
illegal to bring untreated firewood into New York
State. Many pests have hidden in and been
transported by firewood from neighboring states.
I’ve heard some questions about Stella d’Oro
daylilies recently. This was one of the first
reblooming daylilies and many people expect them
to bloom all summer. However, these lilies don’t
rebloom constantly, rather they bloom in waves. Do
deadhead head them because this does encourage
the flowers – take the whole flower off the stem
because the tiny seedpods develop just below the
flower and if those are left on then the plant won’t
flower as much. Also when all the flowers from a
stalk (called a scape) have finished then cut that to
the ground.
If you have taken
your houseplants out for a summer vacation, check that they are
sufficiently
protected. It is always better that you control the
moisture rather than Mother Nature – with all the
rain we’ve had some of those plants could have their
roots sitting in water leading to root rot.
Houseplants are not used to the full summer sun
and many of the older leaves can fall off or get sun
burn. Also when it is time to bring them back in
the plant will have a harder time adjusting to the
much lower light levels and again you will get leaf
drop.
Just a quick note about tomato blight.
We often get early blight which roduces stem cankers, leaf
spots and fruit rot. On the lower leaves you can see
blotches with dark concentric circles. It usually
starts on the lower, older leaves and progresses
upward. It can be controlled by watering early in
the day, removing some of the lower leaves to
prevent water splashing up and if necessary by
spraying with a fungicide.
In July we started
seeing a fairly serious outbreak of late blight on our tomatoes
and
potatoes. It was late blight that was responsible for
the Irish potato famine in the 1840s.
It’s very contagious
and has spread from the plants at retail centers to the home
garden. Many
of the big stores pulled their tomato plants from the
shelves earlier in the season. The first sign is often
brown spots on plant stems, followed by nickel-sized
olive-green or brown spots on the tops of leaves and
fuzzy white fungal growth underneath. Tomato fruit
will show firm, brown spots. Spraying with
fungicides can control it if it’s begun before
symptoms appear, but many plant experts
recommend removing and destroying the plants
instead to prevent spores from traveling. Those
spores can last in the soil from year to year. If the
blight gets into your potato crop you can lose the
entire crop (as happened in Ireland) because within
days of storage the whole crop will suddenly turn
liquid. So be sure to keep a sharp eye on both these
crops.
