July 2020

  By Sandra Nelson   Have you ever noticed that every season we have new marketing buzzwords directed toward us? Most of the time they seem so contrived to me  ( I must be entering the curmudgeon stage of life ) but this year one did catch my eye. Almost every design article I’ve read …

  By Sandra Nelson   I honestly thought that they had passed me by.  Then, this happened and I knew that my time was coming….Japanese beetles had arrived.     Accidentally introduced in 1916, the Japanese beetle has become one of the challenging of the insect pests to eradicate from the home landscape. Currently found …

  By Sandra Nelson  

July 1959 was an exciting time for my family; It was the year that my father made his mark on our neighborhood. He became a local celebrity by turning our backyard into what was then considered a lavish outdoor living space. Fired up by pictures he saw in magazines, my …

  By Sandra Nelson     Technically not a spider or an insect, the spider mite is a member of the arachnid family. (In case you’ve forgotten your grade school science, arachnids are invertebrates with exoskeletons, segmented bodies and at least three pairs of jointed legs.)  World wide there are literally thousands of varieties of …

  By Sandra Nelson   While outdoor kitchens have been at the top of homeowners’ wish lists for the last few years, ideas about what those kitchens should look like are beginning to change. No longer just a spot to grill, outdoor kitchens today are fast becoming the heart of outdoor living. They include options …

  By Sandra Nelson   Hanging like little Christmas ornaments from their host plants, these benign looking sacs are home to one of the more formidable insect enemies of the summer.   BAGWORMS         Bagworms, or more precisely Thyridopteryx ephemeraformis, feed on over 128 different species of common landscaping plants. Among their …

By Sandra Nelson   My daughter recently lamented that swimming pools are the new toilet paper this summer  —  not to be found anywhere. She moaned that she missed being outdoors, enjoying her surroundings and dangling her feet in the water while the kids splashed and played. Granted, she was talking about a kiddie pool …

By Sandra Nelson   Here in the Midwest, July seems to be the time when the insects take over the garden. Just this morning I found this critter hanging out in my carrot patch.     I was about to send him to the great caterpillar resting spot in the sky when a little voice …