Falling Sycamore Leaves

Yesterday, I came home to this:


A smattering of crinkly Sycamore leaves on my lawn. This happens every time we have a cool, wet spring. One of our foresters calls it "Wet Weather Disease." It's technical name is Sycamore Anthracnose.

Are you raking leaves in May, too?

Dirt "Tunnels" in Your Lawn?

A Ryan Lawn & Tree turf manager points out vole damage in Kansas City.

We have gotten quite a few calls from homeowners in the area who have bare "tunnels" in their lawns.

Most likely, this is vole damage. Voles, closely related to field mice, cause more damage in winters where there is snow on the ground a lot of the time (we've discussed the snow that never seemed to end this year).

During these chilly, wet winters, the voles create meandering tunnels in the snow, on top of the lawn. Because it takes a lot of energy to build these snow tunnels, the voles run the same path over, and over, and over. As a result, they wear a path in the lawn and kill the grass.

Take a look around the hard surfaces in your landscape - next to a sidewalk or driveway. Voles will make their nest beneath these surfaces. If you want to rid yourself of these pests, stick a bait station under your driveway in the vole nest (if you can find it). (Be careful, these bait stations can be harmful to pets.)

If you have some bluegrass in your lawn, the bare areas should fill in this April or May. You can also seed this bare spots sometime in the next few weeks.

*The difference between mole and vole damage? Moles actually tunnel beneath the grass creating raised mounds. Voles travel on top of the grass, creating worn paths.

Anthracnose

I noticed I have anthracnose on my oak leaf hydrangeas. I took a picture of one of the leaves that display the most symptoms. Anthracnose fungi thrive in cool, moist environments (commonly experienced in the spring). The leaves that have emerged since earlier in the season are not displaying symptoms.

Anthracnose is a general term for a variety of fungal diseases that affect numerous plants. (Different species of fungi infect different plants.) Symptoms on leaves include brown or black spots, or numerous specks. If leaves are badly infected, they can die and fall off. Although symptoms are most common on leaves, antracnose can occur on other parts of the plant (including fruit).

To minimize anthracnose on your plants, promote air circulation by pruning your trees and shrubs. Also, clean up infected leaves and dispose of them to minimize re-infection when the conditions become favorable once again.

Rain Sensors

Last night we received heavy thunderstorms and rain around the Kansas City metro and surrounding areas. This is the second day of heavy rains (and we had more rain last week). I thought this was the perfect time to highlight the benefits of installing a rain sensor for your sprinkler system. Rain sensors prevent your sprinkler system from running when rain is received.

We have a rain sensor installed on our sprinkler system. (I took this picture of ours.) This one is a wired rain sensor; rain sensors can also be wireless. This small investment has saved us money in water many times over. If you don't have a rain sensor installed on your system, call an irrigation company (like Ryan Lawn and Tree) to have one installed.

Can you believe it?

Last week, I was so excited to see some of my bulbs start to come up:


Then, over the weekend, nature brought us this:

I am sure spring will get here eventually, but I am starting to get impatient.