Fountains and Pondless Waterfalls
Winter weather is here again and my thoughts turn to dreams of lush, brightly colored landscapes, afloat with perennials, shrubs, and flowing water. I have known many landscapes through my work in Kansas and Nebraska, but none have seemed quite complete without a water feature. Water can be displayed in many forms, from large, open […]
What Will Grow Near a Black Walnut Tree?
Black Walnut trees are wonderful if you are a cabinet maker, eat the walnuts, or leave them as forage for wildlife, or use the husks to make a colorfast dye. But if you are a gardener, they provide a challenge, to say the least. A toxic chemical, juglone, diffuses from the roots into the soil, […]
What Stays, What Goes: Pruning Technique
Do you have a young tree, just a few years planted in your yard? Maybe you have a medium sized tree that is rubbing against your house and making creepy sounds. If you have either, you probably need to prune. The question is, “Where do I start??” To begin: First you need to inspect your […]
What is a Landscape?
What is it that makes a landscape a landscape? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a landscape as an area of land that has a particular quality or appearance. We, as landscape designers define it further as a grouping of outdoor rooms which display various plant materials and are anchored by hardscapes and water features. Too […]
Kansas Turfgrass Conference
Good morning all! The last two days were spent in classes at the Topeka Expo Center for the annual Kansas Turfgrass Conference. Greg Strahm, Neil Lednickey, Doug Grimm and I were at the center of it all for learning and networking with landscape and turfgrass professionals. On Tuesday morning we arrived with high […]
Christmas Cactus
by Nadine Champlin, Landscape Designer The Christmas Cactus has been a favorite houseplant for me for many years. It isn’t unusual for a single plant to be passed down from generations because it is tough and survives with neglect. This is the kind of houseplants people need that have busy lives. I have read […]
Three Diseases found in 2014
What a year this has been! With some of the coldest recorded winter days, a very wet spring and fall, and an exceptionally cool summer; we have seen a record amount of diseases popping up in landscapes across northeast Kansas and southeast Nebraska. Typically, my consulting covers scorching, chemical drift, and wilting on trees and […]
Weed Files: Poison Hemlock
This biennial forb was introduced from Europe. It grows 3 to 10 feet tall and has white flowers resembling carrot. The leaves are ferny, and can often be confused with Queen Anne’s lace and wild carrot. All parts of the plant are poisonous. It should be removed from garden beds and any remaining roots […]
Barkophile
Being a tree person leads to many different obsessions – fall color, fruit, shade, and bark. I first heard the term barkophile, not an actual word but very real, used at a conference in Iowa last winter. It has been used to describe arborists and landscapers who seek out trees for their bark characteristics. Everything […]
