Spiders! At Least Their Webs

As I walked around the garden at the Extension office this morning, I was overwhelmed by spider webs. They were everywhere! Here's a few shots of what I saw this morning:

On pineapple sage

Along the walkway

In the yard (that's not cotton balls thrown out there!)

Between hosta flowering stems

Good ol' garden spider (this was a BIG one)

On the daphne

Between coneflower leaves

On boxwoods (there would be 7 or 8 webs per boxwood!)

Top 5 Reasons to Go to a Farmers' Market

Drumroll.....and I'm not as good as David Letterman's writers....

5. Socializing is a big part of going, and we all like to talk.
4. Where else can you have an intelligent conversation about 12 different cultivars of tomato?
3. TENTS! They just make for a party atmosphere!
2. If you buy from them, they might make enough money not to turn their farm into a subdivision.
And the #1 reason to go to a farmers' market....
1. GOOD FOOD, produced by people you can look in the eye!

Downtown Somerset Farmers' Market open on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 7am til sellout.
Somerset Farmers' Market at the Mall open on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 8am til 2pm.

Put Pruning Equipment Away

It's the time of year when I begin highly discouraging the use of pruners, loppers, saws, or any other implement used to cut woody plants. I usually tell people to just forget about pruning trees or shrubs from about the middle of August through leaf drop.

The why, if you think about it, is quite logical. Pruning sort of re-invigorates the plant. Makes the plant want to send out new shoots. If a little new shoot emerges below a pruning cut that's made September 1, it usually won't have time to produce wood and harden off completely before our first frost (about October 15). That makes for a dead little shoot.

Unfortunately, this dead shoot can then be the entryway for rotting organisms, like fungi or bacteria. Once they're in, they're in. And the rotting will begin.

The link above is UK's publication called 'Pruning Landscape Trees'. Here's the link to another called 'Pruning Landscape Shrubs'.