Tag: Pests & Weeds

by Connie Oswald Stofko Now is the time to start checking your lilies for the red lily leaf beetle, said John Farfaglia, extension educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Niagara County. A reader gave me a heads up a few days ago that she had spotted them on her fritillaria, an earlier springtime plant that the pests also damage. The red lily leaf beetle, which we first talked about in 2015, is a fairly new invasive species in Western New…...

by Connie Oswald Stofko Maxine Osiewicz of Clarence watched last year as woodchucks decimated her dahlias. “You could see the woodchucks slapping the stems down and eating all the leaves,” she said. Woodchucks (also known as groundhogs) can damage trees and shrubs, too. Woodchucks gnaw or claw woody vegetation, according to a factsheet by Paul  D. Curtis and Kristi L. Sullivan that was produced by Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Wildlife Damage Management Program. Woodchucks also strip bark at the…...

by Connie Oswald Stofko When the weather was hot last week, you might have been one of the many Western New York gardeners who experienced what seemed to be an invasion of brown marmorated stink bugs. The bugs hung outside on window screens, trying to get into the house. And when they did get into the house, they crawled up walls and curtains, looking for a place to settle down for the winter. My husband and I killed two dozen…...