Recent Posts
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March Madness is winding down for college basketball championships, NHL teams are qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the baseball season is just starting up. It’s fun to cheer for our favorite sports champions, but have you ever thought about the trees that make sports possible? Maples provide hardwood flooring for basketball courts. Maple…
Posted in: ANR -
I’m feeling rather smug. It’s been four weeks since our most recent effort to keep squirrels from nesting in our gutters, and we still haven’t heard them skittering across the roof. Gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are the most common squirrel species in Georgia. Although they’re forest creatures that utilize tree canopies as transportation corridors, squirrels…
Posted in: ANR -
Each year, local students in 7th through 12th grade submit a Portfolio to the local Extension Office to signify their intent to participate in Junior/Senior Project Achievement in March. Portfolios are a celebration of youth’s work and accomplishments over the last calendar year. The document is two pages long and highlights the student’s work in…
Posted in: 4-H -
As is the case with many invasive plants, the Callery pear tree was brought to the U.S. with good intentions. According to the U.S. Forest Service, a USDA employee imported Pyrus calleryana from Asia in 1917 to impart blight resistance and increase fruit productivity of European pear trees under cultivation. One cultivar, P. calleryana ‘Bradford’,…
Posted in: ANR -
I’ve recently been in contact with a client who had questions about installing sod on the “gravel, clay, and dirt” yard of their new house. She was wondering if she should do a soil test. While the answer is yes, a soil test is only the first of several actions needed to prepare a construction…
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While most boring beetles attack only dead and dying trees, non-native granulate ambrosia beetles (Xylosandrus crassiusculus), formerly known as Asian ambrosia beetles, also attack many species of healthy young trees. They tend to attack deciduous trees with thin bark, such as maple, dogwood, redbud, crape myrtle, ornamental cherry, fig, peach, and plum trees. Granulate ambrosia…
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Erythritol is a type of carbohydrate called a sugar alcohol or polyol. Sugar alcohols taste about 70 percent as sweet as typical sweeteners – like table sugar – but provide far fewer calories. This is because our bodies digest sugar alcohols differently than sugar. Sugar alcohols are commonly used in sugar-free products like sugarless gum,…
Posted in: FACS -
In a typical summer, over 8,000 youth ages 9 to 18, accompanied by over 1,000 adult and teen leaders, travel to Georgia’s five unique 4-H centers for a week of camp that will be remembered and cherished for years to come. The opportunity to attend summer camp is beneficial for youth in numerous ways. For…
Posted in: 4-H -
Late February to mid-March, before plants emerge from dormancy, is the time prune trees and shrubs and apply pre-emergence herbicides to lawns. Pruning basics Pruning is healthy for plants. Strategic pruning stimulates growth and flowering and also opens the canopy to improve airflow and light infiltration for disease prevention. Aesthetically, pruning helps us maintain the…
Posted in: ANR -
For beginning birders, listening to experienced birdwatchers effortlessly differentiate between a Carolina and a black-capped chickadee, compare their life lists, and discuss their travels to see specific bird species can be daunting. But enjoying watching birds doesn’t need to be complicated, especially if we start with the birds in our own backyards. My philosophy around…
Posted in: ANR