pests

Questions about controlling gophers, moles, squirrels and other critters in your garden? Master Gardeners Gil Patrick and Bonnie Wagner will discuss these and any other animals pests that you have questions about.

If you garden, you're going to deal with insects, disease, weeds and pests. There's so much information available on-line it can be hard to know where to start. Some of the best starting points include:

• University of California pest notes pests in homes, gardens, landscapes, and turf
• Animal Pests: from birds to voles, we've got information and advice for many of the most common troublesome critters
• Weed Management in Landscapes (and a photo gallery of some of the most common weeds)
• Orchard Pests and Diseases -a discussion of integrated pest management from The California Backyard Orchard

There's more too, just look for the links to the left.

The University of California provides many useful resources for home gardeners.

by: Allen Buchinski

Introduction

Nematodes are tiny, round-bodied, unsegmented, worms. Most yards typically have billions of them in the soil, feeding on organic matter, bacteria, insects and plants. Nematodes are one of the most common of all animals, but because they usually can't be seen without a microscope, they aren't very well understood outside the scientific community of nematologists. Approximately 10% of all nematodes feed on plants, living around or in the roots. The most well known is the root knot nematode (Meloidogyne spp.), because of the distinctive galls it causes on infected roots, it's wide distribution, and the wide range of plants that it attacks (including most common vegetables, ornamentals, and fruit trees.)

The following links are to websites outside of the UC domain. No endorsement is intended of products, services or information nor is criticism implied of similar sites that are not mentioned.

Gardening Information

• California Landscape Contractors Association - tips for hiring a landscape professional
• Certified Arborist Lookup - find a certified arborist in your area and learn about basic tree care. 
• Farmers' Markets - find Santa Clara County farmers' markets on the County of Santa Clara website or the Pacific Coast Farmers' Market Accociation website.
• Find a Green Gardener - Santa Clara Valley "Green Gardeners" are trained to maintain your garden using sustainable landscape maintenance practices.
• Master Composters of Santa Clara County - Recycling and composting info and classes
• Soil Testing Laboratories (PDF) Note: there's only one lab in Santa Clara County: Soil & Plant Laboratory in Santa Clara

Gardens and Parks

• Emma Prusch Farm Park - Gardens and farm animals
• Filoli Gardens - Magnificent gardens at an early 20th century country estate in San Mateo County

By: Allen Buchinski – October, 2003

It’s the rare gardener who hasn’t had to deal with powdery mildew (PM). With many different species, each one “tailored” to attack different kinds of plants, it’s one of the most common garden ailments. How common you might ask? Well, a little research on the internet yields the following (although most of us don’t need statistics to believe it!):

• A search for “powdery mildew” on the UC IPM site returns 151 results including 18 pest notes dedicated to PM on specific plants (including vegetables, grapes, ornamentals, fruits and berries, apples, turf grass, lettuce, cucurbits, and tomato. And that’s only half the list!) Plus there’s additional PM info in their on-line tomato and grape disease databases.
• The same search on Google returns 89,000 results including bulletins many university cooperative extension, articles in gardening related sites, discussion forums, and even one with a URL of www.powdery-mildew.com.

Of course, all that proves is it’s common, and we already knew that. So let’s dig a little deeper to learn more about what it is and what we can do about it.

Tuliptree

Scale and aphids have been raising havoc on tuliptrees (Yellow Poplar) throughout Willow Glen in San Jose and beyond for a number of years. The visual cue is the dripping sticky honeydew all over sidewalks and minor to major limb dieback on affected trees. Entomologists from the University of California are conducting research to introduce a beneficial insect a parasitic wasp called Metaphycus flavus to help control the scale. It may have some potential but the results are not yet conclusive. In the meantime, it may be necessary to join together with neighbors and jointly hire a spray company to control the pest where trees are severely affected trees and their survival is threatened. Spraying should be avoided in the wasp release areas.

Sycamore

The sycamores planted as street trees and in home landscapes up until 15 or 20 years ago were almost always seedling Platanus acerifolia (the London Plane tree) rather than one of the two common selected cultivars 'Yarwood' or 'Bloodgood' that have been widely planted since that time. These earlier sycamores get three highly visible and troublesome pests -- Anthracnose, powdery mildew and sycamore scale. The practical solution in most situations is to live with the problem or replant with the most insect and disease resistant cultivar 'Yarwood'.

Last updated: Feb-2004

Opossums are nocturnal scavengers and eat anything, rarely causing damage. They are beneficial to us by eating mice, snail, slugs and insects.

What You Can Do

• Discourage access to rooftops by removing overhanging branches and topping all bushes at least 18 inches below the roofline.
• Install a spark arrester on chimneys to prevent access into house.
• Secure all pet doors at night.
• Remove all pet food at night.
• Repair all vent screens at the base of the house with _ inch hardware cloth.
• Store garbage in metal or tough plastic garbage cans with tight fitting lids.
• Remove all trash piles.
• Electric fence.

What You Can’t Do

• State Law prohibits poisoning.
• If none of the above measures solves the problem satisfactorily, contact the Vector Control District for further assistance.

Resources

• Opossums: Co-existing with Urban Wildlife
• Opossums: The Humane Society

Updated: Feb-2004

Last updated: Feb-2004

Wild pigs have become so numerous and destructive to natural resources, agricultural crops, and private property, that hunting regulations have been relaxed in recent years.