Are you never sure of which blue or purple is you? Well now is the time to try them all! At 50% Off, you can’t go wrong (until 7/15/11).

Artists and gardeners use blue to show perspective. Blue gives a feeling of distance.  It allows us to look beyond and increase our perspective outward. Plants that have blue, violet or lilac flowers are said to be soothing on the eye and hence the soul.

Blue Energy: Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism thus producing tranquility and calmness. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, confidence & wisdom.

Put some blue in your life when you want:

• calm and relaxation to counteract chaos

• to open the flow of communication

• to broaden your perspective in learning

• solitude and peace

Come visit for the cure of the summertime blues!

planting for the future.

-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery

The roller coaster weather pattern we experienced this spring switched back to prolonged wet and chilly weather last week. While the moisture was needed as soils were quite dry, the constant wetness creates ideal conditions for disease causing organisms. Disease causing organisms are natural inhabitants of the soil and infect grass plants when the environmental conditions are favorable or the plants become weakened by poor growing conditions.  The pathogen is favored by warm, humid weather, wet or compacted soil, drought stress, and low mowing heights.

The spores of these parasitic forms of plant life are spread by wind, air, water, animals, people, insects and mowing.

Important steps to manage plant diseases include proper soil preparation, proper selection of grass seed including ones with a natural genetic resistance to diseases, and application of proper cultural practices.

If you have a fungus, spraying now with Dr. Earth Natural & Organic Fungicide effectively combats a broad spectrum of fungal diseases found in your lawn, on your vegetables, flowers & shrubs. Dr. Earth can be used both as a foliar spray for your plants or a soil drench for your lawn & trees.

Once you have sprayed the fungicide, you should then fertilize your lawn & your plants with Fire Belly Bio-Blast to reintroduce beneficial mycorrhizal fungi.

Healthy soils that have the ability to fight off disease causing pathogens increase the chances of plant survival and thus control the pathogens so they will not multiply in great numbers.  Beneficial microbes fill up the available spaces in the soil so that pathogens cannot become established and destroy healthy plants.

Most lawns recover with changes in environmental conditions and proper cultural practices. For severe cases due to poor soil, poor grass selection, or excessive thatch, the best solution may be renovation. Please give us a call with any questions or to schedule a courtesy consultation for a lawn renovation.

planting for the future.

-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery

Starting September 24th and going through October 1st, ‘Boston Fashion Week has served as a fertile proving ground for fashion talents and now is the ideal time of year for locals to explore new ideas and express themselves.’

This season, the Thayer Nursery Fall 2010 collections include:

Conservative Glamour: ‘return to quality and classic style- that have real staying power. streamlined simplicity in a muted color palette.’

Echinacea ‘summer skies’, Pennisetum ‘karly rose’ &
Heuchera ‘marmalade’

Eccentric Ladylike: ‘not afraid of color — lots of bold ones paired together in seemingly off combos that as a whole work wonderfully. quirky combinations with mixed prints. mixing of patterns …and pulling together disparate motifs. A perennial muse who, even in the most minimal of moments, pops up somewhere unexpectedly.

Rudbekia ‘indian summer’, Aster ‘henry 1’ & Dryopteris ‘autumn’

Bohemian Rhapsody: ‘like a posh Stevie Nicks minus the frayed edges.  flowy, flowery frocks. an artier take on boho with tons of froth, frills, layers and anything that will flutter in a light breeze.’

Buddleia ‘pink delight’, Hibiscus ‘brandy punch’, Lavender ‘munstead’ &  the fairy  Rose

Urban Warrior: ‘prefers minimal to more, and who definitely loves a little luxe.’

Pennisetum ‘maudry’,  Heuchera ‘Beaujolais’  & Echinacea ‘fatal attraction’

stop by and check out our Newest Arrivals and

make your garden one of this falls Best Dressed.

We think there is an easier way: Dr. Earth. Go straight to Dr. Earth. Do not pass go, do not take any detours.

This company, founded 17 years ago by plant biology expert, Milo Shammas, is the best source, we feel, for knowledge, products, and  inspiration.  You will discover the root of organic integrity and along the way, the best garden of your life.

The Dr. Earth products are the very first to combine beneficial living soil organisms, (microbes), with organic fertilizers, to create a bio-technical breakthrough that is revolutionizing the gardening and landscape industries.

At Thayer Nursery Landscaping and Garden Center, we’re proud to offer the Dr. Earth line of products.

Wanted For: defoliating apple leaves & for just being gross!!

Description: bright yellow-orange-red spots on apple leaves and orange galls with ‘horns’

Hangout: juniper (eastern red cedar) & apple trees including crabapples

Kryptonite: Lime –Sulfur Spray, Home Orchard Spray

The fungus that causes this disease moves back-and-forth between Eastern red cedars (actually junipers) and both fruiting & ornamental apple trees.  In order to complete its life cycle this fungus must spend part of its life on both. Therefore, it is possible to eliminate the disease by eliminating the cedars within the given area of the apple tree. However, the spores can be wind borne up to 2-3 miles, so eradication of the disease is often impossible or impractical. Nonetheless, if cedars are not too numerous on your property, the removal of junipers around the immediate apple tree can certainly reduce the spores reaching the apple foliage & fruit.

The spores drift through the air mostly at night and early morning. If it lands on the apple’s leaves & fruit and remains wet for 4-6 hours, the spores infect the leaves of the apple tree. After several weeks, yellow spots develop on the infected apple leaves and fruit. By mid-summer the spots appear slightly raised and light-colored & are visible on the underside of the leaf. Spores are released and the wind carries them to nearby junipers. Infected juniper needles and twigs show no symptoms of infection initially. Inspect them closely the next spring for small, green swellings (immature galls). The galls reach full size by the end of the next growing season but do not mature and develop the orange gelatinous tendrils until the following spring (about 20 months after infection.) This bizarre-looking structure is actually the fruiting stage of the fungus. The “horns” release the spores that infect the apple trees.

Many sulfur fungicides are effective against rust. Begin spraying in spring and repeat throughout the summer as needed. Spraying the juniper is not recommended because cedar-apple rust rarely causes significant damage to this host. Prune dormant galls from juniper during the fall, winter and early spring before the orange tendrils begin to erupt from galls.

planting for the future.

-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery

Wanted For: an invasive species that dines on & destroys ornamental lilies, also exhibits an interesting habit of personal hygiene – covering themselves with their own excrement

Description: beetle has bright scarlet body & black legs, head, & antennae and the Larvae resemble slugs with swollen orange, brown, yellowish or even greenish bodies and black heads

Hangout: asiatic lilies

Kryptonite: Neem, Spinosad, Pyrethrins

The adult beetles stay alive throughout the winter and emerge early in the spring, when they begin looking for food and a mate. The adult females lay their eggs on the underside of lily leaves and the females produce between 250 and 450 eggs. The eggs appear in April or May and hatch within eight days.

The young larvae feed on the underside and the upper surface of lily leaves and sometimes on lily buds. This feeding period, which lasts 16 to 24 days, is the most destructive. From there, the beetles drop to the soil and pupate, emerging as adults about 16 to 22 days later & feed throughout the rest of the growing season.

And their personal hygiene leaves something to be desired: they secrete and carry their excrement on their backs. While they feed, the lily leaf beetles cover their bodies with their own excrement, giving them a grotesque appearance. It is some sort of defensive mechanism – it makes them look like a bird dropping, warding off predators and parasites.

If you only have a few plants in your garden, hand-picking adults and eggs can be effective (we prefer not to handle larvae, although there is no danger in doing so). Neem is most effective – it will repel beetles and kill young larvae, but must be applied every 5 to 7 days after the eggs hatch. Spinosad will kill the larvae.

planting for the future.

-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery

Blossom end rot looks like the bottom of the tomato is rotting away. The bottom is shrunken and black.

Blossom-end rot is a physiologic disorder associated with calcium. Calcium is required for normal cell growth. When a rapidly growing fruit is deprived of necessary calcium, the tissues break down, leaving sunken lesion at the blossom end. Blossom-end rot is induced when demand for calcium exceeds supply. This may result from low calcium levels, drought stress, excessive soil moisture fluctuations as well as rapid, vegetative growth due to excessive nitrogen. This reduces uptake and movement of calcium into the plant.

Simply, it is a lack of calcium & a watering problem. The plant needed calcium at some point in its development of the fruit and there wasn’t enough water to transport the calcium up to the fruit. So this condition develops.

The solution is to fertilize with Calcium (FOLI-CAL) and be consistent with your watering.

Monterey FOLI-CAL

Tomato Cracking

Cracking of the skins is mostly a problem of inconsistent watering or water availability. The plants take it up and grow too quickly for the skins to expand. It mostly seems to happen when you water after a dry spell.

The solution is to water more thoroughly and more consistently. You will get more consistency and far fewer cracks.

-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery

Blight One: Septoria Leaf Spot

Septoria Leaf Spot is the most common blight, and it appears roughly around the end of July and starts out as small round black or brown rotting marks on the lowest leaves. It works its way up the plant to hit all the leaves but it starts from the bottom first. You will still get fruit if you have this problem.

Blight Two: Early Blight

Early Blight is the second most regularly seen tomato blight. It usually appears about the same time as the Septoria but it has concentric target-shaped marks, the spots on the leaves look like targets with circles within circles. This tomato blight spreads all over the plant and you will still get fruit but the crop will be reduced.

Blight Three: Late Blight

Late Blight is the least common of these tomato blights. It appears later than the previous two and the first symptoms you will see are watery type lesions on the lower leaves. If you get this one, you won’t have to ask what you have because the elapsed time from the time you first see it to the time the plant wilts and dies is about a week. If your tomato plants simply shrivel up and die with big brown spots on the leaves and it seems to happen overnight, your plants are suffering from Late Blight.

What Can Be Done

Generally if you’ve already seen the problem, there’s not a lot you can do. A preventative organic spray of Lime-Sulphur or Serenade mix will slow down the spread of Septoria and Early Blight but the real key is in the prevention of the problem. The cure rests in good gardening techniques rather than any kind of magic spray.

Mulch
Mulching will reduce the stress on the plant and it will prevent “splash-back” from the ground to lower leaves during rainstorms. The lower leaves on tomato plants tend to be dirt splashed because rain or irrigation tends to splash dirt up. This dirt can contain the spores for blight.

Rotate Crop
Do not plant any crop in the same place more than one year. Planting in the same spot from year to year is simply an invitation to problems. Spores build up in the soil and there’s little you can do to prevent them from using your tomatoes as a food source.

Don’t Water At Night
Do not water in the evening. You want your leaves to be dry going into the evening. Damp leaves & dark conditions are ideal for spore starting and keeping those leaves dry is the way to keep them healthy.

Do Not Crowd
You really do need to space tomato plants apart. Staking the plants and giving them at least two square feet each is the best way to keep the leaves dry. Also prune off the lower leaves. This lets the air and sunlight into the fruit and it also reduces watersplash.

Don’t Compost
The average composter does not get hot enough to kill the overwintering spores so the best thing you can do is bag up the waste.
If you see a branch with a problem, prune it out immediately. Do not let it sit on the plant to infect all other parts of the plant. Also, pull out any weeds from around your plants – they reduce air circulation, suck up nutrients and can act as a host for tomato blight.

Select Disease Resistant Plants
If you have a problem with tomato blight, plant cultivars with disease resistance. Look for letters after the name of the plant that might say “V” for verticillium resistant, or “F” for fusarium resistant. While not specifically blight resistant, they do have better overall resistance to tomato blight problems than those without those initials.

-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery

Wanted For: sucking the life out of innocent rose bushes with their needle-like mouth

Description: pinkish, greenish white; 1/16″ long & soft-bodied

Hangout: rose bushes; especially on stems, buds and young leaves

Kryptonite: Saf-t-Side Horticultural Oil, Bt & Lady Bugs

So Long, Suckers!

There are almost as many kinds of aphids as there are kinds of plants –rose aphid is just one example. Rose aphids prepare for next spring’s assault by laying hundreds of eggs on the branches of the rose bush. After the young aphids hatch, they spend their entire lives gorging on their victim’s life juices and producing more criminals. Too many on one bush can force some aphids to move and begin attacking another rose bush. Unless winters are mild, adults will die and only the eggs will survive until the next spring.

Not only should you learn about aphids, but you should also get to know the squadron of beneficial insects covering the area. Many hunt down aphids, restoring law and order.

However, aphids aren’t just sitting ducks-they have ants for bodyguards. Ants will tend aphids for their honeydew and protect them from aphid-eaters, so look for ways to deter ants, too.

Aphids reproduce quickly, actually giving birth to females that are already pregnant, so keep good records of changes in population size and tactics you used to control them.

CAUTION

aphids let diseases hitch a ride on their backs to new plants & then puncture plants for them so watch out for a fungus popping up at the same time as an aphid infestation

Planting for the future.

-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery

New England turf lawns actively grow in the spring and in the fall; in summer they are dormant, so now is the time is for “Black Gold” to do its magic.  It takes patience to adopt this organic approach, but with top dressing, your lawn will be green earlier and stronger throughout the summer.

Here’s how it works.
Cut your lawn extremely low; use the lowest setting on your mower as possible.

Aerate the lawn. Aeration is the process of using a mechanical or manual lawn aerator to make holes in the surface of your lawn. Making holes in the surface of your lawn allows deeper root growth and reduces soil compaction. When you aerate your lawn, you allow air, water, and nutrients direct access to the root system.

Spread (also called “broadcasting”) using a shovel, ¼ “layer of compost on the lawn.

Comb the compost into the lawn with a level rake.

Spread fertilizer, lime and seed.

Drag rake across the lawn to till in these items.

Sprinkle a bit more compost, adding peat moss to cover and retain moisture.

Water in and keep seed moist for 3 weeks; try to water twice a day.

This approach is very beneficial to your lawn, and when coupled with proper cultural process, i.e. mowing high in the summer heat, and watering deeply and infrequently, (watering in short intervals does not create a sustainable lawn) your lawn will love you!

If you have any questions, or want to learn more about top dressing, stop by the nursery at 270 Hillside Street Milton MA or give us a call at 617-698-2005.