Oct 7, 2022Growing Season Finale: Cool & Cloudy, LDS, Grub Damage, and Divot Repair ResearchAfter a long stretch of dry conditions, it finally ended. Yes, it finally rained in the Chicago suburbs this week. If you hadn’t noticed, much of September and the start of October was without rain (dry). We weren’t complaining because this uninterrupted period of good weather allowed much to be…6 min read6 min read
Sep 30, 2022October Arrives! Chilly Low Temps, Dollar Spot Research Ends, Broadleaf Weeds, and Fairway DataAs October begins, the air temps tell us it is now fall without a doubt. Cool temperatures are consistently upon us with nighttime lows dipping into the 40s. In September we were relatively dry and would experience a day or two each week which felt like summer. It was a…8 min read8 min read
Sep 23, 2022Cooler: Dollar Spot Eases, Scalp Injury, Leaf Spots, and Golf Tee ResearchTime moves fast. It is now the end of September. How did that happen? In a week we would experience temperatures that reminded us of midsummer (90+ for highs). But it wouldn’t last. The usual signs of fall are now in the landscape. For example, thornless honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos…7 min read7 min read
Sep 16, 2022Big Rain: Field Day, Cyanobacteria?, Peak Dollar Spot, Seed Germination, White Grubs, and Divot ResearchBig rains change a lot of things in a growing season. Just when you were tired of my repetitive use of the word “Dry”. I did that for about a month. It now ends. Plants are wonderful because they are resilient. As an autotroph they are back in the saddle…8 min read8 min read
Sep 9, 2022September! Perfect Temps, Dollar Spot Pounces, Dry Continues, and Fall Divot ResearchWe made it to our first month of fall. If you closed your eyes this week outdoors you might have imaged you were somewhere else. Where the weather is perfect. When you opened your eyes you were right here — in the upper Midwest or Chicago for some of us…6 min read6 min read
Sep 2, 2022Labor Day! Dry, LDS, Dollar Spot Aggravates Fairways and Crabgrass ResearchJust as we were winding down, summer’s heat cranked up (highs in the upper 80s) to end the final week of August. Nevertheless, summer 2022 will go down with a whimper as far as sustained heat goes. It just means the number of days with high temperatures at or above…6 min read6 min read
Aug 26, 2022August Woes: LDS, Scalp Injury, Rust Begins, and Fineleaf Fescue ResearchIf it seems like the days and weeks are now moving at a faster pace, it’s true. I've been counting hours of daylight. Have you? Our daylight has been decreasing since about the third week of June. My first lessons in the details of light needed for photosynthesis came from…7 min read7 min read
Aug 19, 2022Dry Conditions: Fairy Ring, Anthracnose, Summer Patch and Divot ResearchAnd just like that. Temperatures at night have cooled and it feels like fall. However, in the landscape Chicago’s cool-season lawns are beginning to look more and more dilapidated and dry. It was the second week in a row without any appreciable rainfall for a majority of us. The last…6 min read6 min read
Aug 12, 2022Summer Heat Breaks: Dollar Spot, Brown Patch and Sand Bunker ResearchIt’s August after all, and so when our forecasted temperatures began looking more like September it was surprising to say the least. A reprieve from 90 degree highs — dog days of summer — is always welcome. Meanwhile, in the landscape it was increasingly difficult not to notice hydrangeas. One…6 min read6 min read
Aug 5, 2022Dog Days of Summer! Humid Week, Volunteering, Dollar Spot, Summer Patch, UW Field Day and ResearchIt was a hot, humid, cloudy week. Yes, we are now experiencing the dog days of summer and the cicadas are singing. It was in the forecast and was expected. Extreme heat, daily highs at or above 90 degrees, didn’t exactly materialize for Chicago. Nevertheless, we were ready to react…8 min read8 min read
