How to Bring Birds to Your Home Landscape

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How to Bring Birds to Your Home Landscape

Backyard Wisdom - June/July 2021
by: Gilbert A Smith, ISA Board Certified Master Arborist

I got a call from a client this spring (2021) asking me to check her Beech tree this summer and spray any caterpillars that might kill it. This Beech is her favorite tree. I told her that I would do that and not to worry because caterpillars on Beech trees are normal, natural and healthy. She replied with enthusiasm, “Don’t tell me that! I don’t want my tree to die!”

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My Leaves Have These Weird Bumps and Lumps on Them!

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My Leaves Have These Weird Bumps and Lumps on Them!

Mother Nature’s Moment - July 2021
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

It has been a “good” year for funky leaf galls, or a bad year, I guess, depending on how you look at it. Galls are “abnormal vegetable growths caused by various agents, such as, insects, nematodes, fungi, bacteria, viruses, chemicals and or mechanical injury”. When our clients ask about these funny bumps on their tree leaves, I usually stop at the short explanation that they are completely harmless to the tree and normally caused by beneficial insects that lay their eggs in the leaf tissue which causes the strange growth they are seeing.

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