PHC Matters

Soil amendments are products added to the soil to improve soil’s physical, chemical, or biological properties. Some of these properties that amendments are used for include increasing soil fertility or water-holding capacity and decreasing compaction or erosion. Soil amendment differs from fertilizer by modifying the condition of the soil itself, whereas fertilizer a…

Invasive species are plants or animals from another region that have been placed in a new environment. Often these species are introduced to an area by humans and can spread quickly and cause damage to native ecosystems and people. While not all invasive species are necessarily dangerous or lethal, some of these plants and animals can disrupt the balance in their new…

The trend of the past 10 years in residential landscapes has been increasing pressure from insect pests, diseases, and vertebrates. We fully expect that this will continue in 2023 and that the plant health care outlook for the next year will include the following conditions. Increase of insect pest number and variety that will affect more ornamental plants A wet spr…

Mosquitoes have long been considered summertime pests. You know that mosquitoes are annoying with their high-pitched buzzing on hot summer nights, and that their bites lead to itchy skin. Did you know that these insects pose health risks to animals and people? Mosquitoes are actually a major risk to human and animal health. Mosquito borne diseases are spread through …

Corrective pruning is a technique meant to maintain or enhance a tree’s health by removing dead, diseased, weak, or otherwise unhealthy or unsafe branches. Corrective pruning can be beneficial to both the tree or shrub as well as the landscape as a whole. See Our Pruning Before and After Gallery Benefits of Corrective Pruning The main benefit of corrective pr…

Growth regulators are a group of chemicals used to modify the various growth processes in plants. These chemicals help with many issues in a plant’s lifecycle, including suppressing vegetative growth and stimulating flowering, controlling plant height, enhancing plant branching, and enabling plants to flower during short-day conditions (during late fall and winter). …

Phytophthora root rot is a common fungal disease that afflicts many plants outdoors and indoors. The condition causes rotting within the plant stem and roots. Young plants are particularly prone to the adverse effects of the disease, but many plants, trees and shrubs can be affected. This article will focus on the causes, symptoms, and potential remedies that may hel…

In May of 2021, we began seeing darkened stems and black moldy growth on crape myrtles in Chester County, carrying over from an insect infestation in the fall of 2020. To recognize that these symptoms were not caused by crape myrtle aphids (common), samples were collected and submitted to the Insect Diagnostic Laboratory at Penn State. These samples revealed the firs…