Lawn and Garden Resources
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C 1027-1
Planning an Edible Garden
This publication describes three steps for planning a school garden: garden location, soil and terrain, and choosing crops.
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By their nature, pesticides are hazardous and demand cautious handling. When they are used properly, however, pesticides improve the quality of our food supply, protect our health and increase our comfort with little risk to the environment and non-target living things. The most important consideration for the safe, effective use of pesticides is to follow all label directions and safety precautions.
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Plant diseases can be a significant problem in home gardens. Most vegetables are susceptible to a number of diseases. Home gardeners can reduce the occurrence of many diseases with sound cultural practices. This publication discusses managing diseases in the home vegetable garden.
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The landscape is a very important aspect of a home. Having a beautiful, creative and functional landscape requires some understanding of design principles, plant materials and outdoor structural elements. A landscape installation can be very simple or extremely complicated. Designing irrigation systems, outdoor lighting, stone walls and patios requires skills that go beyond those of the average homeowner. When the job seems too big, it may be time to call in a professional. This publication provides guidelines and suggestions for finding a garden designer.
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C 1032-2
Working with a Garden Designer
Designing a landscape is much like designing the interior of a house. Colors, patterns and textures must be arranged in a manner that is functional and suits the taste of the owner. The one major difference with landscape design is that most of the elements are living, providing seasonal change, forever growing taller and wider, and occasionally dying. An experienced garden designer has the ability to incorporate all this information into the design, but the homeowners must do their homework and be prepared to talk to the designer. This publication will help homeowners develop a plan for working with a landscape designer.
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Preparing a landscape plan can be an enjoyable and satisfying experience if you do a little homework and follow a few guidelines. A simple landscape base map can be drawn without a computer, special software or even expensive drafting supplies, and is the first step in developing a landscape plan. The base map is an accurate representation of the existing landscape, scaled to fit the paper, showing information such as house dimensions, distance to street, and the location of trees,
woods, driveways and sidewalks, if these are already present in the landscape. This publication explains how to draw a base map for landscape planning.|
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Designing a beautiful landscape for the home can be a very enjoyable and satisfying experience. With a little homework, a landscape plan is within reach of most homeowners. Before great ideas can become a plan, you must determine the limitations and assets of the site. This publication briefly describes how to create a site analysis for landscape design.
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Accidents are common when felling a tree with a chainsaw. Fortunately, most of them can be prevented. Tips for preventing kickback, barber chair, entanglement, setback, and stump jump are presented in this publication, along with techniques for safely releasing spring poles.
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C 1260
Azalea Bark Scale
Azalea bark scale (ABS) poses a serious threat to azaleas, rhododendron, and Pieris (Andromedas) in Georgia. ABS is a soft scale insect; the nymph and female soft scales secrete a protective coating of waxy crust on their body that cannot be separated from the scale insect. ABS also is found on blueberry, hawthorn, huckleberry, poplar, and
willow. ABS is found in cracks or crevices in the surface of the bark, and also in areas where azalea branches fork. ABS can undergo two generations per year in Georgia.
Symptoms of ABS infestation include dropping yellow leaves and dying branches. Developing nymphs and females excrete a sugary syruplike liquid called honeydew on to the bark and leaves. As time passes, the surface of the bark, and sometimes the leaves, turns black because it gets infested with a sooty mold fungus that
feeds on the sugary secretions. The white crusts of scale insects are easily visible when the azalea bark turns completely black. An ABS infestation rarely kills the plant unless it is extremely severe and uncontrolled.|