July 10, 1998
Drying Flowers
Drying or preserving flowers is a popular gardening activity. Dried materials are long lasting and can be used to add warmth and color to the home. Gather flowers that are free of dew or rain and insect or disease damage.
Red Thread
Red thread on turf is one of my favorite disease. It is so easy to diagnose because of the pink to light reddish color on top of the grass. If you look closely, you will find reddish thread-like structures on the tips of infected blades. These are strands of mycelium that arises from infected leaf blades and sheaths.
Sowbugs: Another Wet Weather Annoyance
Wet conditions outdoors are producing a bumper crop of many pests; everything from mosquitoes and slugs to millipedes and sowbugs. See the "resources" section at the end of this newsletter for directions to past articles on these and other pests.
Sowbugs are crustaceans more closely related to shrimp and crayfish than to insects. Other names used for these very common animals include pillbugs, roly-polies and isopods. Sowbugs are 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, dark to slate gray and possess seven pairs of legs. The oval, segmented body is convex above but flat or hollow underneath.