The Japanese beetle is found throughout Virginia and in most of the Eastern United States. In regions west of the Mississippi it is found in isolated pockets. Japanese beetles were first found in New Jersey in 1916 and have spread from that point since. The Japanese beetle has been well established in Virginia since the early 1970’s.

This publication defines watersheds, why they are important to everyone, and how people positively and negatively impact them.

A rain garden is a landscaped area specially designed to collect rainfall and storm-water runoff. The plants and soil in the rain garden clean pollutants from the water as it seeps into the ground and evaporates back into the atmosphere. For a rain garden to work, plants must be selected, installed, and maintained properly.

Small home pond gardens support aquatic plants and also attract a variety of wildlife. Turtles, frogs, birds, snakes, lizards, and raccoons as well as many other animals may use these ponds. Most wildlife needs water to survive and will seek out ponds for drinking, bathing, habitat, and in some cases, reproduction.

In 2007, Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) developed the America’s Anniversary Garden to help individuals, communities, and groups commemorate America’s 400th Anniversary with a signature landscape, garden, or container planting. These signature gardens have red, white, and blue color schemes. Although the commemoration has passed, this guide continues to be useful for creating a patriotic garden.

Conifers, also known as narrow-leaved or needled evergreens, are planted primarily for the attractiveness of their evergreen foliage. The variety of sizes, shapes, and colors available contributes to their popularity. Conifers range in size from prostrate plants growing only a few inches tall to large trees. Shapes include flat ground covers; horizontal spreaders; upright, pyramidal forms; and even weeping and contorted forms. Foliage color ranges from a gold and cream variegation to all shades of green, gray-green, and blue-green.

Trees are the basic element for any landscape plan. They set the stage for the entire home grounds design. The type used and their location determine to a great extent what other plantings are appropriate. Providing shade usually requires tall, sturdy, long-living species. Density of foliage, which determines the amount of shading, is important. A tree such as a Norway maple will produce a very dense shade that prevents other plants from growing under it, while a honey locust will produce a light partial shade which is not a hindrance to other plants growing below it. Deciduous trees should be used to shade the south windows of a home in the summer, thus allowing the sun to penetrate in the winter.

Maintenance programs should be developed for trees and shrubs in both residential and commercial landscapes. A good maintenance program includes monitoring and controlling insect and disease problems, suppressing weed competition, and making timely applications of water, mulch, and fertilizer. Tree and shrub fertilization is especially important in urban and suburban areas of Virginia where soils have been altered due to construction. These urban soils tend to be heavily compacted, poorly aerated, poorly drained, and low in organic matter. Even where soils have not been affected, fertilization may be needed as part of a maintenance program to increase plant vigor or to improve root or top growth.

Using trees as living screens can easily enhance living and working spaces. Before selecting trees for screening, first determine the screen’s purpose, whether functional or environmental. Screening can be used to define an area, modify or hide a view, create privacy, block wind, dust, salt and snow, control noise, filter light, and direct traffic flow.

To grow, all trees require air, light, water and nutrients. Some trees can survive over a wide range of climatic and soil conditions, whereas others are very site specific. Both wet and dry sites present establishment and growth challenges, making selection of the right tree for the right site very important.

The nursery industry in Virginia has enjoyed an extended period of growth and expansion. Consequently, there is considerable interest in and some potential for new business opportunities in the industry. Another consequence of this period of economic growth is an increase in competition within the industry to supply the growing demand for landscape plants. Those interested in getting into the nursery business are strongly encouraged to invest their time and energy into learning as much as they can about the modern nursery industry, and the many options now available in nursery production, before they invest any money in facilities and operations.

Select trees and shrubs well-adapted to conditions of individual planting sites. Poorly-sited plants are doomed from the start, no matter how carefully they’re planted.

Rose rosette disease (RRD) is a serious disease problem of cultivated roses, and over the past two decades RRD has become the most important rose disease in North America. RRD is caused by Rose rosette virus (RRV). RRD leads to stunting, decline and death of roses, yet there are no easy, economical or particularly effective management tactics for RRD. Currently, the major rose cultivars available to growers are susceptible to RRD.

The guide contains information on pesticides used in orchards, with a seasonal treatment of when and how these materials should be employed. Efficacy information toward major fruit pests as well as beneficial species is included. The guide is black and white, but with a color photograph for the cover. It is spiral bound.

This guide lists vegetable varieties that are available and are adapted to the mid-Atlantic region, gives an overview of cultural practices, and list chemicals recommended to manage pests, diseases and weeds in vegetable crops. New varieties of vegetables are constantly being developed throughout the world. While all efforts are made to have comprehensive lists, not all varieties that are adapted will be listed.

Boxwood blight is a devastating disease of boxwood that results in defoliation and decline of susceptible boxwood. This best management practices factsheet provides guidelines for home growers of landscape boxwood to avoid introduction of the boxwood blight pathogen into a landscape or, if the disease is already present in a landscape, to manage to disease in the most effective manner and avoid spread of the disease to new locations.

To provide leadership in safeguarding and protecting the ornamental horticulture industry, historical gardens and landscape plantings from boxwood blight.

This Best Management Practice document is a set of guidelines for home growers of landscape boxwood to avoid introduction of the boxwood blight pathogen into a landscape or, if the disease is already present in a landscape, to manage the disease in the most effective manner and avoid spread of the disease to new locations.

Best management practices for boxwood blight (also called “box blight”) for greenery producers are practices recommended to avoid the introduction and spread of boxwood blight, caused by the fungus Calonectria pseudonaviculata (syn. Cylindrocladium pseudonaviculatum). The recommendations in this document are designed to avoid spread of boxwood blight within a planting or to new locations when pruned tips are collected, sold and/or used for holiday greenery1. These recommendations are relevant to anyone involved in the greenery (“tipping”) industry, including small and large-scale greenery producers, home growers who sell boxwood tips, and people who tip-prune boxwood on other people’s property. Care must be taken at all levels of greenery production to prevent the spread of the boxwood blight pathogen and avoid economic losses associated with this disease.

Boxwood blight is caused by the fungal pathogen Calonectria pseudonaviculata (syn. Cylindrocladium buxicola). Boxwood blight was first described in the United Kingdom in the mid-1990’s and by 2002 was found in several other European countries and New Zealand. In September 2011 boxwood blight was discovered in North America. Symptoms of the disease include leaf spotting (Fig. 1), elongate, dark cankers on stems (Fig. 2), defoliation, and dieback (Fig. 3). The primary means by which the disease spreads is the inadvertent introduction of infected boxwood to existing plantings. The pathogen can also spread by spores, which readily adhere to equipment and work clothes, and by microsclerotia, which survive in infested soil and plant debris. This document outlines best management practices for landscapers and property managers to reduce the risk of spreading boxwood blight to landscapes and public and historic gardens, and to manage the disease if it is introduced.