Garden & Wildlife

Leaves pile up fast, and waiting makes it worse. The longer they sit, the heavier they get, the more they mat together, and the harder they are to move. Pick your method based on your yard size and how much effort you want to spend. 1. Mulch Them With a Mower The best option if…

Sawflies look like flies but act like caterpillars, and they’re chewing through your plants faster than you’d think. They’re the larvae that do the damage (the adults just lay eggs), and by the time you notice the holes in your roses or stripped pine needles, they’ve been at it for days. The good news: sawflies…

Lake algae turns your water green, stinks when it dies, and chokes out everything else that lives there. Most blooms happen because there’s too much phosphorus in the water (runoff from lawns, failing septic systems, sediment churning up from the bottom). Cut off the food supply and oxygen, and you’ll start winning. These methods work…

Spider mites spread fast. By the time you spot webbing, you’ve already got a colony, and every plant in reach is at risk. They move between pots by crawling, hitching rides on your hands, or floating on air currents. One infested plant can quietly seed an entire shelf in a matter of days. The good…

Horsetail weed (Equisetum arvense) has rhizomes that tunnel down 2 meters and spread horizontally faster than most gardeners can keep up with. The stems snap when you pull them, leaving the root system intact to send up more shoots within days. It thrives in compacted, waterlogged soil – exactly the conditions most neglected garden corners…

Nutsedge looks like grass but grows faster, taller, and spreads through underground tubers that laugh at surface-level control methods. You can mow it on Monday and by Thursday it’s back, sticking up like little green middle fingers across your lawn. The yellowish-green color and triangular stems (not round like grass) make it easy to spot…

The mushrooms you see in your yard aren’t the organism. They’re the fruit of one. The actual fungus is a network of threads underground, breaking down buried wood, dead roots, or that tree stump you thought was gone five years ago. Kill the mushroom and you’ve done nothing. The network just sends up another one.…

Violets look charming in a garden bed. In your lawn, they’re weeds that spread fast and choke out grass. Their waxy leaves shed water and most herbicides, and their root systems are stubborn. But they’re not invincible. The key is hitting them when they’re vulnerable (spring and fall) and fixing whatever lawn conditions let them…

Get rid of groundhogs with fencing, repellents, live traps, and exclusion. Practical methods for yards, gardens, and under structures.