Usher Plant Care

07/29/2026

💩🐞 Spotted Lanternfly - this invasive insect pest may not kill your healthy landscape trees and shrubs but unfortunately their p**p is worse than their bite. It creates a sticky, messy honeydew that invites a black fungus called sooty mold. Yuck.

07/20/2026

🦠⁉️ Lichen - it’s not killing your tree, it’s a symbiotic relationship between fungus and algae. Check it out!

07/09/2026

🕺🐛 Pine Sawfly Larvae - These insects that feed on pine needles do a defensive dance that’s worth looking out for.

07/06/2026

06/26/2026

A message from Joel on Earth Day 2026

06/19/2026

🐛🌲Bagworm - those little pinecones wiggling around aren’t pine cones! Check out the strange lifecycle of this oddball insect and check your trees and shrubs.

06/08/2026

⚫️🪢 Black Knot is a common fungal issue on ornamental plum trees among other fruit trees. Prune to prevent it’s spread or just choose a native tree instead!

05/26/2026

👽🌲Cedar Apple Rust - those orange tentacled goo balls that look like alien eggs in you bushes are a very common fungus that requires both apple and juniper related trees to complete its full life
cycle. Weird, huh?

05/19/2026

🪾Mulch Volcanos - Just don’t! Piling mulch high along the trunk of a tree can actually lead to severe stress and decline. When planting, follow nature’s way - light organic material spread around the base no more than 2-3 inches. That’s it! Don’t add more mulch until it’s decayed down to about an inch. This will prevent girdling roots, fungal infection, and insect issues that arise due to mulch volcanos.

02/12/2026

🥶🌲After recent snowfall followed by weeks of freezing temperatures, invisible stress is developing in many evergreen landscapes.

Evergreens continue low-level transpiration (loss of water v***r through leaf pores) on sunny and windy winter days. When soils remain frozen, roots cannot absorb replacement moisture, and foliage gradually desiccates over time.

The injury is delayed. In spring this commonly appears as bronzing, marginal browning, tip dieback, thinning growth, or one-sided damage (often southwest exposure).

Commonly affected Long Island landscape plants:
Boxwood
Rhododendron
Cherry Laurel (Skip Laurel)
Arborvitae
Holly

Winter conditions determine spring performance. We offer compost tea fertilization programs to support recovery in stressed plants, and organic anti-transpirant applications to protect vulnerable evergreens before next winter.