Dear Valued Lanoha Customer,

Throughout the hot stressful months of late summer, we experienced gardeners in the metro area awaited the arrival of the beautiful month of October. While we may not have the colors of the Northeast U.S., we do have our own version of an autumn wonderland. Who can't stand in awe of the metro's gorgeous fall sunsets with colors not replicated anywhere but the Midwest? The fall harvest (with billowing particles of dust and plant debris) introduces into the air the basis to help create quite a backdrop for the trees and shrubs to show off their autumn splendor. Only the Midwest produces sunsets with peaches, teals, oranges, lavenders, and purple. The evening skies make a backdrop of colors for the maples, oaks, pears, sumac, viburnums, amelanchier, ash, and birch-- to mention a few. Nebraska's great fiesta of orange, yellow, red, purple and tannic brown foliage is highlighted against the emerald green turf and those beautiful skies!  

If you want some of that spectacular color in your landscape this season, it is not too late to select colorful trees and shrubs that will awaken your landscape with great fall color. The searing hot winds and high temperatures that can stress new plantings are gone, but the soil remains warm and encourages rapid root establishment. Fall planted trees and shrubs establish excellent root development well into November and even December. Any planting installed now will amaze you with its vigor in the spring of 2014. Once you have found out how successful fall plantings can be, you will always find a reason to plant in the fall.

To ensure the right plant for the right spot, a picture and measurements of the planting site will be beneficial to our experienced staff when they aid you in your selection of plant material.

Do not delay adding value to your property. A quality northern seed source, locally grown tree may add 100-200% of its purchase price to the value of your home.

Bring the entire family out to Lanoha Nurseries on Sunday afternoon, the 13th of October for a FREE FALL FESTIVAL including a "pumpkin bowling" game and coloring activities. Sweet treats will be provided...including fresh popped kettle corn! Purchase your family pumpkins from our large supply and we will provide a free painting station with acrylic paints for your budding artist(s) to create their own unique Halloween pumpkins. Pumpkins will be available in a wide range of prices. Bright, locally grown, wheat straw bales, large corn shocks, a huge inventory of colorful homegrown garden mums, gourds and Indian corn will compliment your pumpkin creations to make Halloween 2013 special! Don't forget this date--- Sunday, October 13, 2013 from 12-4 P.M.  

Lanoha Nurseries has prided itself for decades as a leader in the "greening" of the metro area. Our home-grown specimen tress produced on over a thousand acres of land in Douglas, Washington, and Saunders County have been cleaning the air for residents of the Omaha area while absorbing tons of harmful gases. Our "state of the art" production facilities have produced top quality shrubs, roses, and perennials under close environmental guidelines acceptable to the environmentally sensitive Zorinsky Lake area. Lanoha Nurseries realizes just how fragile the balance of nature is here in Nebraska.

We ARE NOT stopping with past accomplishments!!! We invite all area homeowners and lawn service companies to join us in the newest "Greening Project"----a unique cooperative adventure not available anywhere else in the area. FREE DROP-OFF of yard waste materials will be accepted at NO CHARGE here at the garden center from area homeowners and lawn service companies. We will grind, wind-row and turn repeatedly, over months, the organic materials you drop off. The resulting product will be a rich organic compost that will enrich the clay soils of landscape planting sites or vegetable gardens. Lanoha Nurseries considers this to be much more environmentally acceptable than to have this material end up in the bottom of a landfill where capacities have already reached maximum levels.

As the summer days shorten, and fall weather arrives here in the metro, many yard clean up tasks begin. Vegetable gardens and flower beds need to be cleaned of spent foliage, leaves begin to fall from trees and shrubs, planting beds may need to be enlarged resulting in excess sod and dirt that needs to be removed, limbs need to be pruned from shrubs and trees, or excess wood mulch may need to be removed. With fall fertilization of the turf, grass clippings will increase significantly. These clippings are rich in nitrogen that will increase heat needed to produce superior compost. Later in the season the straw, corn shocks, and pumpkins from fall decorations can be brought to the collection site here at the garden center. Don't forget this would be a perfect drop-off spot for your live Christmas trees after the holidays. These are some of the organic yard waste materials that will be accepted here at the garden center.

We ask that the branches be between 4-6' long----no logs, please. The grass, leaves and garden waste can be dropped off in paper bags---PLEASE, NO RUBBER OR  PLASTIC BAGS OR PLASTIC CONTAINERS. If you bring your yard waste in plastic bags, we ask that you empty them into the container and take the plastic bags back home. We want this to be as environmentally safe as possible---so please, no railroad ties or treated lumber. This could be a regular family activity each week to drop off yard waste at the garden center.  P.S.  If you live in an SID, you are paying to have your yard waste picked up---with the hope that it will not be sent with your regular trash to a landfill-you hope! DROPPING OFF YOUR YARD WASTE HERE AT LANOHA NURSERIES WILL ASSURE YOU THAT IT WILL BE COMPOSTED.

Just to recap: The following yard waste items will be accepted  AT NO CHARGE here at the garden center during regular store hours:  SHRUBS ,SAWDUST, STRAW AND HAY, GRASS CLIPPINGS, WOOD CHIPS, GARDEN WASTE, LEAVES, BRUSH, SOD, DIRT and CHRISTMAS TREES. Thank you for helping make the metro area greener!

We well are aware that Nebraska does not have "tour buses" of Americans driving our highways to view the colors of fall. But we do have our share of "great" fall color if conditions are right! It is not uncommon to hear homeowners asking this question: Why isn't my tree the color I thought it should be? What's wrong with my tree? Here are some explanations why the color may not always be spectacular.

Many changes occur in the leaves of deciduous trees before they color and fall from the branch. The leaf has actually been preparing for autumn since it started to grow in the spring. At the base of each leaf is a special layer of cells called the "abscission" or separation layer. All summer, small tubes that pass through this layer, carry water into the leaf, and food back to the tree. In the fall, the cells of the abscission layer begin to swell and form a cork-like material, reducing, and finally cutting off flow between leaf and tree. Glucose (sugar) and waste products are trapped in the leaf. Without fresh water to renew it, chlorophyll begins to disappear. The abscission layer allows the leaf to break away cleanly from its branch without forming an opening from which sap could leak and through which disease organisms could enter the tree.

The amount and brilliance of the colors that develop in any particular autumn season are related to weather conditions that occur before and during the time the chlorophyll is dwindling. Nebraska's temperamental fall weather-both temperatures and moisture are the two major determinants of fall color in the area. Another factor, often overlooked, is the seed source of the plant material. Trees coming from southern seed sources will rarely produce fall color, but trees grown from northern seed sources (that is where all Lanoha trees come from) are much more likely to develop reliable fall colors.

Succession of warm, sunny days and cool, crisp, but not freezing nights, seems to bring about the most spectacular color displays. During these days lots of sugars are produced in the leaf, but the cool nights and the gradual closing of veins going into the leaf prevent these sugars from moving out. These conditions-lot of sugar and lot of light-spur production of the brilliant anthocyanin pigments, which tint reds, purples, and crimson foliage. Because carotenoids (yellow pigments) are always present in leaves, the yellow and gold colors remain fairly constant from year to year. Tannins, like carotenoids, are always present, but the brown hues of some oaks and other trees develop these coppery brown hues after both the chlorophyll and carotenoids disappear from the leaves allowing the brown tannins to become visible.

The amount of moisture in the soil also affects autumn colors. Soils that are kept overly moist by frequent irrigation may cause very poor fall color. Once a tree is established it prefers very infrequent additional moisture other than natural rainfall. The exception would be the last several seasons where this part of the state has been in a drought that required deep infrequent irrigation to even established deciduous trees. That is quite different from a tree in a landscape where sprinklers run every other day. The countless combinations of these two highly variable factors assure that no two autumns can be exactly alike. A late spring, or a severe summer drought, can delay the onset of fall color by a few weeks. A warm period during fall will also lower the intensity of autumn colors. A warm wet spring, favorable summer weather, and warm sunny fall days with cool night should produce the most brilliant autumn colors.

Nebraska autumn color is not predictable, but October is nature's last fling before settling down into winter's sleep. Some years the colors are truly breathtaking. It's worth the wait!  

One of the most popular shrubs in the landscapes of the metro area is hydrangea. It is a large family of shrubs with many different growing needs and quite differing in the amount of winter protection to ensure great blooms the following year.

The easiest grown variety is Arborescens. Cultivars such as Annabelle, Incredaball, and Invincible Spirit are some of the favorites of gardeners who choose this durable plant. It blooms on new wood so any amount of pruning you prefer is suitable. I have older established plantings of Annabelle that I shear to only 3-4" from the ground in either late fall or early in the spring. It will bloom with unbelievable reliability of huge white round flower balls that can reach over 12" across. None of the Arborescens Hydrangea need special winter protection.

The Paniculata Hydrangea cultivars of Tardiva, Pee Gee, Pinky Winky, Limelight, Little Lamb, and Little Lime bloom on new wood and can be planted in any full sun site or in a site that receives half-day sun-either morning or afternoon. These are the great "cone shaped" flowering hydrangeas so prized for drying for arrangements. They will need no more than a nice 6-8" layer of shredded wood mulch over the root zone once the ground freezes. There is little need to prune this variety unless you are trying to manage height and spread. Prune when buds begin to form on the branches in the spring.

The cultivar you may have selected for your landscaping could be in the Macrophylla family of hydrangea. The names Endless Summer, Blushing Bride, Big Daddy, Glowing Embers, Twist & Shout, and Pink Elf are some of the most popular varieties from this family of hydrangea. These hydrangea perform best in a morning sun-afternoon shade growing site. These cultivars DO REQUIRE SPECIAL WINTER PROTECTION. The main objective of this winter protection should be to protect the crown of the plant at all costs. You must strive to encourage as many of the buds along the branches to survive over the winter. Snow is the maximum insulator, but since Omaha's winters seem to be unpredictable as to snow cover lasting throughout the winter months, an organic mulch of shredded hardwood mulch about 18" deep should be placed around the branches and into the crown of the plant in mid to late November. It is very important that the plant has gone fully dormant at the time the mulch is applied. Avoid fall fertilization of this family of hydrangea. A deep watering in late November just before the ground freezes will help ensure winter survival. Do no fall pruning. Prune little or none for the first 2-3 years after planting to ensure that the chill of winter will not be as likely to penetrate deep into the stems. Minor pruning may be done when re-growth begins in the spring. If the plant was stressed this past summer, or the area is quite exposed to the north or west winter winds the entire plant should be wrapped in burlap. This winter care will repay you with those highly desired mop head blooms next summer.

Ferti.lome's Weed Free Zone is a new generation broadleaf herbicide for turf that gives excellent control of some the "most difficult" weeds common to the metro area. A late fall application delivers outstanding control in daytime temperatures as low as 40 degrees. It is rain safe in 3 hours and begins showing effects within 24 hours.

Ground Ivy, also known as Creeping Charlie, is an invasive low growing weed that invades thin turf that is stressed by wet soils. Areas of the lawn where fungus has damaged turf are also vulnerable. The scalloped leaves are rounded to heart shape and are attached by long petioles to square stems. It roots whenever it touches soil and sheds a tremendous amount of seed. This makes Ground Ivy one of the most difficult invasive weeds in the Metro area. Rave reviews from homeowners using Weed Free Zone convince us that this is the best herbicide available for controlling this aggressive weed.

Wild strawberries spread like wildfire in thin turf. Wild strawberries are another weed that this outstanding herbicide controls with ease. Fall applications are very effective.

Wild violets are best controlled when temps are 50 degrees or cooler. White clover is easiest to kill in the cool days of October. This unique herbicide is available in a concentrate, in a RTU spray bottle for small areas, and also in a very popular Hose End RTU sprayer that can be ready in just seconds.

If you have a problem broadleaf weed in your turf, consider this outstanding product and join hundreds of satisfied customers who say, "best we've ever used!"

   Join us Friday, November 8th from 5:00 - 8:00 PM for holiday fun!

Lanoha Nurseries Christmas Open House is Friday, November 8th from 5-8 P.M. Bring the entire family to enjoy seasonal refreshments and festive activities. Whether your taste is traditional to eclectic, spark your creativity this season by joining us for an evening of sparkle and splendor.      

Browse through an incredible forest of life-like trees, garlands, and wreaths. Some of the themes you will enjoy are (1) Nostalgia of Christmas's Past where snowmen, santas, warm plaids, and snowy décor bring special memories of childhood. (2) Shimmering Decadence with sparkling silver, platinum,, and pewter against crystals and glitter ornaments in a rainbow of colors bring modern sophistication of the 21st century into your living room. (3) Woodland Wonder where earth tones blend with natural greens, pine cones, bird nests, acorns, deer, squirrels, bird houses and a wide range of your favorite feathered birds and owls. (4) Candy Fantasy which incorporates fun pastel colors, peppermint sticks and swirls and sugary candy ornaments sure to be a family favorite (5) Traditional Red / Green themes will be embellished with glitter ornaments, picks, leaves, and garlands that will bring a "Look" that will appeal to "Traditional Purists" of all ages! While you are shopping be sure to enjoy the free refreshments.

The inventory of "Life-Like" trees will overwhelm you. Realistic spruce, fir, and pine from 4 ½' space savers to spectacular 12' giants will be decorated in themes and colors to coordinate with your color schemes and style of furnishings.

DON'T DELAY---GET NOVEMBER 8TH ON YOUR CALENDAR TODAY!

The Spruce trees in our landscapes could be under attack from several "sneaky" fungus diseases. Often, mistakenly, we assume that large established evergreen "take care of themselves." There are three main fungus issues we are seeing on a very regular basis at the Information Center.

The first is a disease called Rhizosphaera Needlecast. A healthy spruce will retain its needles for 5-7 years. A spruce severely infected with Rhizosphaera Needlecast may hold only the current year's needles. This disease usually infects needles on the lower branches first and gradually progresses up the tree. Left untreated the lower branches may be killed by the fungus and the appearance so altered that the homeowner may consider removing this valuable tree. Although needles on new growth become infected in May and June, symptoms are not visible until late fall or the following spring, when infected needles turn purple to brown and begin to drop. Tiny black fruiting bodies of the fungus can be seen under a power lens. The healthy stomata on a spruce needle is white-not black. Trees suffering from environmental stresses are often more seriously attacked by Rhizosphaera. Spruce are sensitive to heavy, compacted soils which become quite dry in late summer. Deep root watering of stressed trees must be done in the fall to prevent potential winter kill. Norway Spruce are seldom affected. Colorado Spruce and Black Hills Spruce can be attacked by Rhizosphaera.    

(SNEED), Sudden Needle drop is a newly discovered needle drop disease of spruce in Nebraska and Iowa. They believe it is caused by a fungal pathogen Setomelanomma holmii. Symptoms are yellowing and eventual browning of older needles. By autumn all needles on affected branches have dropped off except the needles on the tips of the branches. Affected branches may be scattered throughout the tree or may include the entire tree. Tiny, black pimple-like fruiting bodies are on the TWIGS, not on the needles as in Rhizosphaera. SNEED has been found on Norway, Black Hills, and Colorado spruce. It is not too common, but some trees can be affected by both SNEED and Rhizosphaera.

The third disease is Sirococcus Shoot Blight that displays symptoms similar to winter injury or herbicide drift. Randomly, through the tree's canopy, branch tips from 6-24" may lose all their needles, but the inner portions of the branch is unaffected. These dead tips should be removed if at all possible. New buds will form deeper into the tree's canopy, but the disease can really distort the shape of a tree in only a few seasons. Colorado Spruce, Norway Spruce, and Black Hills Spruce can all suffer from this disease.  

Fortunately, all three of these diseases can be controlled with the same fungicide at the same spray schedule! What a refreshing surprise! Chlorothalonil, Ferti.lome's Broad Spectrum Fungicide, is the product of choice. It is not difficult to use, and if a strict schedule is followed, three consecutive years of spraying may be all that is required. If these diseases are not addressed with corrective spraying, trees become so severely deformed and lose their aesthetic value to the landscape. Pick up your FREE DISEASES OF EVERGREEN SPRAY GUIDE today from the information center. If you have questions, bring in some good photos and perhaps some branch samples for confirmation of these three fungus diseases.

October brings excellent fall pricing. KEEP PLANTING! Don't be concerned if frost has caused leaves to drop from trees and shrubs you purchase. The plant's roots are still active and will establish into the prepared planting site. Remember to amend the soil with perlite and cottonburr compost. Dig the planting hole twice as wide as the root mass, but NO deeper. Open the root ball with 4 vertical slices about ¾" deep into the sides of the container grown plant. This will prevent the shrub or perennial from developing girdling roots which will adversely affect the life of the planting.

• Apply winter fertilizer to turf after the final mowing of the season. We carry several excellent choices that will strengthen stems and allow the roots to continue growing well into November/December. If your choice is organic, we have several excellent products!
• Tulips and other fall bulbs are successfully planted during the entire month of October. Our inventory of tulips, daffodils, and minor bulbs is outstanding.
• Hand pick bagworms from evergreens, as well as, deciduous plants. Each bag may contain up to a 1,000 eggs that will hatch in late May and begin feeding.
• If you are re-mulching trees and beds with fresh mulch this fall, remember to keep the mulch back at least 4-6" from the trunk of any size tree and at least a couple inches back from all shrub and perennial stems. Mulch is so beneficial, but it should not be in a volcano around trunks and stems!
• Wrap the trunks on all newly planted trees for at least 3-5 years after planting. Paper tree wrap snuggly wrapped around the trunk from the soil line up to the lowest branch on the tree will HELP prevent frost cracks and sun scald from the "roller-coaster" winter weather we seem to be having in recent years. Some of the most critical cultivars to provide this trunk protection for are: ALL maples, flowering crabapples, linden, ash, all fruit trees, and sycamore. Wrap trunks around Halloween and remove the wrap the following April 15th. Pick up a FREE guide on preventing frost cracks and sun scald at the Information Center.      
• Plan on attending both the Family Fall Festival on October 13th and Christmas Open House on November 8th. We hope you can make both events!
• KEEP PLANTING---NATURE PLANTS IN THE FALL---JOIN IN!!!!