Greetings!
October is a great month to plant and pick pumpkins. If you are looking to add some fall colors to the yard now is a great time to visit the nursery and explore the plants as they turn colors. In fact we have on Saturdays and Sundays through October a Fall Nursery Tour Hayride that take you throughout our 36 acre nursery. It about 15 minutes long and very fun way to see tree in their fall glory. At the writing of this newsletter, the show is just beginning but later this month it will be great! Another new thing this month is that we now accept American Express credit cards!
Here is more info on our U-Pick Pumpkin Patch and Hayride.
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Shedding Evergreens
 The cooler nighttime temperatures have begun to trigger the fall colors on the deciduous trees and shrubs but it has also begun to trigger needle shed in the evergreens. It's perfectly normal for a Pine, Arborvitae, Spruce, Cedar, Cypress or Juniper to lose their internal needles beginning in the late summer to late fall. Though they are always green or have foliage year round, the foliage wear out with exposure to the elements and is cast off after a few years; an example of this is three years for Pine needles. In a lot of other evergreen species, like Arborvitae, the older foliage is crowded out by new foliage that forms on the branch tips. The new growth then does not permit air and light to the older foliage leaving it to being shed from the network as a resource drain of water and nutrients. Thus it turns yellow to an orange brown and falls off in fall. This is what you are seeing now on Pines and Arborvitae; Cedars and Spruces shed too but are more subtle in their shedding. You can clean it up by spraying the evergreens with a high pressure nozzle to knock the foliage out or run you gloved hands through them. Collect the debris and compost it or dispose of it. Again your evergreens are fine when they are doing this. What signals a distressed evergreen is when the foliage dies back from the tips of the branch where the new growth is, if this happens, it is best to get it figured out or diagnosed as soon as you notice it.
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The Pink Rascal, a pumpkin with a cause. Rascal is a great eating pumpkin weighing about 30 to 40 pounds for making pies, baked goods, and soups. It's great for carving and decoration with it's unusual pink color. The family who developed this variety of pumpkin has dedicated the proceeds of the seed sold to cancer research. A neat fundraiser for October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month!
