You should have applied the most important insect spray of the year — dormant oil sprays — during the winter. Why then? Because that’s when insects susceptible to these sprays are most vulnerable. Why ...

The chill in the air reminds gardeners that it’s time to start winter chores. Spraying of dormant oils on deciduous fruit and nut trees, roses and other ornamentals can diminish the incidence of ...

[Celebrating seasonal holidays usually pulls us away from routine garden maintenance, often happily so, but as it happens winter holidays happen to coincide with a spray schedule for dormant fruit and ...

DEAR NEIL: What kind of spray should I use on my fruit trees during the dormant season, and what should I use after they bud? Dear Reader: Apply a dormant (“horticultural”) oil spray to them before ...

Several readers have asked about the timing of dormant oil. This traditional technique involves spraying dormant fruit trees with horticultural oil to smother persistent pests, such as aphids and ...

Q: When is it too late to use a dormant oil spray? I have a couple of apple trees. Can I use this dormant oil spray on other trees like my maples and my evergreens? If I mix up too much, I want to use ...

We have two cherry trees in our yard and have rarely gotten any cherries from them because of a slug-type bug. We were advised to spray them with dormant oil, but we don't know when to do that. Also ...

Dormant oil sprays are applied to plants during mid to late winter to control overwintering some insects, like scales. Some plants infested by scale insects include lilac, dogwood, Euonymus, apple, ...

Many gardeners, as well as the horticulturists at the Chicago Botanic Garden, had issues with magnolia scale last year, and it’s a pest to watch closely for in 2025. The Garden’s plant health care ...