what happened to my Honeycrisp apples?

Rats! Corn Gluten the answer?

There are some products sold that claim to be safe for people and wildlife, but that kill rodents like rats and mice. One of these is corn gluten meal. But I am not finding any scientific evidence it kills mice; just anecdotal. In fact, I found a couple of science documents that said rats in labs are fed, in part, corn gluten!!

I have a rat problem, but don't want to kill other wildlife that might eat a dead or sick rat, or the bait. And, I certainly don't want to poison my 2 dogs!!

Is Corn Gluten Meal an effective (prove it) Rodenticide?

HOLES

Would you please ID what caused the holes and how to correct thanks Mike

What animal left this scat in my back yard

I live 3 miles west of the Nisqually River on the shore of South Puget Sound.

Mock Orange Trouble

Hello, I received a mock orange start a couple of years ago. I have it planted in a pot until I can get my yard fixed. It has since had some trouble with leaf hoppers. I think I got rid of them... no pesticide just good old fashioned search and destroy. However, the leaves are continuing to yellow and brown at the edges and get tough almost raspy to the touch. They are't supple any more. The condition seems to be spreading from leaf to leaf. They also have some dry, dark brown spotting. I thought at first that I might be over watering the plant so I now wait for the soil to be mostly dry before giving more water. Can you help me figure out how to save this plant? I really love it. It's my first attempt at horticulture. Please contact me if you have any suggestions or questions. My email is listed below. Sincerely, Tammy Kennedy

Pear rust/ dogwood anthracnose

My dogwood apparently has thisanthracnosefungus, and when I was down looking at the tree I looked over and noticed my neighbor's pear tree looks sick too. I brought a leaf in and took a picture to send to you, and i researched to find out it's pear rust. It is within 15 ft of my dogwood, and I also researched today and discovered that it has this fungus called anthracnose. Both trees are within 20 feet of my huge mass of Juniper tams that were planted in 1976 for soil retention. I understand that the spores the pear rust will Harbor themselves on the Tams over the winter and re-infect the pear when it gets leaves again. Is it possible that this fungus infected my tree, and manifested in this other type called anthracnose? I hate to see either of these trees have to go away, but I am noticing that almost every plant in my yard has some strange fungus this year. That has never happened before. I'm wondering if it is somehow spreading to everything and manifesting in different types of fungus, especially in my garden plants. I'm concerned ican't save my dog wood. Any ideas or suggestions? Thank you.

English laurel in vegetable garden

We recently found that English laurel is poisonous.. we cut down some english laurels to ground level and laid landscaping fabric over the top of the stumps and made a raised vegetable garden bed around them and planted cucumbers and sweet peas around them in hopes that they would not grow back. The laurels grew back right through the landscaping fabric and the vegetables. My question is: if the laurel root system inter twines with the vegetable root systems or due to their proximity to the laurels can they poison the vegetables or make them poisonous or harmful to eat. Kinda like planting carrots to close to radishes can make carrots a little spicy.

Ladybugs and doug fir

I have wooded property near Goldendale. WA. This past Spring, while working in my woodlot, I found many hundreds of ladybugs at the base of young (8-10 year old) Doug fir trees, a couple of inches underground. What do the ladybugs get out from the DF trees? I didn't notice them at the base of similar-aged Ponderosa pine nearby. Thank you

container potting question.

What is the best soil to use for different fruit trees in containers? How do you prevent tree/shrub from dying being container based at nurseries waiting to sell. Do you need to do things differently being in Quebec Canada and Canada than here in Washington? What potting mix will burn the roots?
Why would the leaves turn brown?
Would potting up trees/shrubs cause some to not leaf out?
What can you do to prevent trees that don't leaf out? What can you do to push them?

Tiny brown bug in my apartment HELP!!!

About a month ago, we started seeing black powder falling from behind one of our cabinets; I clean it up and it’s back hours later. Yesterday, the maintenance guy took the stand alone upper cabinet down and behind it.... a disgusting mess of black powder, that resembles powdery mold but with it were thousands of tiny brown bugs. Included in the photos below, it looks like there are black holes in the wall, those are not holes but bus. No holes were found. We have no clue what they are. I have photos for reference. I’m desperate to know what these are and to have them out of my kitchen and home. Additionally, the pest control guy looked for a second and said they are carpet beetles, however, they look nothing like carpet beetles and whatever he sprayed did not work. I’m so unbelievably grossed out!