Girls With Gardens

Girls With Gardens Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Girls With Gardens, Home & Garden Website, 3239 Wolf Pen Road, San Mateo, CA.

Sharing practical gardening tips, tricks, ideas, inspiration, easy recipes, crafts, homesteading advice, guides for raising chickens, and natural remedies for living a simple, self-sufficient life.

Beekeepers have been losing a slow arms race against a mite for decades. The newest treatment works through a different ...
10/25/2026

Beekeepers have been losing a slow arms race against a mite for decades. The newest treatment works through a different route entirely.

Here’s the history. Varroa destructor jumped from Asian honeybees to Western honeybees in the twentieth century and reached the US in 1987. The Asian bees had evolved defenses over a very long time. Western bees hadn’t. The mite now lives in almost every hive in the country. It feeds on developing bees inside capped cells, and it spreads viruses like deformed wing virus, which leaves young bees with crumpled, useless wings.

The first big chemical answer was fluvalinate, sold as Apistan. It worked well, until mites evolved resistance. Coumaphos came next, and resistance followed again. Amitraz, sold as Apivar, became the go-to, and now some beekeepers report it failing too. Each time, the mites changed a little and survived the chemical.

That’s the core problem: when every treatment attacks mites the same way, they evolve their way around it.

Norroa, from GreenLight Biosciences, uses a different mechanism. Its active ingredient, vadescana, is a strand of double-stranded RNA matched to a gene varroa needs to reproduce. Bees eat it, and mites pick it up while feeding on the bees. Inside the mite, the RNA triggers the mite’s own gene-silencing machinery to shut down that reproduction gene. Mites stop making new mites, and the population declines. EPA classifies it as a new mode-of-action group, IRAC Group 35.

GreenLight says control lasts up to 18 weeks, the RNA breaks down quickly in the environment, and it can be used at any temperature as long as it’s safe to open the hive.

The real value is rotation. Using Norroa alongside other treatments, rather than in place of everything else, could help slow resistance on all of them.

The basics still matter, though. Test mite loads with an alcohol wash or sugar roll before you treat, and test again afterward.

Count first. Rotate treatments. Outsmart mites.

The buds are already formed and sitting on last year’s wood. Cut those stems and the flowers go with them, no matter how...
10/25/2026

The buds are already formed and sitting on last year’s wood. Cut those stems and the flowers go with them, no matter how well the plant grows in spring. The other two types flower on fresh growth and are safe to cut now.

There’s one insect Rhode Island officials actually want you to squash.The spotted lanternfly reached Rhode Island by 202...
10/25/2026

There’s one insect Rhode Island officials actually want you to squash.

The spotted lanternfly reached Rhode Island by 2021, first in Warwick. Now the state says it’s established in all five counties. And the numbers are climbing. The Department of Environmental Management logged more than 1,000 reports in July and more than 1,500 in August.

The lanternfly is a planthopper from Asia. It pierces stems and trunks and drinks sap in huge volumes, then sprays out sticky honeydew. That honeydew grows black sooty mold over leaves, vines, cars, and patio furniture.

Grapes are where it really hurts. Big swarms on a vineyard in late summer and fall can weaken vines heading into winter, which can mean dieback and lost crops the next year. Stone fruit, hops, maples, and black walnut are also targets.

Then there’s the lanternfly’s favorite tree, tree-of-heaven. It’s an invasive species too, common along roadsides and vacant lots in Rhode Island. For the lanternfly it’s like home base. Cut the tree-of-heaven and you take away the place they build up before they move into the vines.

Because the bug has no real natural enemies here, the job now shifts from stopping it to keeping numbers down. That’s where homeowners come in. Squash adults and nymphs. In fall and winter, scrape egg masses off trees, stone walls, fences, and outdoor furniture. Freshly laid ones look like gray putty and dry to look like cracked mud. Scrape them into a bag with rubbing alcohol. And check your car before you leave an infested area, since lanternflies ride everywhere.

There’s long-term hope too. The University of Rhode Island’s biocontrol lab is studying a tiny wasp, Dryinus sinicus, that attacks lanternfly nymphs. It could be released someday.

Squash adults. Scrape eggs. Cut tree-of-heaven.

The word silent is doing real work in that phrase. There was no obvious moment, no empty hive to point at, just fewer of...
10/25/2026

The word silent is doing real work in that phrase. There was no obvious moment, no empty hive to point at, just fewer of them every year until the gardens that once hummed went quiet.

The loss of the American chestnut is arguably the greatest ecological disaster in North American history. The American c...
10/25/2026

The loss of the American chestnut is arguably the greatest ecological disaster in North American history. The American chestnut, once one in every four trees in Eastern US forests, was wiped out by an imported blight by the 1950s. These massive "redwoods of the East" grew over 100 feet tall, providing rot-resistant timber that built early America and raining down millions of pounds of highly nutritious nuts that sustained wildlife and Appalachian communities. At the turn of the 20th century, a deadly fungal pathogen (Cryphonectria parasitica) was accidentally introduced via imported Asian chestnut trees. The airborne blight entered through cracks in the bark, creating lethal cankers that rapidly girdled and strangled billions of mature trees. Interestingly, the fungus cannot survive underground. Today, original root systems still push up tiny sprouts, but the saplings are inevitably killed by the blight before they can mature and reproduce. To save this iconic species, scientists are now backcrossing surviving root sprouts with blight-resistant Chinese chestnuts to try to bring it back. By selectively breeding these hybrids over multiple generations, researchers aim to create a tree that looks and acts like an American chestnut, but carries the crucial genetic resistance to finally survive the blight.

For 45 years, bulldozing the place an endangered animal needs to survive could count as harming that animal under federa...
10/24/2026

For 45 years, bulldozing the place an endangered animal needs to survive could count as harming that animal under federal law. As of September 12, it generally doesn’t.

The Endangered Species Act makes it illegal to “take” a listed species, and the law defines take to include “harm.” The law itself never spelled out what harm means. So in 1981, federal agencies wrote a definition. Harm could include significant habitat modification or degradation that actually kills or injures wildlife by impairing essential behaviors like breeding, feeding, or sheltering.

That one sentence became one of the strongest tools in conservation law. Clearing a forest a spotted owl nests in, draining wetlands a frog breeds in, or bulldozing panther habitat could all be treated as take, even if nobody touched an animal directly. In 1995, in Babbitt v. Sweet Home, the Supreme Court upheld that definition 6–3. Justice Scalia dissented, arguing harm should mean only direct actions against animals.

Then in 2024, the Supreme Court decided Loper Bright and overturned the doctrine that told courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable readings of unclear laws. Pointing to that ruling, the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries published a final rule on July 14, 2026, rescinding the 1981 definition. They didn’t write a new one. Instead they adopted the narrower reading from Scalia’s dissent. The rule took effect September 12.

Here’s what that changes. Habitat destruction alone generally won’t trigger the take prohibition anymore. Many landowners and developers won’t need incidental take permits or habitat conservation plans just because a project damages habitat.

Not everything disappears. Federal projects still go through Section 7 consultation, where habitat effects still count. Designated critical habitat still has protection when a federal permit or funding is involved. Existing permits stay in place.

But private land is where much of the habitat for listed species sits, and that’s where the safety net just got thinner. Lawsuits are widely expected.

Definition rescinded. Habitat exposed. Courts next.

The story of the Franklin tree is one of the most miraculous botanical rescues in natural history. The Franklin tree (Fr...
10/24/2026

The story of the Franklin tree is one of the most miraculous botanical rescues in natural history. The Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha), discovered in Georgia in 1765, has been extinct in the wild since the early 1800s. Famed royal botanists John Bartram and his son William stumbled upon a small, isolated grove of these beautiful, white-flowering trees along the Altamaha River in Georgia. Recognizing how incredibly rare the species was, they collected seeds and brought them back to their botanical garden in Philadelphia, naming the tree in honor of their good friend, Benjamin Franklin. Just a few decades later, the entire wild population was completely wiped out, likely due to a combination of land clearing for massive cotton plantations and a devastating root rot pathogen introduced by agricultural runoff. Thanks to the Bartrams' foresight, the species was saved from permanent erasure. Every single Franklin tree alive today, anywhere in the world, descends from seeds one Philadelphia family collected before it vanished.

Wyoming’s newest w**d problem was hiding in a sugar beet field, and at first it looked like ordinary pigw**d.Last summer...
10/24/2026

Wyoming’s newest w**d problem was hiding in a sugar beet field, and at first it looked like ordinary pigw**d.

Last summer, during a statewide survey of amaranth species, University of Wyoming Extension documented waterhemp in Wyoming for the first time. It was growing in a sugar beet field in the Big Horn Basin. Its cousin, Palmer amaranth, had already crossed in from Nebraska in 2018 and showed up in the Big Horn Basin in 2023.

UW Extension calls waterhemp one of the most damaging row-crop w**ds when left unmanaged. Here’s why.

First, seed. A single big waterhemp plant can produce hundreds of thousands of tiny seeds, sometimes more than a million. Those seeds ride irrigation water, combines, tillage equipment, and manure. Many sit in the soil for years, sprouting in waves through the whole season. Spray the early flush and another one comes up behind it.

Second, s*x. Unlike most w**ds, waterhemp plants are either male or female. Every seed is a cross between two different plants. So waterhemp mixes its genes constantly, and when one plant survives a herbicide, pollen carries that resistance to its neighbors. Across the Midwest, waterhemp populations have become resistant to several herbicide groups, and some resist several at once.

Third, speed. In good conditions these plants grow very fast, quickly shading young beets.

That’s why one w**d in one field matters. A patch caught early, with no seed dropped yet, can still be wiped out by hand-pulling, bagging, and burning. A field that’s allowed to go to seed even once can turn into a decade-long problem.

UW is asking growers to pay attention to any pigw**d that comes up at an odd time, in an odd place, or keeps surviving the usual treatment. Bring samples to your local w**d and pest office or UW Extension. And clean equipment before moving between fields.

Spot early. Pull seed heads. Stop spread.

The newest weapon against the honeybee’s worst parasite might be the bees’ own jaws.The parasite is the varroa mite, Var...
10/23/2026

The newest weapon against the honeybee’s worst parasite might be the bees’ own jaws.

The parasite is the varroa mite, Varroa destructor. It’s a reddish-brown speck about the size of a pinhead. It slips into brood cells just before they’re capped, then feeds on developing bees and spreads viruses like deformed wing virus. Colonies with heavy mite loads often look fine in August and are dead by February.

Mites are also getting harder to control. Some have developed resistance to common miticides. One Ohio State report put recent colony losses from mites at 30 to 50 percent.

So researchers at Central State University’s Bee Research Lab, in Wilberforce, are taking a different route. Led by Hongmei Li-Byarlay, the team is breeding honeybees with a trait called mite-biting. Some worker bees groom themselves and their nestmates, grab mites with their mandibles, and chew them, often taking off legs. A mite that can’t hold on falls off the bee and usually dies.

The breeding is precise. The team works with master beekeepers using instrumental insemination, which lets them choose both the queen’s and the drones’ genetics. They select colonies with strong mite-biting behavior, raise queens from those lines, and expand them. Over generations, the trait gets stronger.

Here’s why it matters beyond honey. Bees support crop pollination worth billions, and Li-Byarlay says about one in three bites of the food we eat depends on pollination. Ohio farms, orchards, and gardens rely on healthy colonies every spring.

A bee that fights back could mean fewer chemical treatments, slower resistance, and colonies that make it through winter.

For backyard beekeepers, the team has a practical tip: buy local bees adapted to Ohio conditions rather than shipped packages, which may carry unknown viruses.

Bees bite. Mites fall. Colonies live.

The Kentucky coffeetree is a rugged survivor of the Ice Age with a deeply contradictory relationship with humans. The Ke...
10/23/2026

The Kentucky coffeetree is a rugged survivor of the Ice Age with a deeply contradictory relationship with humans. The Kentucky coffeetree, once nearly extinct in the wild across the Midwest, produced seed pods so tough that early settlers roasted them as a coffee substitute. However, this frontier beverage came with a massive risk. Raw, the seeds are toxic enough to be used historically as rat poison. The seeds and pods contain cytisine, a dangerous alkaloid that can cause severe gastrointestinal distress, respiratory failure, and death if ingested raw. Early American settlers desperately seeking a caffeine-free coffee alternative discovered that heavily roasting the seeds neutralized the deadly toxins, transforming a lethal seed into a warm, bitter brew. Like the Osage orange, this tree's massive, rock-hard pods were originally designed to be eaten and dispersed by extinct megafauna like mastodons. Without those giant mammals to crush the pods, the tree almost faded into extinction until humans began cultivating it for its beautiful mahogany-like wood and its dangerous, makeshift coffee beans.

Address

3239 Wolf Pen Road
San Mateo, CA
94403

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Girls With Gardens posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category