A southeast Michigan yard through the year

The sequence below is the one that repeats around Troy and the neighboring communities. A mild winter or a wet June shifts the dates. The calendar does not mean every property will see every problem, and these notes do not include application rates.

Spring

Snow leaves in patches. Gray and pink snow mold, vole runways, and winter burn on boxwood and rhododendron become obvious. Crabapple leaves start the apple scab cycle if the spring stays cool and wet. Scale and aphids show on twigs and new growth. Pavement ants trail along warmed slabs. MSU’s oak-wilt guidance puts April 15 through July 15 in the high-risk window for pruning oaks, because that is when sap beetles and fresh wounds overlap. MSU oak wilt note.

Summer

Cool-season lawns slow down. Grub damage, dollar spot, and brown patch can all appear while the surface is hot. Japanese beetles feed on lindens, roses, and grapes. European chafer adults are active on warm evenings from about mid-June into early July, mostly unnoticed unless you are outside at dusk. Bagworms show on arborvitae and spruce. Blue spruce that are already thin from needle cast look worse in July, even though the infection of those needles happened the spring before. Wasps and mosquitoes become hard to ignore. Magnolia scale honeydew often builds toward late summer, with crawlers commonly active in August and September.

Fall

Lawns grow again, and the perennial weeds are easy to see. Chafer and other grubs are large by early fall, and animals dig for them. Leaves sitting on weak turf matter because the grass underneath is already short of light. Leaf cleanup is separate from a lawn program. On the house, boxelder bugs, Asian lady beetles, brown marmorated stink bugs, and cluster flies gather on sunny walls and then come inside. Mice start using garages.

Winter

Salt and slush burn turf edges and evergreens along the main roads. Deer browse arborvitae, yew, and hosta where yards meet woods, which is a regular condition on larger wooded lots and a lighter one on a small city lot. Voles work under the snow at the base of young trees. Indoors, the insects that gathered on walls in the fall are what most households still notice. Winter is also the lower-risk season for pruning oaks.

Keep a date, the place in the yard, and one sentence. The service pages are plant health care, lawn fertilization and weed control, and pest control. When you want help with something you are seeing, request an assessment.