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Dear Dr. Dirt: In the fencerow behind our house, there are some hackberry trees. Some of the leaves have developed marble-size balls. I am familiar with the nipple galls on hackberry leaves, but the ...

Q: My hackberry’s leaves had thousands of the little galls you wrote about earlier this year. Should I not use those leaves in my compost? A: Use them. There are millions of galls to go around, and ...

Dear Neil: My hackberry’s leaves had thousands of the little galls you wrote about earlier this year. Should I not use those leaves in my compost? A: Use them. There are millions of galls to go around ...

Question: The leaves on my hackberry tree have bumps. What can I do about this problem? Answer: Your tree has galls. Hackberries are great native trees that are tolerant of many temperature, soil ...

Answer: Your tree has galls. Hackberries are great native trees that are tolerant of many temperature, soil condition and moisture extremes. They have a few problems that are mostly cosmetic. The gall ...

I was standing at Pavilion 1 in Lancaster County Central Park one day early in June when a hackberry butterfly landed on my left arm. Immediately its long, straw-like mouth came out and I could feel ...

A student plopped a leaf on my desk, pointed to several green lumps on its underside, and asked, “What are those green growths?” It was a stump-the-professor moment and in this case, I was, indeed, ...