Donna Ellis, senior Extension educator in the Dept. of Plant Science & Landscape Architecture at the University of Connecticut, is retiring today. She’s been there since 1990 — that’s a long career! Donna is diligent and super efficient, and it’s amazing how much she’s accomplished with such grace and good humor. An unsurpassed planner and a delightful person, here are some of her contributions: She was coordinator of UConn’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program and taught a course on agricultural and horticultural plant pests. She initiated a Beetle Farmer Program to train volunteers to raise beneficial insects as biological control agents for the invasive plant purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), and collaborated…
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UConn’s New Chokeberry Nativars
JULY-AUG 2018 – Mark Brand, a professor of horticulture at UConn, recently introduced two new varieties of black chokeberry: Low Scape® Mound (UC165) and Low Scape® Hedger (UC166). Black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) is native to the Eastern U.S. so we can use the term nativar instead of the more generic cultivar. Nativar is a term coined by Dr. Allan Armitage to indicate cultivars and hybrids derived from native plants. There’s a growing interest in using native plants and an increasing demand for improved varieties that perform well in our landscapes. The development process, which used traditional hybridizing techniques, took about 10 years. Both of these varieties flower on old wood…
