Early risers Friday might catch the last of the waning crescent moon low in the east in the 90 minutes before daybreak at 5:48. Ten degrees to its left, glows Aldebaran, the bright red heart of Taurus the bull. Later that same day, as darkness settles in after 8:30, Venus appears above the west horizon. The bluish light of Regulus shines about one degree to the lower left of Venus, but there is no comparison, as the so-called evening star shines more than 150 times brighter than the real star....

  A neat, completely green sheared hedge of privet can be very attractive in a landscape. But most often the bottom branches lose their leaves, and the hedge quickly loses its attractiveness. This is a common problem and one that can easily be corrected, as I showed in a recent pruning workshop that required rejuvenating an old privet hedge with nothing but naked branches on the lower half.  Plants lose their bottom leaves because those leaves are being shaded out by branches and...

  Early risers Friday might catch the last of the waning crescent moon low in the east in the 90 minutes before daybreak at 5:48. Ten degrees to its left, glows Aldebaran, the bright red heart of Taurus the bull.  Later that same day, as darkness settles in after 8:30, Venus appears above the west horizon. The bluish light of Regulus shines about one degree to the lower left of Venus, but there is no comparison, as the so-called evening star shines more than 150 times brighter than...

  There is only one baby osprey this year, Olivia usually has three each year, but she has been having her trials of late. Last year, she lost all her babies when a windstorm toppled the nest into the water and the chicks drowned. This year, some sort of mishap occurred with her initial eggs. Junior is growing by leaps and bounds and is well attended by his parents. I see his little tousled head poking up above the nest every day now as his mother feeds him fresh-caught fish. When he...