“Hey guys… remember when we were kids and we used to get a magnifing glass to burn our names in wood. Or if you were really bad, you would aim it towards an ant hill… Yea…you know hows boys are…” Well in today’s world, the windows of our homes have a UV coating that reflects sunlight away from the house. This is to protect our draperies, and furniture from sunlight damage. This new invention is great, but did you know that it adds a new challenge to our landscape? The intensity of the sunlight works exactly like a magnifing glass. Sunlight reflecting off of your windows can be re-directed right into your shrub beds, causing a condition called “sunscald”. I have never known a plant to actually catch fire, but I have seen plants with brown, dried foliage, that eventually leads to collapse of the shrub. In the following photos you will see a reflection on the wall of a building. This reflection comes from a window from another building to the right. Now, in this situation, the relfected light is harmlessly directed away from the plants. But this example gives you an idea of what to look for in and around your own landscape.
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