Dear Neil: What is eating the leaves of my zucchini squash? I looked on the backs and didn’t find any eggs.

This is damage caused by striped cucumber beetles. The adult beetles are fond of cucumbers and other cucurbits, especially zucchini. They can do major damage to the foliage, flowers, and even rinds of the fruit in very short order. Clean up all garden debris when harvest is finished to remove the overwintering options. Rotate your crops so you don’t plant squash and cucumbers in the same ground in successive years. Watch closely for the first signs of the beetles. There are insecticides labeled for use on them, but hopefully you can keep the pests in check without having to resort to them.

Dear Neil: I have a Meyer lemon that was hurt by the freeze. However, it is sending out lots of new growth from its stems. The new shoots have thorns, however. Is this coming from a rootstock that had thorns? Do I no longer have a Meyer? Should I just remove it and start over?

It may have been grafted onto a trifoliate orange rootstock. Meyer lemons can be grown from seed or cuttings, but from your description, it surely sounds like you have a different rootstock. If you continue to see new growth that doesn’t look like the Meyer lemon of old, yes, it’s time to start over.

Dear Neil: My sago palms are not doing well. Should I cut off the dead portions?

Prune to remove the dried leaves, and let the new growth proceed. Reevaluate this fall. They may grow back faster than you expect.

Dear Neil: Fescue grass has totally invaded a 15-by-30-foot bed of mondograss in our landscape due to a lawn maintenance company’s carelessness in overseeding the fescue. How can it be eliminated without harming the mondograss?

That’s going to be difficult. It really needs to rest on the shoulders of the lawn care company since they’re the ones who committed the blunder. It may have to involve using a wick applicator to apply a glyphosate-only herbicide carefully to the tops of the leaves of the fescue. They would have to keep it off the mondograss in the process. If the fescue was overseeded this past spring, it will not be very strong yet. Summer’s heat may help by killing much of it. Again, to emphasize, this is the lawn care company’s problem to solve.

Have a question you’d like Neil to consider? Email him at mailbag@sperrygardens.com. Neil regrets that he cannot reply to questions individually.