Not all landscape and gardening endeavors pan out as planned. This summer, will it be trouble with your turnips, galls on your ginkgo, aphids on your artichokes or mold on your melons? Perhaps a new CD-ROM from the University of California will help you solve your gardening woes.

“The University of California Guide to Solving Garden and Landscape Problems” is an interactive computer program that offers a wealth of information for the home gardener, commercial grower or landscaper who wants to accurately identify pest problems, assess damage, and define and implement low-impact solutions to crop or landscape-planting injury.

The guide follows the principles of Integrated Pest Management or IPM. IPM focuses on the ecological system of a farm, garden or landscape and provides a broader perspective to plant problems than simply focusing on the destruction of a particular pest. According to the guide’s introduction, there are four basic elements of any IPM program: proper pest identification, methods for detecting, monitoring and predicting pest outbreaks; knowledge of the biology of the pest and its ecological interactions with the host, its natural enemies and its competitors; and ecologically sound management methods to prevent or control pests.

The guide offers pest diagnoses and recommendations for 40 fruits and vegetables and 80 ornamental trees and shrubs. Granted, some of the perennial plants, trees and shrubs covered in the computerized guide aren’t hardy enough to grow here in our northern climes, but largely the CD is fun and easy to use and is exceptionally informative. By using the CD, one can diagnose plant problems several ways. You can click on the crop and then select the problem: insects, diseases, weeds, vertebrate pests or environmental problems. Photos, diagrams and text will help identify in detail common pests, diseases or environmental problems such as pollution damage, blossom drop, bolting or frost or heat damage. Alternatively, one may diagnose a plant problem by clicking to a screen, which prompts questions until a diagnosis is made.

When searching for general information on a specific pest, photos and text outline the pest in its various lifecycle stages. Leaf, root, stem or overall plant damage is explained and shown through graphics, and prevention and eradication information is provided. Click on earwigs and you’ll find a shot of an adult earwig, a photo of damage on citrus and strawberry plants, along with several paragraphs defining the earwig’s physical characteristics, damage and solutions for control. For each garden or landscape crop, a host of possible damage-causing insects are listed, and identifying each pest and its control solutions is only a couple of mouse clicks away.

The CD has scads of information and the more you click, the more you’ll find. General information is provided for dozens of crops. Pages of information on selecting sites, planting, improving soil, composting, fertilizing, watering, cultivating, mulching and harvesting are provided.

This guide is an excellent way to increase your gardening knowledge and solve problems as they arise in your garden in an environmentally friendly way. The cost is $32. For more information, call 800-994-8849 or write to: University of California Communication Services, 6701 San Pablo Avenue, 2nd floor, Oakland, CA 94608-1239. Alternatively, visit the Web site: http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, RR1, Box 2120, Montville 04941, or e-mail them to dianagc@ctel.net. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.