Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia
Over 40 Years of Growing Gardens and Gardeners
#MGNV Tried and True #NativePlant Selections for the Mid-Atlantic
This graceful plant is the most shade-tolerant native grass, and its distinctive flowering spikes and seed heads are a lovely ornamental feature, showing especially well when backlit. It naturally grows in dry woodlands and barrens mostly north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
#America250 #nativetrees #MGNV
As the nation celebrates its 250th birthday, not many trees from the late 1700s survive in Alexandria and Arlington. Almost all succumbed by the thousands to farming, logging, industrial and residential development, and climate change. But there are a few here and there, bearing witness to the generations of people and events that over the last 250 years transformed a heavily forested corner of Virginia into an urban cityscape.
#MasterGardener #MGNV #Glossary
What is a small or secondary spike called?
#MGNV Tried and True #NativePlant Selections for the Mid-Atlantic
Attractive foliage and showy flowers recommend this readily adaptable plant. The genus name derives from the Greek “penta” and “stemon” or “five stamen”— a reference to its characteristic fifth sterile stamen, a staminode.
#mgnv #mastergardener #mosquitocontrol
Action 5 in our Restoring Nature series offers strategies for managing mosquitoes without harming pollinators.
#MasterGardener #MGNV #Glossary
Chelone (turtlehead) and Penstemon (beard-tongue), both members of the Plantaginaceae (plantain family), are described as having five stamens—four fertile and one sterile. What is the sterile stamen called?
