May at the Glencarlyn Library Demonstration Garden – 2016
Glencarlyn Library Garden happenings in May 2016
Demonstration Gardens
Sunny Garden Kicks Off the Season
What’s with all the Weeds? By Joe Kelly, Master Gardener Where did all those weeds come from? Yes, the overabundance of weeds has been our greatest challenge so far this …
Shade Garden News
by Dina Lehmann-Kim, Master Gardener When the Shade Garden held its work party April 16 to pot up plants for the Master Gardeners (MG) of Northern Virginia’s annual plant sale …
Notes from the Organic Vegetable Garden (OVG)
In beautiful Potomac Overlook Regional Park Many people, when thinking about growing vegetables, associate spring with the beginning of effort. They would be wrong. The truth is that many of …
The Long View – Meditations on Gardening: The Thing About Gardeners
Gardening strikes me as the perfect metaphor for life. Everything goes swimmingly well for a while, then adversity strikes and we need to plod through it until we’ve solved the problem or survived the crisis or found a new pathway.
Five Things You Didn’t Know You Needed to Know About Growing Tomatoes!
Written by the MGNV Organic Vegetable Demonstration Garden Master Gardeners, with special thanks to Debbie Siegel and Tom Laughlin. Five Things About Growing Tomatoes Are you growing tomatoes this year? Here are …
Spring Ephemerals in the Glencarlyn Library Garden
It's the time of year when Gardeners talk enthusiastically about “Spring Ephemerals,” using this term to describe native wildflowers, such as Virginia Bluebells, Trout Lily, Toothwort, Spring Beauty, Bloodroot, Trillium and Woodland Phlox. The word 'ephemeral' often means short-lived, but in the case of native plants, transitory is more accurate.
Photographing the Tried and True Sheets: Part 3 – Capturing Foliage and Bark
Written by Mary Free, Certified Master Gardener So far, our Photographing the Tried and True Sheets series has explored how best to capture photographs of various plants, including trees, flowers and fruits. You …
Photographing the Tried and True Sheets: Part 2 – Capturing Flowers and Fruits
Written by Mary Free, Certified Master Gardener Part One of Photographing the Tried and True Sheets explored how best to capture the forms of plants and trees in photographs. You can …
Photographing the Tried and True Sheets: Part 1 – Capturing the Form
Written by Mary Free, Certified Master Gardener In a major improvement, Tried and True Plant fact sheets now provide photographic images that highlight native plants grown in MGNV demonstration gardens …
Exciting Happenings in Glencarlyn Library Garden
What do Persimmons, Poe, and Painting have in common – besides the letter P?!? All three were exciting happenings in the Library Garden this fall.
Culinary, Fragrant & Medicinal HERBS!
You're welcome to come anytime to visit, taste, smell, enjoy the Glencarlyn Library Herb Garden located behind the library building next to the patio.
Sunny Garden Renovations 2014
Written by Elaine Mills, Extension Master GardenerPhotos by Elaine Mills and Liz Pittleman With the support of their team of Master Gardener volunteers and interns, coordinators Kate Donohue and Joe …
New Monarch Waystation at Bluemont Park
The Bluemont Bird and Butterfly Garden began around 2004. The space, which had been just another parking lot island, was filled with various flowering perennials and shrubs and was used and maintained by park rangers. When the county changed its policies regarding ranger assignments, no rangers were permanently assigned to the park and it fell into disrepair.
There is More to a Garden than Flowers and Foliage – Wildlife in the Shade Garden
By Mary Free, Extension Master Gardener In early spring, the Quarry/Shade Garden is hardly shady. Before the trees have leafed out, sun streams through bare branches beckoning the ephemerals to emerge and …
Happy 25th Anniversary Quarry/Shade Garden!
Twenty-six years ago, Bon Air Park’s Quarry/Shade Garden was neither a quarry nor a garden. The 40‘ x 30’ site, once used as a quarry for inferior- grade building stone, sat idle and overgrown...It is fitting that the idea for reclaiming the present site was conceived during an Earth Day celebration in Bon Air Park in 1988. It would become the first of seven demonstration gardens in Arlington and Alexandria, developed and maintained by MGNV.
March was here, but where is Spring?
Written by Mary Free, Certified Master Gardener After one of the warmest winters on record, the March Shade Garden (pictured below) in Bon Air Park was awash in color with …
Audrey Faden, Master Gardener Emerita
Audrey Evans was born on a coffee farm outside the town of Nyeri in Kenya in 1941. She recalls the “small” 600-acre farm as a beautiful place, with steep hillsides, rivers, bush, and a view of Mt. Kenya. Her father, who went to Kenya from South Africa, started the farm in 1911. Her mother, his second wife, went to Kenya in the 1930s from England as a nurse and met her future husband when he was a patient in the Nairobi hospital where she worked. “He fell in love with her voice,” as the story goes.
Simpson Gardens’ 20th Anniversary Open House
The Simpson Demonstration Gardens, next to the Alexandria YMCA, celebrated their 20th Anniversary with an Open House on Sunday, September 22, 2013.
Rejuvenating Beds in the Sunny Garden
by Mary Frase and Elaine Mills Our class project as members of the 2012 class involved rejuvenating two beds in the Sunny Demonstration Garden. The project turned out to be …
Sunny Demonstration Garden at Bon Air Park
Early history of the Sunny Demonstration Garden at Bon Air Park
Monarchs at Glencarlyn
Monarch caterpillars at Glencarlyn Library Community Garden
In The Garden: Growing Vegetables in Raised Beds
Organic Vegetable Garden (OVG), July 3rd: Many urban and suburban gardeners may believe that there is no room for vegetables in their yards. A successful vegetable garden is dependent on …
In The Garden: Grow Malabar for Greens in August
Organic Vegetable Garden (OVG), June 21st: Last summer we grew Malabar spinach for the first time. Malabar (also known as Indian spinach, Ceylon spinach, basella, or vine spinach) is not …