Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia
Promoting environmentally sound gardening practices for over 35 years!
Winter is an excellent time to prune many trees and shrubs. Learn why and how to prune to remove crossing and rubbing branches, suckers, water sprouts, and damaged wood. Discover the best practices for reducing shrub size, trimming hedges, and carefully removing larger limbs. The results will be trees and shrubs with healthier and fuller growth, better flowers and fruit, and a more attractive home landscape.
These plant and gardening related presentations from the Glencarlyn Library Community Garden offer a range of educational information on gardening and includes a new series on Beautiful Native Plants
These videos include some of the herb-focused activities usually featured at the Glencarlyn Library Community Garden's annual AutumnFest event.
These videos from the Glencarlyn Library Community Garden includes a series on Climate Conscious Gardening as well as some introductory Gardening 101 tips.
Information and observations on insects from the coordinators of the Glencarlyn Library Community Garden.
MGNV has focused on Pruning in the month of February. Here is a round-up of our pruning resources.
Dormancy makes late winter/early spring the best time to prune many shrubs and trees. The gardener can see the shape of the bare plants better, and the cuts are less disruptive than when the plant is growing. When full spring arrives, the plant will put energy into the new shape and desired size.
Though snowfall can transform our landscape in ways beautiful and wondrous, heavy snowfall can also cause astounding harm. Trees and shrubs broken under the weight of snow and ice need to have damaged wood carefully removed.
Summer is the time to prune trees and shrubs that bloom in the spring and to help perennial flowering plants look their best. Extension Agent Kirsten Conrad walks you through the how, when, and why to prune hedges, multi-stem shrubs, small trees, and large branches. With these best practices, your pruning results will be healthier and fuller growth, better flowers and fruit, and more attractive landscaping.
Worried about cicada damage? Learn more about coping with "flagging" and the right way to prune post cicada damage.
The coordinators of the Glencarlyn Library Community Garden started making short educational videos in the fall of 2020 as an alternative, distanced means of providing some of the educational content and herb-focused activities usually featured at the garden's annual AutumnFest event. They enjoyed the medium so much that they have continued to make plant and gardening related presentations as opportunities have presented themselves.
Stumped by something in your garden? Ask the Extension Agent
❧ Frozen Fig Tree
❧ Topping vs Pollarding
❧ Pruning Herbs & Brambles
Mechanical damage is the most preventable of bark injuries because it is often due to impatience, inattention, or ignorance. Careless maintenance practices can damage trees that take decades, not weeks, to grow. While we cannot control the weather, which can cause irreparable bark injury, we can control what plants we purchase and where we choose to locate them—the right plant in the right place increases its chances of surviving weather extremes. Enjoy the amazing photographs in this article on preventing mechanical and weather damage to trees.
While the garden is dormant, you have a chance to find and correct landscape issues concerning many varieties of deciduous trees. This is the best time to prune this type of tree.
THE MYTH: The best way to disinfect pruning tools is to use a bleach solution.
A common and much-debated garden myth is that a chlorine bleach solution is the best way to disinfect pruning tools. So popular, in fact, that a Google search on the topic comes back with 1.7 million!
