Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia
Promoting environmentally sound gardening practices for over 35 years!
Controlling pests in our gardens can be frustrating whether they be blatantly furry and adorable or seemingly impossible to find as you search the ruins of a plant. Pests can even be invasive plants that bully the non-invasive vegetation. If you are experiencing pest problems in your garden or yard, the following classes and resources will help you.
Answers to today's crossword puzzle and coloring pages wrap up our celebration of #PollinatorWeek. We hope the posts About Butterflies & Moths will inspire you to create more inviting habitats for lepidopterans and other pollinators. Happy Gardening!
As we wind down our celebration of #PollinatorWeek, we invite you to solve a Lepidopteran Crossword Puzzle. Good luck! Answers will post tonight.
We cannot approach the end of Pollinator Week without celebrating monarchs. Today’s post discusses their current status and recommends ways that you can help these iconic, but threatened, butterflies. #PollinatorWeek
Today’s #PollinatorWeek post includes a list of nectar and host plants for fifty common Mid-Atlantic lepidopterans. Plants may vary from one lepidopteran to another although some attract multiple species and some feed both adults and caterpillars.
Continuing our #PollinatorWeek celebration, today’s post describes different tactics lepidopterans employ to survive and includes a new video of a gray hairstreak using his hindwing tails to imitate his antennae.
Answers to today's lepidopteran morphology fill-in-the-blank and word search puzzles. #PollinatorWeeK
Today’s post describes the form and structural features of lepidopterans. We invite you to test your knowledge with a fill-in-the-blank narrative and word search puzzle. The answers will post this evening. Good luck! #PollinatorWeek
Happy Pollinator Week! This year we are shining a spotlight on some of the most widely recognized insects in the world–butterflies and moths–with a series of posts, videos, and word puzzles throughout the week. Today’s post describes the Life Cycle of lepidopterans.
This list of plants resistant to deer was compiled based on research from 10 different resources. Ferns, grasses, and sedges are generally avoided by deer. They are also often warded off by plants with thorns, and prickly or scented leaves. Deer overpopulation, habit, and age also determine what deer eat. Under the right circumstances, deer will eat almost anything if they are hungry enough and their preferred foods are scarce.
What is the impact of the overpopulation of deer on our local environment? Learn about the history of deer in our area, the impact on the environment, and how this issue is being addressed in Northern Virginia.
Insect Pest Management for the Vegetable Garden - Bird and Mammal Pests
Birds are some of the most visible and charming visitors to our gardens. Are you interested in being a better host to them? This talk will provide practical cultural tips and plant suggestions to invite them in and help your feathered guests feel at home.
Watch this video to see Brood X cicadas mating and two females laying eggs in the slits they created in the branches of a red maple tree and an abelia shrub.
After mating, a female cicada finds tender twigs or branches (usually the size of a pencil) in which to lay her eggs. As many cicadas flew to trees like oaks, maples, cherries, redbuds, and dogwoods to find suitable twigs, this female chose a branch on an Abelia bush about five feet off the ground.
Stop to smell the roses–but look before you do!
Not every cicada is successful . . .
For some cicadas, the molting process can be long and arduous, taking up to an hour or more.
Learn how you can participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count–all you have to do is watch birds for at least 15 minutes, at least once, from February 12 through February 15, 2021...Also, learn how to improve the habitat on your own property to make it more inviting for birds and butterflies.
Your young, newly planted trees are very attractive to our healthy white-tailed deer population. Not only are the leaves and tender young growth within easy height for feeding, deer will utilize young trees for rubbing their antlers and do serious damage to the bark and trunk of even newly planted trees.
Protection from wildlife is important for guarding the initial investment of planting. Overall, wildlife protection should be adaptive and based on need, cost, desired effectiveness, installation effort, and ease of maintenance.
In 2021, Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia will introduce Landscape for Wildlife, a new series of educational posts on Facebook which will run weekly on Thursday mornings starting Jan. 7. Landscape for Wildlife will focus on the services that native species can provide to endangered pollinators, birds, small mammals, and other wildlife when homeowners include them in residential landscapes.
If you think it is too early to find the exoskeletons of annual cicadas scattered along the sidewalk, then you are correct. What you see are the exoskeletons of periodical cicadas. Some of the Brood X 17-year cicadas have started to surface–four years early–in Virginia, Maryland, DC, Delaware, Ohio and Tennessee.
As bees feed on flower nectar, their electrostatically-charged and branched body hairs attract and trap pollen grains. They carry the grains from flower to flower making them very effective pollinators. (About one-third of agricultural crops world-wide depend directly or indirectly on bees for pollination.) Both male and female bees feed on flower nectar, which provides carbohydrates and energy. However, only the female bees gather and carry pollen back to the nest or hive. Pollen provides protein that is essential for developing larvae.
