Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia
Promoting environmentally sound gardening practices for over 35 years!
For many gardeners, reading about gardening and plants is the next best thing to working in their own garden or tending their containers or houseplants. If you are looking for a special book to give your favorite gardener this holiday season, consider one of the following Extension Master Gardener favorites.
As the days grow cooler and shorter and flowers fade, there are still tasks for the home gardener. Whether you grow plants in containers on a patio, in window boxes, or a small, urban garden space, you’ll want to take protective measures for your herbaceous (perennials or annuals) or woody (evergreen or deciduous) plants.
Enjoy another entry in our series of short form thoughts on gardening and gardeners.
For years I thought Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus) wasn’t a big problem, at least not around Northern Virginia. I wasn’t spotting it in wild areas like I was seeing other plants on Arlington’s invasive list. Then I learned.
No discussion about how we can help cope with climate change would be complete without addressing the critical importance of trees. Trees offer habitat, nesting sites, and a variety of food to wildlife and the life functions of trees provide many other beneficial ecosystem services.
The new trend toward hotter summers and warmer winters is necessarily changing the way we garden. While the DC metropolitan area has previously been designated as Zone 7 on the USDA’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map, our current lowest average temperature of 14 degrees now would place our region in Zone 8, which is presently located around Virginia Beach, a little over 200 miles further south.
Sun rising. Watching its light move down into the forest, touching earth, I am touched, enlivened, inwardly aware Of the collaboration of sun/warmth/wind/water Summoning life on our planet … now …
