Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia
Promoting environmentally sound gardening practices for over 35 years!
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.
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.
Our Free Tree project stems from concerns that our region’s tree canopy is shrinking fast as our largest trees fall victim to age, redevelopment, poor pruning practices around power lines, prolonged periods of drought, and record-high flash rainfalls. Many people seek to replant, but the instinct to plant a larger tree can lead to disappointing results, since larger nursery trees need extensive root trimming to be portable enough to sell, and their new owners often fail to give them enough water in their first year to survive.
Parents often feed their chicks even after they fledge, similar to what some human parents experience these days with their Millennial fledges. And while local parents have recently been confronting scarce supplies of paper products and frozen pizzas, these poor bird parents will tell you they’ve been suffering caterpillar shortages in this urban area for years.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Appreciating the winter garden makes for a happier all-season gardener, so this article, written by EMG Mary Free in December 2012, was worth revising and updating. Our gardens may lay mostly dormant in this season, but still there are some herbaceous and woody plants with color, form, and texture that can both surprise and delight in the winter landscape.
Thinking of planting more trees? It's not too early to plan for next year!
Both Alexandria and Arlington support the idea of maintaining and increasing the tree canopy of our highly urbanized area, and offer residents assistance through either free or reduced rate young tree. While fall is an ideal time to plant trees, our local governments offer trees sales or deliveries in spring as well. One such program in Arlington requires application by January 7, so we are offering information to help you plan.
In celebration of the 2015 International Year of Soils, MGNV presents you with some ‘punny’ soil jokes
