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Bulb Gardening / Container Gardens / Deer / Edible Plants / Fragrant Plants / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Herbs / Vegetable Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Protect Your Garden with Alliums, Gingers, and Herbs

Have You Eaten? Animals engage in the business of eating;  there is no common ground between our desire for a beautiful and productive garden and a deer or rabbit’s need for lunch.   While we may garden in harmony with birds harvesting berries from our shrubs and bees harvesting  nectar and pollen from our flowers, it is mainly because they can assist us with our gardening tasks and feed themselves without destroying our plants. Birds and spiders eat mostly insects, helping...

Farm-To-Table / Vegetable Gardening

 by Marion Guthrie

Why Grow Your Own Vegetables? #2

Why grow your own vegetables?  Different people have different reasons.  Most people want to have a source of fresh vegetables for their families.  There is nothing like going to your own garden to pick a lettuce for a salad, a tomato for a sandwich, or a harvest of green beans for dinner.  For people in underserved areas, a home garden may be one of their best sources of fresh vegetables. Your vegetables will be fresher than you can find in...

Birds / Conservation / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Jamestown Island / Native Plants / Native Trees / Resource Protection / Shoreline Erosion / Trees in Winter / Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Bald Cypress at Glebe Gut

  This photo, used for our late January 2025 webpage header, was taken along the National Colonial Parkway at Glebe Gut.  It features a bald cypress tree and other native vegetation. Glebe Gut is a narrow, tidal channel that flows under the Colonial Parkway, between College Creek and Mill Creek, near Jamestown Island.  The waterway itself forms the western boundary of a 100-acre tract of land known as the Glebe Land, set aside after 1619 for the use and support...

JCCW Master Gardener Association / JCCW MGA Leadership Team

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Get to Know Our JCCW Master Gardener Association Board for 2025

  Our new leadership team took office in January, with a combined 81 years of Master Gardening experience to guide them in leading our organization this year.  Most have been gardening since childhood and bring tremendous knowledge and practical experience to their work as Master Gardeners. Please get to know these outstanding individuals who have stepped up to positions of leadership this year.  You may learn a few new things about old friends and colleagues from their interviews.  Many hands...

Conservation / Deer / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Hedgerow / Ornamental Shrubs / Poisonous Plants / Resource Protection / Sustainable Gardening / Tree Care / Trees / Wildlife Gardening / Winter Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Oh Deer!

  Fallen leaves carpet the ravine behind our home, broken only by thick green stems of bamboo, taller than most of our trees; a few young pawpaw and scarlet buckeye trees; and the thick trunks of century old beech trees.  There are also a few fallen, decaying trunks of trees lost to storms, but none of the undergrowth you might expect to find in a wild ravine bordering a small lake.  The soil is rich and deep.  Dappled sunlight illuminates...

Citizen Science / Conservation / Evergreen trees / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Sustainable Gardening / Trees in Winter / Wildlife Gardening / Winter / Winter Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Celebrate the Winter Solstice by Honoring Our Earth

The Shortest Day of the Year On Saturday, December 21, 2024, indigenous people and others who practice nature based spiritual paths celebrate the Winter Solstice.  Winter Solstice has been observed as a holy day for millennia, since before humans kept records, because it marks the shortest day of the year and the return of the sun to warm the Earth for the growing season ahead.  Historians have found that ancient stone circles, pyramids, and other prehistoric stone constructions are oriented...

Citizen Science / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Garden Maintenance / Master Gardener Home Visits / Native Trees / Pruning Clinic / Sustainable Gardening / Tree Care / Trees / Trees in Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

The Annual Pruning Clinic

  Woody plants remain healthier, more productive, and more beautiful with strategic, well-timed pruning.  Pruning young plants guides their growth into a strong and balanced structure.  Pruning older plants opens them up to sunlight and airflow, limiting the opportunities for disease to infect them.  Proper pruning can also rejuvenate them with new, more vigorous growth. Pruning wisely is both an art and a science.  Some homeowners and gardeners may question how and when to prune the many shrubs and trees...

Citizen Science / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Evergreen trees / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Master Gardener Home Visits / Native Trees / Permaculture / Tree Care / Trees in Winter / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Pruning: Dos and Don’ts

  Pruning woody shrubs is both art and science.  Selecting which branches to leave and which to remove allows a gardener to train a woody plant into a pleasing, balanced shape that fits the available space.  Some gardeners use pruning techniques to create neatly trimmed topiary, elegant hedges, or espaliered fruit trees.  Gardeners may also prune roots and branches and remove leaves and buds to train trees to live as bonsai in shallow containers.  Woody plants are extremely adaptable and...

Plant Literacy

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Unlocking the Secrets of Plant Species Names

  A plant’s botanical name, which consists of its genus and species name, may at first look unfamiliar and daunting to pronounce or to understand.  These names are Latinized and so follow the rules of Latin language.  They are intended to describe and give important information about the plants they name.  Botanical names help botanists, horticulturalists, gardeners, and those breeding and selling plants to communicate precisely about specific plants, their varieties, cultivars, and hybrids.  Every plant, historic or newly discovered,...

Brickyard / Conservation / Garden Design / Grasses / Native Plants / Plant Literacy / Restoration / Soil Conservation / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Landscape Grasses Every Master Gardener Should Know

  Perennial Grasses have many uses in the landscape, including helping to control erosion and adding structural interest to the landscape.   They tend to be very drought tolerant, tough, and seldom will be grazed by deer.  Most grasses are left standing through the winter and cut back in early spring, making room for new growth to emerge.  Some grasses, like river oats, self-seed freely.  Clumps of grasses expand as the plants mature.   Perennial Landscape Grasses Andropogon spp., Bluestem,  Beardgrass,...