“Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless?” Dr. Carlos Castaneda When a young graduate student in anthropology wanted to learn more about the medicinal uses of plants for his academic research in the early 1960s, so the legend goes, he sought out an old Mexican native, a brujero, known simply as don Juan, who lived in the Sonoran Desert. Carlos asked to interview him about...
You may already have everything you need to make a simple, wildlife friendly, natural Christmas wreath. Can you remember Christmas before the decorations were all made with plastic and came from a store? This is a simple wreath that you can make in an afternoon, enjoy during the season, and then add to your compost pile. It will be fresher, more fragrant, and will last longer than any purchased wreath. Best of all, you can find the materials as...
Maybe it will rain, and maybe it won’t. It has been unusually dry in our area for the past several months. Some of the little starts I planted with high hopes in March and April have been struggling to take hold. I need to water large areas of our garden several times a week, as though it were July already. And regular irrigation just isn’t an option for many gardeners. We are relatively fortunate in coastal Virginia because we...
Benefits of Garden Herbs Herbs attract hummingbirds and butterflies like few other plants. It is worth planting a few herbs whether you plan to harvest and cook with them or not because they are tough, easy to grow, and beautiful. They come with side benefits; their essential oils not only offer fragrance and flavor, but they also deter grazers. If you have watched deer chew your roses and impatiens like deer candy, know that your herbs will survive their curiosity. ...
What is an Herb? Why is mint an herb, but clover isn’t? Have you ever given it much thought? Botanically, any plant with a soft stem, that dies back in winter, is ‘herbaceous.’ Were you give a stack of a dozen cards, each with the name and picture of a plant, could you sort them into ‘herbs’ and ‘not herbs’? If asked, most of us could probably name at least five herbs. Those used in cooking, like basil and thyme...
Once upon a time, I found herb gardening a topic of mystique and mystery. Maybe it was the herb gardening books I found, with their illustrations of medieval knot gardens, and the cute little pots of culinary herbs grown on the wide, sunny windowsill of someone’s gourmet kitchen. Or maybe it was learning that many herbs prefer a Mediterranean climate with dry, rocky soil and lots of sunshine. How could I replicate that in Virginia? It may have been...
Mattey’s Garden is a hands-on learning garden at the Matthew Whaley Elementary School. And while the students were absent due to COVID-19, the garden continued to grow, including the weeds. Luckily, Louann Martin, who heads up this project for the James City County Williamsburg Master Gardener Association (JCCWMGA), assembled a team made up of the elementary school’s families and students as well as JCCW Master Gardeners. This team has been tending the garden with a watchful eye pruning, weeding, and...
A Special Needs Gardening Program! A collaboration between our Master Gardeners and Arc, the Arc of Abilities Day Support Program is for adults with special needs. The program teaches participants how to grow and use flowers, vegetables, and herbs that they cultivate in four large, raised beds year-round in the Williamsburg Botanical Garden’s Therapeutic Garden, and on rainy days in the Park’s Visitor’s Center. In a partnership that has lasted for more than five years, Master Gardeners meet with Arc...
Picnics with citronella candles, lemon scented furniture polish and sweet tea with lemons all recall happy childhood memories. Fragrance has a profound ability to create or shift a mood, to trigger memories and create new ones. Just as cinnamon evokes the holidays; crisp, cool lemon is a summertime fragrance. Most lemon scented plants thrive in warm climates. Lemon trees, Citrus limon, are hardy only to Zone 8. Originally native to Asia, they spread throughout the ancient world wherever the...
Did Santa bring you a potted plant for Christmas? Or maybe a neighbor dropped by with a beautiful potted something to spread a bit of good cheer your way? Or do you always linger at the rack of holiday plants and wonder which ones you might be able to keep alive for a few weeks this winter? December and January are a great time to shop for plants. And this week, especially, after Christmas, you’ll find some good values...