Category: Soil Conservation

Help Wanted / Invasive Plants / Native Plants / Native Trees / Nuisance Plants / Ornamental Shrubs / Soil Conservation / Summer Color Plants / Tree Identification / Trees / Vegetable Gardening / Watering

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Master Gardeners’ Homeowner Outreach Programs 2026

Transform Your Garden with Expert Advice from Certified Master Gardeners Do you dream of a flourishing garden but aren’t sure where to start? Or perhaps you’ve encountered some gardening issues that require expert intervention. The James City County Williamsburg Master Gardener Association has just what you need! We offer free, environmentally sound, research-based recommendations for your home’s trees, lawn, landscape, and water-saving practices.  Our teams of 2-3 certified Extension Master Gardeners are ready to visit your home, discuss your gardening...

Birds / Carbon Garden / Conservation / Deer Resistant Plants / Edible Plants / Flowering Shrubs / Food Forest / Foraging / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Healing Garden / Hedge / Hedgerow / Larval Host Plants / Native Trees / Permaculture / Poisonous Plants / Soil Conservation / Wildlife Gardening / Williamsburg Botanical Garden

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The Many Uses of Sumac

Vibrant Fall Foliage Are you drawn to bright scarlet leaves in autumn? You have probably admired sumac shrubs growing along the roadsides even if you didn’t know their name.  Sumac’s huge, compound leaves can grow to two feet long, made up of as many as 31 leaflets arranged along its colorful central stem.  They are deep green and glossy through much of the year, until they turn golden, orange, scarlet, or even deep purple from September until the leaves finally...

Conservation / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Invasive Plants / Soil Conservation / Wildlife Gardening

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Eliminate Stilt Grass Now

A Window of Opportunity Your window to destroy any Japanese stilt grass on your property closes when its seeds emerge in late August through October.  This tenacious, invasive grass has all the adaptations it needs to gobble up real estate in private yards, public spaces, and in woodlands across America.  But your swift action now, before this year’s seeds ripen, can help stop its spread.     Japanese stilt grass, Microstegium vimineum, is an annual that will die back with...

Conservation / Ferns / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Native Trees / Soil Conservation / Spring Flowering Trees / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

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Our Planetary Garden

  A New View of our Earth American soldiers and scientists working at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico took the first images of Earth from space in late October of 1946 when they attached a 35-millimeter movie camera to a confiscated German V-2 missile they were testing.  The missile reached an altitude of 65 miles, just above the limit of ‘outer space,’ before crashing back to earth with the film protected in a steel container. Subsequent missile tests...

Soil Conservation / Vegetable Gardening

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Home Food Production: Tools and Soil Preparation

If you are starting a vegetable garden in an area that is already tilled, you probably have all the tools you need and the soil will not need much preparation. If you start from a lawn or untilled area, you will need some hand tools, and the soil will need attention.   Tools Start with a few basic tools; a digging spade, garden fork, rake, and trowel are enough to get you started. If you decide to continue gardening, then is the time to...

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

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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,...

Conifers Every Master Gardener Should Know

Evergreen trees / Garden Design / Native Trees / Plant Literacy / Soil Conservation / Sustainable Gardening / Trees / Trees in Winter

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Conifers Every Master Gardener Should Know

Conifers Pinus taeda, Loblolly Pine Pinus virginiana, Virginia Pine Pinus palustris, Longleaf Pine Picea abies, Common Spruce Abies fraseri, Frasier Fir Tsuga canadensis, Eastern Hemlock Taxodium distichum, Bald Cypress Juniperus virginiana, Eastern Red Cedar x Hesperotropsis leylandii, Leyland Cypress The Beauty and Promise of Trees in Winter Planting Trees and Other Hacks to Manage Wet Soils Identifying Local Trees in Winter Native Trees Back to Plant Literacy Main Page  

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Carbon Garden / Compost / Fall / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Moss Gardening / Native Trees / Phenology / Poisonous Plants / Resource Protection / Soil Conservation / Tree Care / Trees / Water Wise / Wildlife Gardening

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Options for Autumn Leaf Clean-up

  Leaves float on every strong breeze, covering our walks and driveway just hours after we last cleaned them.  The many different species of trees in our community almost guarantee that we will have a long season of managing fallen leaves and pine tags. Leaves may begin to fall in August or September, particularly when the weather is dry.  And some trees hold onto their leaves until the following spring.  So cleaning up fallen leaves is more of an ongoing...

Carbon Garden / Climate Change / Colonial Williamsburg Arboretum / Colonial Williamsburg Arboretum / Deer / Farm-To-Table / Farming / Food Forest / Foraging / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Larval Host Plants / Native Trees / Soil Conservation / Tree Identification / Wildlife Gardening

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Secrets in the Pawpaw Patch, Quick Notes Version

  Pawpaw  Flowers Pollination Challenges Pawpaw flowers are a dull red to purple color which resembles rotting meat, and they have a putrid odor to attract the flies and beetles that pollinate them , much like native  skunk cabbage and jack-in-the pulpit. Pawpaw’s small flowers have six petals and are rarely larger than a half-dollar.  These are ‘perfect’ flowers, having both male, pollen bearing stamens and a female pistil, whose base will develop into the fruit after about five to...

Carbon Garden / Citizen Science / climate change / Climate Change / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Evergreen trees / Ferns / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Invasive Plants / Jamestown Island / Mycorrhizal Fungi / Native Plants / Native Trees / Permaculture / Protecting the Chesapeake / Shoreline Erosion / Soil Conservation / Sustainable Gardening / Weather / Wildlife Gardening / Williamsburg Botanical Garden

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Managing Rain and Run-Off with the Right Plantings

The Elements of Life Water, light, and air fuel our lives.  We depend on them, as does every plant and animal.  Light energy powers the chemistry of photosynthesis to transform elements like carbon and hydrogen into sugars, food.  Oxygen fuels the production of life energy in every living cell.  And water fills every cell of every living creature; gives us sap and blood; powers every process of life.  There is no life, not even the tiniest microbe, without water.  ...