Master Gardener Newsletter: March - Virtual tours, classes, deer resistant plants and more...

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Master Gardeners of Greene County

March 2022

Table of Contents for March's Newsletter

Master Gardener Hotline - Now Open

Food Preservation Online Classes

Apple Grafting Workshops

Planning Your Garden Journal

MU Extension Horticultural Newsletter with Classes and Workshops - New

Orchid Society Show

Cedar Waxwings Reveal How Pervasively Disruptively Invasive Nandina and Honeysuckle are to Wildlife

Tapping Into New Traditions

For the Love of Birds

Garden Links

Get Your Soil Tested For Spring

Previous Newsletter Link

Need a Speaker for One of Your Meetings or Groups?

Gardening Questions Phone Number

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Master Gardener Greene County Hotline is open from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Monday thru Friday now, to help with your gardening questions. Thursday's are still for collecting soil samples, too. Plenty of time to get them done before planting season really ramps up.

Feel free to contact us anytime with your questions by phone (417-874-2963), by email or on our website. Feel free to send pictures of your problems or questions via email. For more information check here.

Please leave a detailed message if calling or just sending an email.

Questions answered state wide.

In the meantime, if you need a faster answer to your important gardening question, use the MU Extension website and use the topic search box.

**EDITOR'S NOTE: If you are planning on doing a vegetable garden this year and have not had your soil tested in the last two years, this next month is an excellent time to do so. You need to give the nutrients time to dissolve into the soil.

Food Preservation

This self-paced course provides research based information needed to safely and successfully preserve food at home. Participants of all levels of food preservation experience are welcome, including individuals with little or no previous food preservation experience. This course covers pressure canning, boiling water bath canning, steam canning, dehydration, and freezing. Highlights include preserving salsas, pie fillings, pickling, sweet spreads, and harvesting and storage of produce.

Registration is $30.00

Click here for more information and registration.

Apple Grafting Workshops

To register, click here.

Planning Your Garden Journal

The From Seed to Harvest and Beyond: Garden Journal and Calendar is a garden journal for all Missouri gardeners, as well as a how-to guide and information resource. It provides a place to keep all gardening information, plans and notes together.

Keeping a garden journal is a great way to organize and keep track of the how, when, where and what of the gardening season. Writing down your thoughts, successes, failures, needed improvements and new ideas as the gardening season progresses is easier than struggling to remember them several months after the season has ended. Many gardeners believe the keys to successful gardening are to get your plans on paper first and to keep records. This journal allows a gardener to do this. Find it here.

Cost is $20.00

MU Extension Commercial Horticulture Newsletter

MU Extension Commercial Horticulture Newsletter 2/25/22 Topics Include: Blackberry Cultivars Explained | Pollinator Protection & Safety | Foliar Disease Management in High Tunnel Tomatoes | Check out the Missouri Tomato School Recordings | Upcoming Class Offerings | New Articles from Missouri Produce Growers Bulletin! | Details and much more here.

Cedar Waxwings Reveal How Pervasively Disruptively Invasive Nandina and Honeysuckle are to Wildlife

A very interesting and informative article about how Cedar Waxwings reveal how invasive Nandina (such as Heavenly Bamboo) and honeysuckle are harming wildlife. I didn't know until recently that the invasive bush honeysuckle berries actually change the color of the feathers of some birds, which may not be as harmless as is sounds. And that Nandina berries kill birds. Read here.

Tapping Into New Traditions

Maple sugaring is a practice old as time and can be very simple with the right equipment and good timing. For those wishing to get involved in syrup making, John Stolwyk says start small, do your research, and even try to visit an experienced syrup-maker to see how it’s done. Interested? Learn more here.

Maple Sugaring Guide here.

For the Love of Birds

Bird Declines, Why We Must Act by Sarah Kendrick for MDC's Missouri Conservationist March 2022: Did you know that we’ve lost 29 percent of North American birds in the last 50 years? And not just the rare ones.

The hardest-hit and most steeply declining groups of species by habitat are grassland birds, which have shown a loss of 54 percent in the last five decades.

What has caused these declines? Learn more here.

Xerces Society Introduces New Searchable

Systemic Insecticides Reference

Systemic insecticides are absorbed into plants by design and may be present in all tissues, including pollen and nectar, which poses unique risks for pollinators. Despite their widespread use, it is hard to find information on these insecticides. Xerces has created an online tool that enables you to look up information about each chemical's toxicity to bees, persistence, strength, and where they can be legally used. It includes insecticides in the U.S. that are known to, or have the potential to, exhibit systemic movement in plants. Read More Here.

**EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a very important article for all people who feed their flowers and plants.

The Garden Spade - February Issue

MU Extension is now online, articles include: Valentine's Day Houseplants; Lavender Research Update; Purple Deadnettle; Winter Forestry Safety; How To Soil Test; Plants That Changed History- Tulip; Growing Hellebores; Sowing Wildflowers; What is It?; Kids Ask Dr. Bug; Garden Calendar; Upcoming Events and more, read pdf here.

March's Tips and Tasks

Virtual Town Hall Meetings/Classes

These are weekly, now.

MU: March Gardening Tips

6 Tough New Perennials

14 Drought-Tolerant Perennials

24 Perennials that will Thrive in Clay Soil

5 Common Mistakes when Growing Dahlias

Black Widow - Beautiful Spider, Ugly Reputation

How to Grow and Care for Air Plants

Best Spring Flowers

40 Curb Appeal Makeovers

Virtual Tours:

Martha's Vineyard

Shade Garden in Charleston

Waterfall Garden

Italian Inspired Gardens

How to Grow and Care for a Peperomia Plant

How to Care for a Monstera Plant

What Plants are New for 2022

Gardenia: A Gardening and Design Website

Video: Bobcats

Video: Sarah and the Sunflowers

Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) Invasive

Houseplants with a Heart

Sweetheart of an Owl

River Otters

Extension Reading Materials:

Educate yourself before using organic pesticides

Managing insects on indoor plants

What Should Neem be Used for on Plants?

Storing Vegetable and Flower Seeds

Least-Toxic Control Methods to Manage Indoor Plant Pests

Starting Plants Indoors From Seeds

Forcing Bulbs for Indoor Bloom

Lighting Indoor Houseplants

Deer Gardening:

Deer Resistant Plants

More on Deer Resistant Plants

Spring Deer Feeding on Trees and Shrubs

Get Your Soil Tested Now

Basic soil testing analysis is done by the MU Soil Lab in partnership with our Master Gardeners of Greene County. Results include fertilizer and lime recommendations. Additional tests are available for nutrient management plans, environmental issues, potting mixes, compost, manure and water usage. Each sample should contain a total of 2 cups of dry soil and from 6 to 7 inches deep and about 5 or 6 different areas. Results are typically provided within two weeks.

We recommend bringing the soil sample(s) to our office between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Thursdays. Master Gardeners can complete the paperwork and submit your test. One of our extension specialists will review your results. In most cases, gardens, lawns and fields should be tested every two years.

The cost is $30 per sample. Feel free to call if you have any questions.

417-874-2963

Previous Newsletter

Need a Speaker for a Meeting or Group?

Master Gardeners of Greene County are unavailable at this time to speak to garden clubs, civic organizations, schools and other groups on a wide variety of topics within the world of gardening, horticulture, landscaping and the environment.

Please keep us in mind for a future date.

For more information.

Email Us

Donating to MU Extension

Without MU Extension, there would be no Master Gardeners.

Gifts from individual donors support MU Extension's educational programs in Greene County. Primarily, we receive cash donations by check or online with a credit card and the non-cash donation of vehicles.

For more information

Donate Online

Tax deductible donation

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