Flowers, Fruits, and Frass 2020

Walking through any garden can be calming, educational, inspiring, energizing, or a combination of all of these. A new trend in gardening is creating intentional gardens; gardens with a specific purpose, like a sensory garden.  Sensory gardens are areas designed to...

Anyone can make their holiday season a little more earth friendly with a new family tradition: recycling the tree! Put it on the curb. The easiest way to properly dispose of your tree, most waste collection programs allow residents to recycle holiday trees by...

Six Garden Gifts  Gardening is a mindful practice that can only be sourced outside in the fresh air, with your hands in the dirt, creating a pallet of flowers and fruits. This past year, many new gardeners tested their skills while experienced gardeners stretched...

Decorating with fresh greenery is a treat for most gardeners getting ready for the holiday festivities. Some buy greens from a local garden center, but did you know you can harvest branches from evergreen conifers to use in your holiday décor? Whether you are making wreaths, porch pots or swags,...

Creating simple, homemade birdfeeders is a great way to support feathered friends during the cold winter months when food sources are scarce. It also allows us to be creative, resourceful, and engage with nature while stuck indoors. Make your backyard more wildlife-friendly by making a few of these...

This holiday season, buy Poinsettias from local growers, and keep them vibrant with a few “don’ts” from a previous Poinsettia greenhouse grower. Millions of Poinsettias are bought each year as decoration and gifts. What most consumers do not know is Poinsettias have to be grown with a lot of love...

Being thankful for our families has a new meaning this year, and the feast should be spectacular. Let’s add a sometimes-missing ingredient this year: the love that a local grower, baker, or cook puts into their product. My role in the Thanksgiving meal is to procure ingredients and I...

Bring the garden inside this winter with fun activities and experiments! ‘Forcing’ paperwhite bulbs is a family-friendly activity to add a touch of nature to your home this winter. The technique nurtures a winter bloom indoors by providing bulbs with favorable growing conditions similar to spring...

Garlic is a garden favorite because it is so commonly used in our culinary world. Like many crops, fresh garlic grown in the home garden surpasses anything bought at the grocery store. It is a long season crop, planted in the fall and harvested in the summer. A cold period is required for garlic to...

With everything going virtual this year, Illinois’ Master Gardener conference followed suit, hosting only one speaker. So she must have been good. Recipient of the National Medal of Science in 2014, May Berenbaum is department head of...

Originally published by Kelly Allsup on October 23, 2020. You have likely spied upon, or even befriended, praying mantises in your garden this growing season. Although most adults die out during the late fall and early winter, they likely left behind a foamy garden ornament in your...

A homeowner who is interested in eco-friendly gardening may want to consider incorporating a rain garden into their landscape. A rain garden is a permeable landscape feature that improves the quality of water runoff while adding beauty and supporting pollinating insects and birds. Typically...

As many perennial plants are getting ready to go dormant for the winter, it is time to start thinking about next spring’s floral display and plant spring-flowering bulbs. The best time to plant spring bulbs is late September through October to allow sufficient time for a good root system to develop...

This is the time of the year to make tough decisions about what will take up residence in the house and what will succumb to the frost. Though frost will inevitably kill off most of the tender plants that I have cared for all summer, some of these plants can be saved for next year. ...

A few years back, Illinois gardeners learned that there is more to monarch decline than a lack of milkweed to support larvae, or habitat destruction in their overwintering home. Another contributing factor is a lack of floral resources for adult monarch butterflies to make the journey in the fall...

Roadside weed, or golden torch beckoning all the bees in the neighborhood? Tall and gangly, goldenrod offers the latter to interested gardeners. My front landscape bed is dedicated to pollinators, so I have planted native Showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) right in the middle, and it has not...

When thinking of fall bloomers for your garden, everyone's usual go-to is the mum, but don’t rule out the gorgeous asters sitting next to the mums. There are 180 species of aster, many of which are native to Illinois. New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) and aromatic aster (...

Connie Kostelc has been a Master Gardener volunteer for University of Illinois Extension in Livingston County for the last 22 years. When gardening for edible plants, Connie uses the French intensive raised bed method. Connie says the look of a French Intensive raised bed garden is different than...

Proactive strategies can lessen the extent of wildlife damage to your gardens through fall and winter. Once the ground is frozen, rabbits will have fewer places to take shelter or hide, and will forage for food a lot closer to the protection of their winter home. They will go for anything green...