Hello Friends, Neighbors, Fellow Gardeners,

April showers bring May flowers! Looks like we are experiencing a bit of spring, winter, summer weather… Enjoying the spring flower blooms! 🌸 Here are some garden tips, educational opportunities, and videos for April. This includes some events from U.S. Botanic Garden, Master Gardeners of Montgomery County, and Maryland Gardens. A lot of gardening events are announced on Facebook and we share them on our Facebook page as well as on our mctgardenclub.org website. Some upcoming events include Backyard Gardening Zoom Sessions, The Great Grow Along, University of Maryland Extension’s Grow It Eat It 2022 Event, Summer Garden/Landscape Classes at Montgomery College, Mill Creek Garden Club events including our Mill Creek Spring Cleanup in April, and Mill Creek Village and Mill Creek Garden Club’s Walk Around the Towne event with two garden tours.

• Check out garden centers for discounted house plants.
• Take an inventory of pots and containers; clean or replenish potted soil.
• April is Earth Month! Earth Day is April 22nd.
• Plan for 2022 with these Free resources: Landscaping with Native Plants by the Maryland Native Plant Society, Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas by the National Park Service, Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia Reading Room. Visit our Online Gardening Resources page for more helpful online resources.
• Buy a good gardening book or magazine subscription for a gift for your favorite gardener.
• Have a question about gardening? Check the University of Maryland Extension’s New Maryland Grows blog for garden tips.

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Master Gardener Plant Clinics

Montgomery County Master Gardeners - Maryland

What can Master Gardeners do for you?

• Help you select and care for annual and perennial plants, shrubs and trees.
• Determine if you need to test your soil.
• Provide you with information on lawn care.
• Identify weeds, beneficial and noxious insects, and plant diseases and remedies.
• Teach you how to use pesticides, mulch and compost.
• Guide you in pruning trees and shrubs.
• Provide you with options for managing wildlife.
• Provide you with gardening resources.
• Help you submit a plant sample for diagnosis

Plant Clinics are held at several sites in the county on a weekly basis and at special events such as garden festivals and the county fair. Regularly scheduled Plant Clinics are located at public libraries and farmers’ markets throughout the county as well as at the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase.  There are also clinics three days per week at Brookside Gardens.  The busiest season is April through September, but some clinics are open year-round.  Bring your plant samples and questions to one of these locations in Montgomery County, MD (see link below to find a location near you):

https://extension.umd.edu/mg/locations/plant-clinics

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New Gardening Books

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Online Gardening Resources

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Online Garden-to-Table Recipes

There are many resources for recipes to make from your garden crops including seed companies, local farms, and online recipe cookbook catalogs. If you grow vegetables, these are very useful resources as the recipes feature the very plant you are growing. Here are few links to recipes you can make from your garden crops

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Local Farms

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• Support Our Local Farmers – Join a CSA and have fresh local produce delivered to you!
• Visit a local farmers’ market.

How to Support Farmers and Safely Shop at Farmers’ Markets

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Flowers and Groundcovers

• After spring bulbs bloom, let leaves turn yellow and die before trimming.
• Transplant seedlings into individual 3″ – 4″ pots when crowded.
• Do not set out seedlings or tender annuals until after Mother’s Day (traditional last frost-free date for our entire area).
• Plant and prune roses.
• Buy or check on your stored summer bulbs (such as dahlias and caladiums). Pot them and start to water if you want to give them an early start on the season.
• Start seeds for:  impatiens, marigolds, nasturtium, and petunias. Check daily for moisture.
• Leave seedheads on Black-eyed Susans, Echinacea, Goldenrod, Sunflowers, and Thistles for the birds to enjoy over the winter.
• After hard frost, sow seeds of spring-blooming hardy annuals and perennials, then mark beds.
• Begin hardening off hardier transplants. Sow seeds outdoors of hardier annuals.
• Pests to watch for: Aphids, 4-lined plant bug, spidermites, whiteflies, Deer, slugs, snails.
• Diseases to watch for:  Damping off of seedlings, Botrytis on peonies, Volutella blight on pachysandra.
• See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.
• For a list of native plant resources, visit: https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/native-plant-resources

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Trees and Shrubs

• Plant a tree for Arbor Day on Friday, April 29, 2022.
• Plant tree, shrubs, perennials; this is a good time to plant evergreens.
• Prune azaleas when they finish blooming.
• Remove Ivy, Pachysandra, and other vine-like groundcover from under shrubs.
• Do not fertilize newly planted or transplanted plants the first year.
• Soil test established trees that have not been performing well.
• Keep mowers and trimmers away from trunks!
• Prune winter damage on evergreens when new growth begins.
• Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs before new growth.
• Test soil pH on some hydrangeas and adjust: Blue: pH 5 – 5.5; Pink: pH 6 – 6.5 
• Remove bagworm bags.
• Mulch or compost healthy leaves.
• Remove Ivy, Pachysandra, and other vine-like ground cover from under shrubs.
• Soil test established trees that have not been performing well.
• Put diseased leaves, pesticide-laden grass clippings and weed seeds out for recycling rather than the compost pile.
• Spray with dormant oil to decrease pest infestations.
• Remove dead and dying trees.
• Pests to watch for:  Gypsy moths late in month, scale, sawfly, spidermites, leafminers, caterpillars, voles, and deer.
• Diseases to watch for:  Antracnose, Exobasidium gall on azaleas, Phytophthora, top dieback and root rot on azaleas.
• For more tips, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.

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Herbs, Veggies, and Fruit

• Keep all transplants watered deeply for 2-3 weeks.
• Harden off cool season transplants. Plant asparagus.
• Start carrots, turnips, and parsnips in well-draining beds or in deep containers.
• Put row covers over vulnerable crops – remove cover to allow for pollinating once they set flowers.
• Thin lettuce seedlings and plant more seeds in new rows. (You can eat the seedling greens you pull.)
• Divide perennials and herbs. Pot up extras and give away at plant swaps.
• Sow seeds of: carrots, endive, sunflowers, lettuce.
• Gently clean up the garden; add 1 inch of compost.
• Thin seedlings.
• Turn under cover crop when soil has warmed enough and is not too wet.
• Harvest your herbs often and keep them trimmed back to encourage leafy growth.
• This is a good time to have your vegetable garden and landscape soils tested.
• Apply dormant oil spray to fruit trees.
• Pests to watch for: Asparagus beetle, aphids, birds, cabbage worms, cutworms, deer, Japanese beetle, rabbits, woodchucks.
• Diseases to watch for: Damping off of seedlings, Fireblight of pears and apples, Fungal, bacterial viral diseases.
• Here are some more UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips.

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Lawns

• To control crabgrass, apply pre-emergent herbicide to lawn (when forsythia blooms drop).
• Cut perennials and over-wintering ornamental grasses to 2 inches above the ground.
• Mow high to reduce weeds and stress: Fescue & Bluegrass: 3″ – 3 1/2″
• Control wild onions in warm season turf with broadleaf weed control.
• Have soil tested (every 3 years minimum).
• Clean yard of all leaves and other debris.
• Turn your compost pile.
• The annual soil science calendars from the Natural Resources Conservation Service are both educational and beautifully done. The one for 2022 as well as those for previous years are available as free PDFs here: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/edu/?cid=nrcseprd1250008
• Diseases to watch for: brown patch, and red thread
• Pests to watch for: Grubs
• See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.

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Indoors/Houseplants

• Repot and fertilize houseplants when new growth begins.
• Buy an indoor plant to liven up your office space. Try an orchid or African violet.
• Repot larger plants that are going outside for the summer.
• Change water in cuttings started last fall and add 2-3 pieces of fish tank charcoal. 
• Do not over water house plants.
• Check on your container plants daily and keep them well-watered.
• Check any tropical or summer-blooming bulbs, corms, tubers, and bare root plants in storage for rot or desiccation.
• Rotate houseplants to promote even growth.
• Remove old leaves, damaged stems.
• Pinch out growing tips of leggy cuttings and plants that are overwintering.
• Clean the leaves of your indoor houseplants to prevent dust and film build-up.
• Pests to watch for:  aphids, spider mites, mealybug, scale, and whitefly.
• See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more information.
  

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https://dnr.maryland.gov/…/plan…/Eastern_Cottontail.aspx

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Indoor/Outdoor Insect and Wildlife Tips

• Watch for insect and disease problems throughout your garden.
• Ticks are very active now. 
• Check your plants at night with a flashlight for any night-feeding insects like slugs.
• Look out for slug eggs grouped under sticks and stones. They are the size of BBs and pale in color.
• Leave hummingbird feeders out until October 15th.
• Put up birdhouses. 
• Put suet out for birds.
• Keep bird feeders clean and filled.
• Switch your deer deterrent spray.
• Caulk and seal your outside walls to prevent insects and wildlife from coming indoors.
• Set out traps for mice, moles, and voles.
• Watch for: carpenter ants, flies, mosquitos, stink bugs, termites, rabbits, raccoons, groundhogs, deer, mice, moles, snakes, squirrels, and voles.
• For more information, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips.

Source: University of Maryland’s Home and Garden Information Center (HGIC) and the Washington Gardener.

See more tips from HGIC:

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Support Our Local Farmers – Join a CSA and have fresh local produce delivered to you!

CSAs are seeing record numbers of subscribers http://ow.ly/eiQT50zD5lW – find your farmer here: http://ow.ly/jbO250zD56M

CSAs can take many forms, but essentially they are community supported farms in which members contribute to farming projects, usually by way of membership fees, in exchange for fresh, local produce. The concept came to the United States from Europe in the 1980s.  They are a great way to take advantage of fresh, locally grown fruit, vegetables, herbs, and more while supporting nearby farms. Each one is different, some offer pickup locations in urban areas, some offer only farm-based pickups.

There are multiple CSAs located around the County offering a wide variety of products. CSAs begin taking sign-ups for spring and summer seasons in the early part of the year, and they tend to fill up FAST! Know of another CSA not on our list? Let us know! Montgomery Countryside Alliance also maintains a list:

 http://www.mocoalliance.org/community-supported-agriculture.html

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A free 10-day virtual festival connecting gardeners with the influencers, taste-makers and cutting edge content of today’s gardening world.

Over 40 workshops, virtual tours of inspiring public and botanic gardens nation-wide and Houseplant Happy Hours… join real time and connect with presenters plus other attendees or watch at your convenience for six-months.

This timely content will help you up your plant game or inspire you to try new ideas in 2022. A unique opportunity to be encouraged and educated by some of the biggest influencers, educators and taste-makers in today’s gardening world.

Get more info at https://greatgrowalong.com.

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Mill Creek Stream Extreme Cleanup

Friday – Sunday, April 22-24, 2022

Please join Rock Creek Conservancy, Montgomery Parks, and the Mill Creek Towne Garden Club for our 2022 EXTREME CLEANUP of Mill Creek Stream on Earth Day weekend! This annual event is a watershed-wide cleanup movement with the goal of total trash removal throughout Rock Creek, its tributaries, and surrounding neighborhoods and parklands. We hope you’ll join us!

Montgomery Parks requires all volunteers to be fully vaccinated against covid-19 in order to participate in events. Please adhere to this requirement by confirming your vaccination status when completing this registration. Volunteers ages 5 and up who are fully vaccinated may volunteer for this event. Please visit this CDC page, which discusses the considerations for gatherings and notes the additional safety when taking place outdoors.

Activity: Volunteers will participate in a socially-distant trash cleanup as part of Extreme Cleanup. This cleanup will be done individually or with members of the same “bubble.” Grab a trash bag and your mask (if needed), wear some boots or sturdy shoes, and help us pick up trash in Mill Creek Stream, or pick up litter around the creek.

Please follow all CDC and county guidelines regarding social distancing and public health precautions. Complete your cleanup anytime during Friday, April 22nd through Sunday, April 24th.

What to Wear: Please dress appropriately for the work and weather. We recommend wearing long sleeves and sturdy boots or sneakers.

What to Bring: Please bring a water bottle, face mask (if needed), and your own gloves if you can. We will provide trash bags.

Please do NOT attend this event if you are or have been experiencing symptoms of illness.

Leader Contact Information:

Susan Yu <syu9815730@aol.com> and

Ellen McAdams <emmcadams.em@gmail.com>

After registration and as the time gets closer, we will provide you further instructions and updates.

https://www.mctgardenclub.org/event/mill-creek-stream-extreme-clean-up/

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Save the Date: Grow It Eat It 2022 Event

University of Maryland Extension – Montgomery County

Sat, May 14, 2022

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM EDT

Location

Montgomery County Extension

Agricultural History Farm Park

18410 Muncaster Road

Derwood, MD 20855

View Map

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