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Happy Thanksgiving! We are grateful to our community for your support!

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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

• From mid-October through November, plant hardy bulbs for spring flowering.
• After blooming, cut mums back to 6 inches above ground.
• Plant spring-flowering bulbs like deer-resistant daffodils and Alliums.
• Leave old flower stems standing for nesting pollinators.
• Cut back perennials that have turned to mush. Leave others with seed heads for the birds.
• Dig up bulbs from your Gladioli, cut off foliage, dry for a week, and then store for winter.
• After hard frost, sow seeds of spring-blooming hardy annuals and perennials then mark beds!
• Leave seedheads on Black-eyed Susan, Echinacea, Goldenrod, Sunflowers, and Thistles for the birds to enjoy over the winter.
• Sow wildflower seeds, such as California Poppies, for next spring.
• As the days get cooler, plant native Asters.
• Start collecting plant seeds for next year and for trading.
• Renew your container plantings, which may be looking a bit ragged at this point. Pinch back overgrown plants. Pull out any spent ones and pop in some substitute annuals or mums. Keep them well-watered and add a little liquid fertilizer every few weeks to keep them going through early autumn.
• Cut a few flowers to enjoy in your workplace or home.
• Pests to watch for: Aphids, 4-lined plant bug, spidermites, whiteflies, Deer, slugs, snails.
• Diseases to watch for:  Powdery mildew, 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 trees and shrubs and herbaceous perennials before the ground freezes.
• Use fallen leaves for mulch or compost.
• Dig hole now if you will be planting a “live” Christmas tree.
• Transplant trees when leaves begin to color.
• Plant evergreens for winter interest.
• Prune evergreens to get in shape for fall/winter.
• Water slowly and deeply if weather is very dry.
• Prune foundation shrubs and trees to be no closer than 1 foot from the house.
• Contact a certified arborist to have your trees’ health inspected.
• Remove spent lilac and rhododendron blossoms.
• Take soft cuttings of plants to propagate.
• Check often and water newly planted trees if they don’t pass the finger test (stick your finger deep into soil – dry? Water!)
• Look out for any Poison Ivy vines, which will turn crimson in the late fall and be easy to distinguish from other vines.
• Remove Ivy, Pachysandra, and other vine-like groundcover from under shrubs.
• Mulch or compost healthy leaves.
• 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:  azalea lacebug, bagworms, borers, caterpillars, gypsy moths, Japanese beetles, scale, sawfly, spidermites, leafminers, voles, and deer.
• Diseases to watch for:  Powdery mildew.
• For more tips, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.

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Herbs, Veggies, and Fruit

• Keep an eye out for the first frost date. In Zone 6, it is expected between September 30 and October 30. In Zone 7, it is predicted to be between October 15 and November 15.
• Harvest most fruits before frost.
• Pick mature tomatoes and peppers to ripen on your window sills.
• Set up a cold frame, then plant lettuces, radishes, and carrots from seed.
• Plant cover crop (i.e., rye, clover, hairy vetch, winter peas) where nothing is growing.
• Cover carrots, parsnips, and turnips with straw to extend harvest.
• Protect fig trees from freezing by piling up leaves around them.
• Remove this year’s fruiting raspberry canes down to the ground.
• Harvest sweet potatoes.
• Remove finished plants.
• You can still have your vegetable garden and landscape soils tested.
• Mulch strawberry beds for winter.
• Harvest leaves of herbs used in cooking (rosemary, basil, sage) in early morning, for best flavor. Dry them indoors if you can’t use them right away.
• Cut herbs and flowers for drying indoors.
• Preserve gourds for display in the fall.
• New fruit plants: keep watered their first spring, summer, and fall.
• Pick apples and pumpkins at a local pick-your-own farm or visit a local farmer’s market.
• Deadhead garlic chives before they go to seed. Makes a nice cut flower.
• Dig up garlic when tops turn brown. Let dry in sun, then store.
• Sow seeds of: beets, beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, and squash for fall harvest.
• Sow heat-tolerant greens like Swiss Chard and mustard greens in part-shade.
• Keep all transplants watered deeply for 2-3 weeks.
• Put in supports for tall-blooming plants.
• Divide perennials and herbs. Pot up extras and give away at plant swaps.
• Thin seedlings.
• Harvest your herbs often and keep them trimmed back to encourage leafy growth.
• Apply dormant oil spray to fruit trees.
• Pests to watch for: Asparagus beetle, aphids, birds, cabbage worms, corn earworm, cutworms, deer, rabbits, squash vine borer, and tomato hornworm.
• Diseases to watch for: Apple scab, Cedar-apple rust.
• Here are some more UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips.

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Lawns

• Fertilize tall and fine fescues and bluegrass with 1 lb. Nitrogen per 1000 square feet.
• Over seeding may be done now through October.
• Keep newly seeded lawns well watered.
• Apply grub control to your lawn.
• Control wild onions in warm season turf with broadleaf weed control.
• Clean yard of all leaves and other debris.
• Turn your compost pile.
• This is a good time to have your vegetable garden and landscape soil tested. Have soil tested (every 3 years minimum).
• The soil resources from the Natural Resources Conservation Service are available here:
  • https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/conservation-basics/natural-resource-concerns/soil
• 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

• All house plants should be inside now.
• Take cuttings of plants you want to overwinter inside and place in water.
• Prune potted bougainvillea or hanging baskets that will overwinter inside.
• Pot up Paper Whites and Amaryllis for holiday blooming.
• Force the buds on Christmas Cactus by placing in a cool (55-60 degree) room for 13 hours of darkness.
• Repot and fertilize houseplants when new growth begins.
• 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.
• 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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Indoor/Outdoor Insect and Wildlife Tips

• Watch for insect and disease problems throughout your garden.
• 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.
• This is the perfect time to apply grub control.
• Put out slug traps around your vulnerable edibles and Hosta.
• Put suet out for birds.
• Keep bird feeders clean and filled.
• Change the water in your birdbath daily and throw the Mosquito Dunk (or bits) into any standing water.
• Switch your deer deterrent spray.
• 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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Garden Design

Need some garden design inspiration? In this brief video, horticulturist Miri Talabac walks through a beautiful example of a multi-layered garden using regionally native plants.

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