Hello Friends, Neighbors, Fellow Gardeners,

The days are getting shorter, school is starting, and it’s time to plant for cooler weather and plan for the spring!  Here are some garden tips, educational opportunities, and events for September. Events include Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens South Conservatory, Pawpaw Festival, Garden After Dark: Wings & Wine, Fall Plant Sale, Climate Emergency: Montgomery County Responds, Fall Fun at Butler’s Orchard, Apple Festival and Campfire, Children’s Day, Monarch Fiesta, Farm to Fork Benefit Dinner, Honey Harvest Festival, Fall Family Festival, Mill Creek Towne Garden Club Open House, and more!

Planning:

• Take garden photos and make notes in your garden journal.
• Check your local garden club for end-of-summer bargains.
• Start shopping for spring bulbs.
• Start collecting plant seeds for next year and for trading.
• Preserve gourds and dry flowers for display in the fall.
• Have a question about gardening? Check the University of Maryland Extension’s New Maryland Grows blog for garden tips.
• Support our local parks and gardens. Visit a garden or park for their spring festivities!
• Support Our Local Farmers – Join a CSA and have fresh local produce delivered to you!
• Support our local farmers! Visit a local farmers’ market near you. Download Montgomery County’s Office of Agriculture 2019 Farmers Market Flyer to find a farmer’s market near you.

Flowers and Groundcovers:

• Begin replanting pots with hardy annuals.
• Plant newly purchased plants.
• Continue to deadhead.
• Plant hardy mums and fall season annuals.
• Divide and transplant perennials—in particular, peony and iris.
• Remove spent annuals and replace with fall annuals. Water deeply.
• Start seeds of pansies, calendula, flowering cabbage, kale, and other fall annuals.
• Cut fully yellow lily stalks.
• Fertilize established bulb beds.
• As the days get cooler, plant hardy mums.
• Inspect for Powdery mildew. If seen, prune back perennials to create needed circulation.
• Check on your container plants daily and keep them well-watered.
• Pinch out tips of leggy plants.
• Fertilize transplants.
• Water transplants deeply when dry.
• Pests to watch for: Aphids, Deer, 4-lined plant bug, slugs, snails, spidermites, whiteflies
• Diseases to watch for:  Blackspot on roses; powdery mildew, rust, bacterial diseases.
• See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.

Trees and Shrubs:

• Prune evergreens to get in shape for fall/winter.
• Remove fallen diseased leaves.
• Mulch or compost healthy leaves.
• Put diseased leaves, pesticide-laden grass clippings and weed seeds out for recycling rather than the compost pile.
• Fertilize if necessary for the last time.
• Avoid late summer pruning.
• Prune out Eastern tent caterpillar egg masses.
• Do not fertilize newly planted or transplanted plants the first year.
• Keep mowers and trimmers away from trunks!
• Spray with dormant oil to decrease pest infestations.
• Mulch or compost healthy leaves.
• Remove Ivy, Pachysandra, and other vine-like groundcover from under shrubs.
• Remove dead and dying trees.
• Pests to watch for:  adelgids, azalea lacebug, bagworms, caterpillars, Gypsy moths, Japanese beetles, scale, sawfly, spidermites,  leafminers, and webworms.
• Diseases to watch for:  Fireblight, Anthracnose,  Powdery mildew, Exobasidium gall on azaleas, Phytophthora, top dieback and root rot on azaleas.
• For more tips, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.

• This is the perfect time for seeding the lawn.
• Apply fertilizer and lime to turf grass based on soil tests and UME recommendations.
• Apply grub control to your lawn.
• Cool season lawns go dormant in hot, dry weather. Do Not Water.
• Don’t remove more than 1/3 of grass blade when mowing.
• Water established lawns deeply but infrequently.
• Fertilize Turf Only if Weak: apply 1 lb. N/1000 sq.ft.
• Mow high to reduce weeds and stress: Fescue & Bluegrass: 3″ – 3 1/2″
• Mow zoysia grass at 2″
• Control wild onions in warm season turf with broadleaf weed control.
• Test soil if you haven’t already!
• Dethatch if necessary and plug aerate BEFORE applying weed control.
• To control crabgrass, apply pre-emergent herbicide to lawn (when forsythia blooms drop).
• Turn your compost pile.
• The annual soil science calendars from the Natural Resources Conservation Service are both educational and beautifully done. The one for 2018 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.

Indoors/Houseplants:

• Bring Christmas cactus and poinsettias indoors if you took them out for the summer in preparation for holiday blooming. Fertilize them and put them where they’ll get 10 hours of bright light per day.
• 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.
• Reduce fertilizing of your indoor plants (except cyclamen).
• Remove old leaves, damaged stems.
• Maintain moisture in pots wintering indoors, but do not over water!
• Keep all houseplants out of drafts and away from heat vents.
• Remove old leaves, damaged stems.
• Pests to watch for:  aphids, spider mites, mealybug, scale, whitefly
• See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more information.
  

Indoor/Outdoor Insect and Wildlife Tips:

• Clean and refill bird feeders.
• Leave hummingbird feeders out until October 15.
• Clean your hummingbird feeders and add new sugar-water every three days.
• Switch your deer deterrent spray.
• Check your plants at night with a flashlight for any night-feeding insects like slugs.
• If you find slug damage, set out beer traps or Sluggo pellets.
• Hand-pick Japanese beetles or shake them off over a bucket of dishwasher.
• Look for slug eggs grouped under sticks and stones—they are the size of BBs and pale in color.
• Caulk and seal your outside walls to prevent insect entry into your house.
• Be vigilant for mosquito breeding spots – any standing water from a bottle cap to blocked gutters- and clean them out immediately. Ask your neighbors to do the same. Put Mosquito Dunks in any areas that accumulate water.
• 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 below for upcoming local events in September.

Montgomery Parks Special Events & Festivals

More events are being added regularly. Please check back often!

Save the dates for these upcoming events!  Events include Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens South Conservatory, Pawpaw Festival, Garden After Dark: Wings & Wine, Fall Plant Sale, Climate Emergency: Montgomery County Responds, Fall Fun at Butler’s Orchard, Apple Festival and Campfire, Children’s Day, Monarch Fiesta, Farm to Fork Benefit Dinner, Honey Harvest Festival, Fall Family Festival, Mill Creek Towne Garden Club Open House, and more!

Montgomery County MD Food and Beverage Guide

The third edition of the MoCo Made Food & Beverage Guide is available!

The Guide features more than 60 local producers and farmers offering local-made products. Find the online version here:

https://mocofoodcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/MOCO_Directory_2018_FNL-digital.pdf

 

Master Gardener Plant Clinics

Varied Locations, dates, and times

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):

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

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

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

Derwood Farmers Market

2019 Dates:  April 27 to October 26 on Saturdays
By popular request:  Early Hours  in 2019  9 am until 1  pm    

Support Our Local Farmers: Visit the Derwood Farmers Market!

A community farmers’ market featuring fresh local farm fruits, veggies, meats, baked goodies, arts, live music and more.  ​Meet sustainable local farmers and from-scratch makers of edibles!
​
Located at the parking lot in the front yard of Derwood Alliance Church
16501 Redland Road, Rockville, MD 20855

Climate Emergency: Montgomery County Responds

Saturday, September 14, 2019
11 AM – 1:30 PM

Silver Spring Civic Center
1 Veterans Pl.
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

In December 2017, the Montgomery County Council declared a Climate Emergency and pledged to reduce the County’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2027 and by 100 percent by 2035. Meeting our climate goals will require radical changes in energy use, transportation, and consumption — and tremendous effort from all residents and businesses.

Join us Saturday, September 14 in Silver Spring to learn what progress the County has made so far and how you can be part of the solution.

We’ll hear from environmental scientist Danielle J. L. Meitiv and Jansi Medina-Tayac will present a land acknowledgement.

We’ll have a panel of climate advocates:
• Naeem Alam from Sunrise
• Wendy Howard of One Montgomery Green
• Bill Ragen, Labor Network for Sustainability
and a panel featuring Montgomery County officials:
• Marc Elrich, Montgomery County Executive
• Tom Hucker, Chair of the County Council’s Transportation & Environment Committee
• Adriana Hochberg, Montgomery County Assistant Chief Administrative Officer
• Natali Fani-Gonzalez, Member, Montgomery County Planning Board
Jacob Fenston, WAMU environment reporter, will moderate.

You’ll have an opportunity to sign up to work with local groups.

Tickets

Mill Creek Towne Garden Club Community Meeting: Open House