Join us for a gardening presentation on “Easy to Grow Houseplants” with Bonita Condon, a master gardener with the Montgomery County Master Gardener Program.
This demo/talk discusses some common house plants with information on the tools required; the selection of plants, locations, and containers; the maintenance and propagation of your plants; and common pests and diseases.
Please be advised that all Montgomery County Master Gardener talks are the property of the University of Maryland Extension, and that recording of the talks is not permitted.
Bonita’s Bio:
Bonita became a Master Gardener in 2014 after retiring from the National Institutes of Health. She is an avid vegetable gardener, loves perennials, and combats non-native invasive species in our parks and grasslands. Her special interests include working with individuals with mobility limitations, raised garden beds, and tools that accommodate special needs. She is a certified Weed Warrior, and an advisor on the Town of Kensington GreenScape committee.
RSVP: info@mctgardenclub.org
Please do NOT attend this event if you are or have been experiencing symptoms of illness.
THIS EVENT IS FREE, BUT DONATIONS ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED!
Donations pay for landscaping, repair and maintenance of the Mill Creek Towne Entrances, and our garden-related programs at our community meetings.
NOTE: If Montgomery County Schools are closed due to inclement weather, the Garden Club meeting will be cancelled.
Seasons Greetings! We wish you and your family a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Healthy New Year! Here are some garden tips, educational opportunities, and videos for December. A lot of gardening events are announced on Facebook as well as on our website. Some upcoming events/resources include UMD Home and Garden Information Center: Ask a Garden Question, A list of book recommendation for young gardeners, Meadowside Nature Center December Programs, Brookside Garden’s Greenscapes Event, online tutorials on winter sowing, tips on how to plant tulip bulbs in pots now for forced March/April Blooms, a video on pruning trees, tips on how to choose a poinsettia, American Horticultural Society’s Great American Gardeners Webinar Series, and more! These events will be hosted as online or live events.
Seasons Greetings! We wish you and your family a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Healthy New Year!
Dear Neighbors, Our 2023 year of the Mill Creek Towne Garden Club began with an outstanding presentation entitled “Birds in Your Garden” by Dr. Dan Neumann, the Associate Director for Neutron Science and Technology at NIST and a true bird lover! It was well attended by both club members and the community. We all certainly learned a bit more about our own backyards. Our communications chair, Nancy Brady, is also a talented artist. In February, she transformed our meeting room into a gallery of her beautiful paintings which mostly focus on nature. Perhaps you have seen some of her works in local art exhibits. With spring on our heels, our master gardener, Claire Peterson, shared best methods and planters for seed planting. In March, we hosted a Native Tree and Shrub Giveaway. In April, we once again sponsored a stream clean-up. We also hosted a Planters for Spring event by Julie Friedman, where we learned tips about landscape design with planters for spring. September was a month of field trips. We first traveled to Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens where we took tours of the mansion and gardens, ending the day with high tea in their café. Additionally, we visited our favorite beekeeper, Karen Henderson’s, beautifully unique home in PA she calls “Bee Balm.” We saw firsthand the hives and all the equipment she uses to process her honey followed by lunch in one of her lovely gardens. Last month we invited author Claudia Kousoulas who shared her book, Private Gardens of the Potomac and Chesapeake.
In addition to opening our programs to the community, we are hard at work maintaining the Roslyn, Miller Fall and Shady Grove entrances, keeping a watchful eye on that tunnel to ensure its cleanliness, as well as alerting the county of fallen trees and replacing diseased ones. We are very pleased with the Mill Creek Village “Welcome Bag” program for new residents that was initiated. Our garden club contributes a seed packet and welcoming note as part of their package.We would like to thank you for your support in the past years! Donations to pay for landscaping and maintenance of the Mill Creek Towne Entrances and our garden-related programs at our community meetings are greatly appreciated and accepted year-round! Please help support the Mill Creek Towne Garden Club! To fulfill our mission, we depend on the generosity of donors who appreciate the value of our services. If you can help, please visit our donations page (see link below). We accept online and offline (cash/check) donations. THANK YOU!
Offline (Check) Donations
We are currently accepting checks payable to the Mill Creek Towne Garden Club. Please send donations to:
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.
Maryland Grows Blog
In weekly posts on MD HGIC’s blog, learn about pollinator conservation, growing native plants and food, and how to solve plant pest and disease problems.
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):
UMD Home and Garden Information Center: Ask a Master Gardener
Do you have a gardening question? Our Certified Professional Horticulturists, faculty, and Master Gardener Volunteers are ready to answer – year-round!
See below to ask a master gardener a question on the UMD Extension website:
See our list with recently published books. This cumulative list for 2023 has more than 120 titles and serves as a great resource for holiday gift ideas. Visit our Gardening Books Resources page for gardening ideas.
Do you have a book recommendation for young gardeners?
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
Local Farms
We are so thankful for our local farms each and every day. During this challenging time, consider supporting your local farms, whether they farm produce, flowers, animals, or specialty. Our food supply is safe and secure, and many farms are continuing to offer delivery or curbside pickup. #LocalIsTheNewNormal#BuyLocal
The 2023 MoCo Food & Beverage Guide is here! The Guide from the Montgomery County Food Council is available online – delicious baked goods, prepared foods, condiments and more. The craft beverage list grows each year and find two dozen local and amazing farms:
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:
Plant Tulip Bulbs in Pots Now for forced March/April Blooms
Blooming tulips planted in pots make an attractive centerpiece in the spring. To get those blooming tulips in March or April, plant your tulip bulbs now!
For March/April blooms, plant tulip bulbs in a container filled with soilless mix. Bulbs should be planted with flat sides towards the outside of the container, and they do not need to be planted as deep as with regular outdoor planting (plant so the tips of the bulb show above the potting mix).
Tulips require chilling to bloom. One way to achieve this is to bury your entire pot in a trench (put drainage material in the bottom of the trench first), then cover with leaves, straw, or mulch. Leave outside for a cooling time of 14-20 weeks, then bring inside to a warm place with partial sun.
Once shoots emerge, move to a warmer, full sun location. Tulips usually bloom 2-3 weeks after chilling.
For full instructions, including instructions for other types of bulbs:
Leave old flower stems standing for nesting pollinators.
Cut back perennials that have turned to mush. Leave others with seed heads for the birds.
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.
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.
Maryland’s goal is to plant and maintain 5 million native trees by 2031. There are various ways you can get involved – plant trees and register them — or volunteer! A number of tree-planting assistance programs are available at the municipal, county, and state levels.
Winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) is multi-stemmed deciduous shrub which loses its leaves in the fall, revealing bright red berries that persist and provide beauty in the winter months. Many cultivars have been developed for enhanced berry production, more compact height (4-6 feet), and berry color (red, orange, and yellow).
Learn how to prune shrubs correctly using heading cuts and thinning cuts. This demonstration is presented by University of Maryland Extension (UME) specialists Dr. Andrew Ristvey and Eric Buehl. | UME
Trees and Shrubs
Water your cut Christmas tree daily.
Moderately prune evergreens, especially hollies, for indoor decorating.
Keep an eye out for bark damage from rabbits and deer.
Gently remove layers of snow from outdoor evergreens with a broom.
Prune stone fruit trees like cherries, plums, and peaches.
Prune maples, dogwoods, birch, elm, walnut, and yellowwood to prevent “bleeding”.
Prune out Fireblight damage Malus and Pyrus when very cold.
Spray broadleaf evergreens with anti-desiccant to prevent dehydration.
Download vegetable planting calendars from University of Maryland Extension, in English and Spanish. This page also has a link to a frost/freeze date calculator.
Winter sowing is a method of sowing seed in enclosed containers such as milk jugs and leaving the containers outside in the winter. The seeds germinate despite the cold. Later in the spring they are transplanted into the garden. This method gives gardeners a head start if they do not have or want to use indoor lights. View this video to learn more. | UME
Herbs, Veggies, and Fruit
Set up a cold frame, then plant lettuces, radishes, and carrots from seed.Vent cold frames on sunny days.
Spread ashes from wood fires on your vegetable beds.
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.
Harvest sweet potatoes.
Cover strawberry beds with straw or pine needles.
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.
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.
Each winter, people apply tons of ice-melting materials to sidewalks, driveways, and steps, often without regard to proper application procedures or to what the deicing substance contains. To prevent damage to your home and the environment, choose a deicer carefully.
If you’re purchasing a poinsettia, make sure you choose one with the yellow true flowers!
Although they look like petals, the colorful red structures are actually bracts, or modified leaves. The true flowers are yellow and can be seen clustered in the center of the bracts.
Sometimes, especially after sitting out in big-box stores, these yellow flowers will fall off, which means your plant won’t last as long!
Don’t miss out on the Early Bird fee of $50 that ends on Friday, January 12.
Join Brookside Gardens for a day of virtual lectures on Friday, February 16, 2024, as industry experts share valuable lessons from the field of creating sustainable landscapes. Lectures will reimagine traditional gardens with native plants and offer the latest in ecologically focused management strategies.
Take advantage of the Early Bird fee of $50 that ends on Friday, January 12. All sessions will be recorded and made available online to registrants. For more information and to register online, visit https://mocoparks.org/3lWVVus.
“Grow” your gardening know-how! Our free online gardening program, Let’s Talk Gardens, covers a wide range of topics presented by our own professional staff, as well as guest speakers.
