Hello Friends, Neighbors, Fellow Gardeners,
Seasons Greetings! We wish you and your family a Happy Holiday and Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and Peaceful New Year! Enjoy the winter festivities! Here are some garden tips, educational opportunities, and videos for December. Some upcoming events/resources include RainScapes Portal Now Open; Rebates Up to $7,500 for Residents and $20,000 for Businesses Available to Prevent Stormwater Runoff, How to Keep Freshwater Clean at Meadowside Nature Center, FeederWatch Thursdays and Fridays, Festive Centerpieces, ‘Christmas On the Farm’ Returns To Agricultural History Farm In Derwood On December 7-8, Master Gardener Lectures – All About Chiles, 55+ Nature Book Club – Holiday Book Swap, GreenScapes Symposium, Montgomery College Lifelong Learning Home and Garden Classes – Spring 2025, American Horticultural Society’s Great American Gardeners Webinar Series, and more! A lot of gardening events are announced on Facebook as well as on our website. These events will be hosted as online or in-person events.
Planning Tips
- Evaluate gardening year, make notes of desired changes.
- Start reading those seed catalogs!
- Clean out pots; store non-frost proof containers in garage or basement.
- Clean, sharpen, and store your garden tools.
- Attend a local garden club meeting or plant exchange.
- Start or update your garden journals.
- Read a good gardening book or magazine.
- Volunteer at a local public or historic garden.
- Plan for 2025 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.
Seasons Greetings from Mill Creek Towne Garden Club!
Dear friends and neighbors,
Seasons Greetings! We wish you and your family a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and Peaceful New Year!
Our 2024 year of the Mill Creek Towne Garden Club began with an outstanding garden presentation entitled “Getting Ready for Spring” by Betsy Kingery, a master gardener with the Montgomery County Master Gardener Program. Below are some events and activities that we provided to the community and our garden club members this year.
Community Events
- Getting Ready for Spring – Tue, March 26
- FREE Native Tree & Shrub Giveaway – Fri, April 12
- Mill Creek Stream Extreme Cleanup – Saturday, April 20
- Easy to Grow Houseplants – Tue, April 23
- MCT Garden Club Plant & Yard Sale – Sat, April 27
- Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Program, Tue, October 22
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 check donations.
Offline (Check) Donations
We are currently accepting checks payable to the Mill Creek Towne Garden Club. Please send donations to:
MCTGC
7612 Warbler Lane
Derwood, MD 20855
For information on how to make an online donation, please visit:
https://www.mctgardenclub.org/donations/
Submitted by Beth Giannone, MCT Garden Club President
Mill Creek Towne Garden Club
www.mctgardenclub.org
Join Mill Creek Towne Garden Club!
- Are you interested in gardening? Perhaps you’re a beginner, looking to learn more, or an experienced gardener interested in sharing your experiences and learning from others?
- Are you interested in making your home and community a more beautiful place to live?
- Are you interested in getting more involved in your community and getting to know your neighbors better?
Visit Our MCT Garden Club Website for Gardening Resources
- Local Gardening Resources: Looking for a Master Gardener as a guest speaker, need gardening advice, or want to learn about resources in or near Mill Creek Towne? Visit our Resources page for details.
- MCTGC Blog: Check our monthly blog for garden tips and local/online garden-related events.
- Gardening Books: Looking for a gift for your favorite gardener? Visit our Gardening Books Resources page for holiday gift ideas.
- Local Gardens: Visit our Local Gardens page to learn about local gardens in our area.
- Montgomery County Farmers’ Markets: Support our local farmers. Check this page to learn about local farmers markets in our area or join a CSA and get fresh local produce year-round!
- Online Gardening Resources: Looking for gardening apps or online resources to help with your gardening? Check out our Online Gardening Resources page for some apps for your smartphone and online gardening resources focused on the DMV area.
- Recipes: Looking for a recipe for your home-grown veggies and fruit? Check our Recipes page for ideas.
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.
MD HGIC Video Tips
Our Extension experts are sharing one-minute video tips to help you in the garden this summer. We’re talking about pest management in the vegetable garden, tree and lawn diseases, native plants, mowing lawns, and more!
For more information, please visit:
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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
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:
Check out the revised list of Mid-Atlantic native plants for pollinators and beneficial insects, from the Xerces Society.
Flowers and Groundcovers
- Water transplants if weather is dry.
- Last chance to plant bulbs or, if you have waited until the ground is frozen, pot them up for forcing indoors.
- Check any tropical or summer-blooming bulbs corms, tubers, and bare root plants in storage for rot or dessication.
- Store your fertilizer and seeds in a rodent-proof container.
- Plant hardy bulbs for spring flowering.
- Provide some special protection to tender or early flowering plants like Camellias.
- Leave seedheads on Black-eyed Susans, Echinacea, Goldenrod, Sunflowers, and Thistles for the birds to enjoy over the winter.
- Collect dried flowers and grasses for an indoor vase.
- Check that all vines are securely tied against winter’s cold winds.
- Rake up weeds and their seedlings.
- Wait to mulch until ground freezes hard.
- After hard frost, sow seeds of spring-blooming hardy annuals and perennials, then mark beds!
- Collect plant seeds for next year’s planting and for trading at the annual Washington Gardener Magazine Seed Exchanges.
- Gather seeds and carefully label them. Store in dry location.
- Gently clean up the garden.
- Weed. Especially look for fast-growing vines such as honeysuckle, autumn clematis, bittersweet, wild grape, Virginia creeper, and poison ivy.
- Pests to watch for: Aphids, spider mites, whiteflies, deer, voles.
- Diseases to watch for: Powdery mildew, Rust
- 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
5 Million Trees Initiative
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.
THIS is the SUPERPOWER of YOUR KEYSTONE NATIVE PLANTS.
- No exotic plant could ever achieve this.
- Want butterflies? Feed the caterpillars with keystone plants!
- Exotic plants will never support as many different species of caterpillars as the Keystone Natives can.
- Find your keystone native plants here by zip code.
If your zip code doesn’t give you enough information try zip codes of the nearest larger town or city. LINK: https://www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder/
Trees and Shrubs
- Moderately prune evergreens, especially hollies, for indoor decorating.
- Clean your gutters.
- Prune maples, dogwoods, birch, elm, walnut, and yellowwood to prevent “bleeding”.
- Water slowly and deeply if weather is very dry and ground is not frozen.
- Prune out Fireblight damage Malus and Pyrus when very cold.
- Use branches from your Christmas tree bedding mulch or as a windbreak.
- No more fertilizing for the year. But planting is still OK.
- Plant evergreens for a winter interest.
- Protect fig trees from freezing by piling up leaves around them.
- Trees and shrubs can be planted until the ground freezes.
- Stake newly planted large trees or shrubs to protect them from winter winds.
- Keep an eye out for bark damage from rabbits or deer.
- Gently remove layers of snow from your outdoor evergreens with a broom.
- Dig a hole now if you will be planting a “live” Christmas tree.
- If your conifers start shedding their needles or your spring bulb foliage starts peeking out of the ground, don’t worry. This is normal for our autumn cycle.
- Divide ornamental grasses.
- Contact an certified arborist to have your trees’ health inspected.
- Soil test established trees that have not been performing well.
- Check often and water newly planted trees if they don’t pass the finger test (stick your finger deep into soil – dry? Water!)
- Keep an eye out for bark damage from rabbits and deer.
- Check for vole problems and set out traps.
- Spray broadleaf evergreens with anti-desiccant to prevent dehydration.
- Use fallen leaves for mulch or compost.
- 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.
- Continue to remove fallen, diseased leaves.
- Put diseased leaves, pesticide-laden grass clippings and weed seeds in your trash — not your compost pile.
- Turn your compost pile weekly and don’t let it dry out. Work compost into your planting beds.
- Apply scale and dormant oil treatment to evergreens to decrease pest infestations.
- Remove dead and dying trees.
- Pests to watch for: adelgids, aphids, azalea lacebug, borers, bagworms, caterpillars, leafminers, Gypsy moths, sawfly, webworm, spidermites, scale, and Japanese beetles, voles, and deer.
- Diseases to watch for: Wood decay/rot, Fireblight.
- For more tips, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.
Herbs, Veggies, and Fruit
- Prune out Fireblight damage on apples and pears when very cold.
- Spread ashes from wood fires on your vegetable beds.
- Prune stone fruit trees like cherries, plums, and peaches.
- Remove rotting fruit from fruit trees and compost them.
- Avoid walking on frozen planting beds.
- Vent cold frames on sunny days.
- This is a good time to have vegetable garden and landscape soils tested.
- Remove finished plants.
- Cover strawberry beds with straw or pine needles.
- Thin seedlings.
- Apply dormant oil spray to fruit trees.
- Pests to watch for: Asparagus beetle, aphids, cabbage worms, corn borer, corn earworm, cutworms, Japanese beetles, squash vine borer, and tomato hornworm.
- Diseases to watch for: Powdery mildew, fungal, bacterial, viral diseases, Fireblight.
- Here are some more UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips.
Lawns
- Avoid walking on frozen grass to avoid damaging the crowns.
- Do any filling and grading around your yard. The soil will settle during winter months.
- Some alternatives to de-icing salts include sand, beet juice sugars, light gravel, or non-clumping kitty litter. Using de-icing salts around driveways and sidewalks can harm your garden plants and turf.
- Keep newly seeded lawns well watered.
- Apply fertilizer and lime to turfgrass based on soil tests and UME recommendations.
- Have soil tested (every 3 years at minimum). Apply lime as needed to adjust pH.
- Sharpen your lawnmower blade.
- Dethatch if necessary and plug aerate BEFORE applying weed control.
- Clean yard of all leaves and other debris.
- Turn your compost pile.
- 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
- Keep watering your poinsettias and give them plenty of light. Ensure they are away from drafts and that the pots drain freely.
- Check houseplants, and any plants you brought indoors for the winter for insects.
- Water your cut Christmas tree daily.
- Do not fertilize indoor plants (except cyclamen) until January.
- Do not place live wreaths or greenery in-between your door and a glass storm door, especially if the doorway is facing south. This placement will “cook” the arrangement on a sunny day.
- Set up humidifier for indoor plants or at least place them in pebble trays.
- Start new indoor plants from cuttings – try an easy one such as violets.
- Vacuum any ladybugs that come into the house.
- Clean the leaves of your indoor houseplants to prevent dust and film build-up.
- Look out for slug eggs grouped under sticks and stones; they are the size of BBs and pale in color.
- Force the buds on Christmas cactus by placing in a cool (55-60 degrees) room for 13 hours of darkness.
- Pot up Paper Whites and Amaryllis for holiday blooming. Repot every other year at this time. Store in a cool, dark place and do not water until flower buds or leaves emerge.
- Give your houseplants a quarter turn every few weeks.
- Keep all houseplants out of drafts and away from heat vents.
- Keep succulents and cacti on the dry side.
- Repot root-bound houseplants and start fertilizing them.
- Do not over water house plants.
- Check on your container plants daily and keep them well-watered.
- 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.
Read and follow label instructions on all pesticides and herbicides.
Start the year off by minimizing your #risk to #pesticides and always #ReadTheLabel! Learn more here: http://npic.orst.edu/health/readlabel.html
Questions about your label? Call us! 800-858-7378 M-F 8am-12pm PST
Indoor/Outdoor Insect and Wildlife Tips
- Check indoors for termites and winter ants.
- This is the perfect time to apply grub control.
- If you see spotted lanternfly in your garden, do not spray with chemicals or home remedies because it may harm beneficial insects and pollinators.
- Caulk and seal your home to prevent wildlife from coming indoors.
- Start feeding birds to get them in the habit for this winter.
- Put suet out for birds.
- Keep bird feeders clean and filled.
- Wash out birdbaths weekly with diluted bleach solution.
- Switch your deer deterrent spray.
- Set out traps for mice, moles, and voles.
- Remove and destroy gypsy moth egg masses.
- Watch for: eggs, larvae, overwintering stage of many species, carpenter ants, flies, 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:
RainScapes Portal Now Open; Rebates Up to $7,500 for Residents and $20,000 for Businesses Available to Prevent Stormwater Runoff
The Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is now accepting RainScapes Reward Rebate applications for residents and businesses who take measures to reduce stormwater runoff from individual properties. County residents and companies may be eligible for refunds of up to $7,500 for residential properties and $20,000 for businesses. A Rainscape is a landscape or design technique that helps reduce stormwater runoff from individual properties and that prevents pollutants, chemicals, oils and heavy metals from washing directly into the local waterways.
Montgomery Parks – Events
How to Keep Freshwater Clean
Thursday, December 5 | 7 to 8 pm | Ages 13+ | FREE
Meadowside Nature Center
5100 Meadowside Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20855
Join us in a workshop on the power of people and science to protect the “freshness” of our waterways. Road salt (sodium chloride) keeps us safe on roads and sidewalks but can be dangerous when it washes into creeks and streams. Fish, stream bugs, birds, frogs, salamanders, and even us humans are at risk when these waters become too salty! Fear not, for Salt Watch offers an easy way you and your neighbors can help. Meadowside Nature Center is hosting Salt Watch, an organization that teaches residents how to monitor road salt. Together, we will discuss road salt in our local environment, test water samples, and learn how to monitor road salt at home. This will be held indoors at Meadowside Nature Center.
FeederWatch Thursdays and Fridays
Every Thursday and Friday Starting December 5-6 | 11 am to 12 pm | Ages 5 and up | FREE
Locust Grove Nature Center
Are you interested in birding? Do you want to be part of a national community science project? Then, join us at Locust Grove Nature Center for Project FeederWatch.
Project FeederWatch is a seasonal community science project, where participants count the different species of birds that flock to a bird feeder. All levels of birders are welcome
Festive Centerpieces
Thursday, December 5 / 1:30 – 3:30 pm
Fee: $55 / FOBG: $50
Instructor: Jason Gedeik, Brookside Gardens Horticulturist
Location: Brookside Gardens Adult Classroom
Make a long-lasting beautiful centerpiece using fresh greens and pine cones! The centerpieces will include a candle and seasonal decorations. Fee includes all materials for two centerpieces.
‘Christmas On the Farm’ Returns To Agricultural History Farm In Derwood On December 7-8
Saturday – Sunday, December 7-8, 2024
12:00PM – 5:00PM
Agricultural History Farm Park
18400 Muncaster Rd
Derwood, MD 20855
The free annual look at how the holidays would be celebrated in the historic agricultural areas of Montgomery County will be on display Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 7-8, at “Christmas on the Farm” at the Agricultural History Farm Park in Derwood. The event will run from noon-5 p.m. each day.
The Agricultural History Farm Park is located at 18400 Muncaster Road in Derwood. In addition to free admission, parking also is free.
The day will include hayrides, farm animals, free cider and cookies, a bake sale table, barn decorations, holiday crafts and music.
For more information, go to www.friendsofthefarmpark.org
Master Gardener Lectures – All About Chiles
Saturday, December 14: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Rockville Memorial Library – 1st Floor Meeting Room
21 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD 20850
AGE GROUP: TEENS, OLDER ADULTS, ADULT
EVENT TYPE: LECTURES AND DISCUSSIONS ENVIRONMENT
Master Gardener Betty Cichy will cover topics in this talk related to how to choose, grow, cook, preserve and enjoy hot peppers and Chiles.
55+ Nature Book Club – Holiday Book Swap
Tuesday, December 17 | 6–7:30 p.m.
Meadowside Nature Center,
5100 Meadowside Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20855
Registration required. Free.
GreenScapes Symposium
Friday, February 14, 2025
9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
*Live Zoom Event
Early Bird fee ends Friday, January 10
Join us for a fascinating day of presentations offering practical strategies to design sustainable and resilient landscapes. Don’t miss out on the Early Bird fee of $50 that ends Friday, January 10. To learn more and register for this live Zoom event, click on this link: www.brooksidegreen.org.
Montgomery College Lifelong Learning Home and Garden Classes – Spring 2025
See Schedule of Spring Classes below:
| CRN# | Class ID | Course | Course Name | Start Date | End Date | Days | Times | Location |
| 33853 | 18212 | LLP152 | Annuals and Perennials for Mid-Atlantic Landscape | 4/29/2025 | 5/6/2025 | Tue | 10:30 AM – 1:00 PM | R-MK-Mannakee Building |
| 33822 | 18216 | LLI519 | Garden Design | 2/18/2025 | 3/11/2025 | Tue | 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM | R-MK-Mannakee Building |
| 33821 | 18214 | LLI022 | Orchids:How to Grow and Bloom | 1/28/2025 | 1/28/2025 | Tue | 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM | A-DL-WD&CE Virtual-Remote |
| 34067 | 18215 | LLP153 | Woody Ornamentals for the Mid-Atlantic Region | 4/1/2025 | 4/8/2025 | Tue | 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM | A-DL-WD&CE Virtual-Remote |
Let’s Talk Gardens
Thursdays 12 to 1 p.m.
Smithsonian Gardens
“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.
And we encourage you to watch videos in our Let’s Talk Gardens Video Library.
