Virginia Master Gardener Association

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Virginia Cooperative Extension have produced a series of videos on lawn care tips titled "A lawn to Dye for."  Homeowners will learn how to test soil, select grasses, water, mow, fight lawn diseases, combat insects, and deal with weeds.

The first flora since Flora Virginica, published in the mid-1700s. Expected in 2012, it will be a 1,400-page, state-of-the-art manual describing and aiding in the identification of 3,500 taxa of plants native to Virginia or naturalized here.

A new website for pesticide stewardship provides one-stop shopping for anyone who needs to use a pesticide and wants to know how to use it properly. The website contains information about pesticide use, storage, disposal and handling. It also includes downloadable applicator forms and references to federal laws about pesticide use. Coordinated by the Center for Integrated Pest Management at North Carolina State University, the site is the result of a national collaboration. Land-grant universities from four states, including New York, North Carolina, South Dakota and Washington, along with various other organizations interested in pesticide stewardship, have committed to work together to develop, review, and fund the content. The site is housed and maintained at Cornell University.

This is an attractive new site for an attractive new program that purports to be "Building Communities One Garden at a Time."  Our friend and Past President of VMGA, Bill McCaleb is involved with this project in Halifax County.  They are building a garden and learning center and seem to have big plans. 

This is an attraction in Chesterfield, Missouri. The site offers beautiful pictures of butterflies and information on Butterfly Gardening. Also includes a Plant of the Month.

This site is all about growing by the phases of the moon. It discusses the lunar phases and astrological signs that influence gardening.

The author of this site, Tom Ogren, is a horticulture professor that got hooked on the idea that the right garden wouldn't trigger any allergies. A must visit site just for the information alone.

This is an environmentally friendly lawn and garden supplies site. You can buy push reel mowers, rain barrels, garden gnomes and all sorts of gadgets.

A very helpful site for helping kids build a lifelong interest in gardening.

This website professes to be "The ultimate website for the truly obsessed plant-a-holic". Includes The Plant Man, Glick Pick of the Week,  new product updates and a Garden Encyclopedia.

We have all heard about Maymont but if you have never visited there, check out this site. It is a beautiful and easy to navigate site. It will make you want to visit. Wow! Hundreds of local master gardeners volunteer at their educational events

Another place we have all heard about. This site is as wonderful as visiting the gardens is. LGBG offers a lot of education events which are staffed by Master Gardeners from the surrounding areas.

Over 60 radio stations carry "In the Garden Radio" with Mark and Andre Viette. Their website offers gorgeous  images and all the wonderful tips given on the radio each Saturday morning . Plus much more information.

This site provides basic information on how to get a community gardening project off the ground. It offers monographs, videos, and publications  on starting a community garden.

The author  of this site says his database lists every perennial plant that is worth growing for it's produce. He definitely seems to have a complete listing of edible perennials and popular perennial herbs.

I can't believe I haven't recommended this site. Maybe because we all know about it? The Gardening section is a really wonderful source of timely topics and  has a great search tab. Beautiful images and excellent articles.

If you enjoy National Public Radio, you are going to love this site! It recaps stories from Ketzel Levine's program and also has a Plant Profile section that is fun to read but yet very concise.

Brent didn't think that gardeners would have time to be on the computer but Becky convinced him otherwise. Their site is more that an online order point for bulbs, it has basic planting information and true to life images of the plants they offer.

The American Horticultural Society offers links to plant societies and information on River Farm.

Situated in Alexandria (VA), Green Spring Gardens Park offers plant information sheets and advice basic garden installation and other topics of interest to gardeners.

This is another Hort therapy site. They offer their publications for a fee but have links to other Hort therapy sites.

Educational Programs and Resources. This will link you to printer friendly copies of publications from Virginia Tech. You can also link to the Pest Management Guide from here.

Information on Human issues in horticulture. I had a little trouble reaching this site but hopefully the problem will be fixed soon. Can be reached through Dr. Relf's faculty page at

Integrating Horticulture into SOLs at the elementary school level.

Directory of land grant universities as well as well as websites of the schools of forestry, state extension services and state experimental stations.

Books, programming materials, publications and articles on Children's gardening.

Includes identification of Insects and Mites with easy to use keys and picture guides, fact sheets and reports and updates on host pest lists.

Pictures and publications to aid in the identification of common weeds and weed seedlings found in Virginia and d the Southeastern U.S.

Another easy to use site with information on insects and plant diseases. Quite an extensive database.

This is the toxic plants database of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbanna. Information is helpful to all of those who garden and have pets.

Many interesting and timely articles on pesticides. Includes information on mosquito controls and the West Nile virus. (RISE -Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment.)

Another great site for Hort therapy, senior and children's gardening. "Gardening for people of all ages, abilities and lifestyles."

For the MG who is interested in creating an enabling garden, this is a great place to start.

Contains so much information on gardening with disabilities. Has a tremendous number of reference materials.

This is a terrific site for those who have greenhouses. It includes diseases, insects and general IPM. A very educational site.

This UK site bills itself as a resource and information centre for edible and otherwise useful plants. They are a registered charity in the UK but have compiled a plant database of over 7000 species of plants. Their main aim is research and to provide information about "ecologically sustainable horticulture".

American Forests is the nation's oldest nonprofit citizens conservation organization, founded in1875. Their mission statement sums up their site. "We help people improve the environment with trees and forests. We plant trees."

CareFree garden is a division of CropKing, a leader in controlled environment agriculture and hydroponics. Although a commercial site, it offers good information on Aquaponics and Greenhouses.

This is advertised as a one stop informational site. It is loaded with information for about any type of garden or garden problem.

This Canadian site for children's gardening is GREAT! Children will find this easy to navigate. All the pages are written clearly and easy to understand. Even has a glossary.

If you are a HOSTA aficionado, I'll be surprised if you don't know about this site. I didn't go into every page but what I saw was quite educating. Easy to navigate and lots of easy to understand choices.

If you are ever confused about the concept of Growing Degree Days, check this page out. Mike Likins explains the concept and offers an easy method of calculation.

This is a somewhat commercial site but it has good information on BUGS!

What a place to visit!! This place has an e-mail service for timely tips. It has Gardening Guides, Fact Sheets on Eco-Gardening, MG links and a link for year round plant activities for people with special needs. A clear, concise, easy to use and has great pictures. Just start at Gardening Resources and click away! Home of the North Eastern MG Conference.

This site deals with "Plants for the Western Garden". Quite appropriate for all sections of the country suffering with drought. It has a great section on Xeriscaping. It also has an online ordering section for plant material and other gardening aids. It also features an E-Zine for Xeriscaping. You can read their articles online or receive them via e-mail. Based in California.

Another site with Xeriscaping links. This site also has a link to Landscaping 101 and Landscaping How-To?s. It has an extensive database of articles on many gardening topics such as deer resistant plants, pruning, etc.

This site gives a brief history of Xeriscaping Based in Florida; it also includes links and ideas for Water Conservation.

Another site for Xeriscape designs for landscaping and water conservation. Based in Georgia, this site has handy printable tips and landscape designs. (Must have Adobe Acrobat)

A wholesale/retail site that has "Dr.Botnic" to answer your gardening questions. Also has feature articles on various topics. Has information and supplies to grow flowers, herbs or vegetables on your porch, patio or windowsill.

This is the Ohio site for Horticulture and Crop Science. PlantFacts is their database and it is unique in that this database has over 20,000 extension fact sheets.

This site is set up to prevent the introduction of non- indigenous invasive plants within the US. It has a fairly comprehensive list of Fact sheets and weed alerts. You can learn more about "weeds" on this site and it?s links than you probably want to know. Includes information about integrated management of weeds, including biological controls.

An easy to use directory of plants makes this site "friendly". It also has very good drawings and pictures of plants including a directory of leaf shapes. Would be very useful if you needed simple but accurate illustrations for teaching purposes.

This is a search engine that can?t be beat for the wealth of information it offers. It has a very large section in its Images section that offers beautiful color photographs of about any plant or flower you can come up with. The whole site is exciting! Shelby Snider (Roanoke MG) recommended this.

A good site for Pesticide and Environmental update. The archived articles are plentiful and quite interesting. As with most sites, they do have a retail side.

Another search engine just for gardeners. Again, some gorgeous photography.

This site name really reflects what you can do here. It launches you in many directions. Although it is based in Austin, Texas, this site has links to gardens all over the world. Here you can find TV/Radio times, Clipart and a Humor section and many short, easy to read articles on a myriad of topics. However, when I clicked on a link about Bees, I ended up at Popular Mechanics! Never found the Bee article?I got sidetracked by other articles and tips at Popular Mechanics.

The sub title for this site is "Environmentally Responsible Products That Work". At first I thought this was a comprehensive site to sell organic gardening aids. Once I went deeper into the site, I was impressed. The Comprehensive Pest and Disease Library has very clear pictures and offers totally organic controls.

This is the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension site. It?s a very clean uncluttered site. It has a links to their Master Gardener program, Bay Issues, invasive Species Alert and their Diagnostics area is a ?WOW?! Definitely worth a click.

Something for everybody here. From the patio gardener to the nation?s farmer. Easy to navigate.

Billed as a Plant and Pest diagnostic tool but a site strong on education also.

A link from the Virginia Natural Heritage Program (Department of Conservation and Recreation).

A commercial site but the content and graphics are excellent. A good source of ideas.

Advertises itself as "a growing resource". It is full of timely and easy to read information. Good newsletter also.

Covers anything a home gardener, especially a novice, might be looking for. Several children?s links. Also very timely.

The Conservancy's motto is 'saving the Earth's Last Great Places for future generations'. A nice site to learn what is being done in conservation.

This site has a large number of tips and techniques. Also a decent children;s area. From the TV show of the same name.