Winter Seed Sowing

 

Can't wait to plant seeds? Try Winter Seed Sowing!

Peterborough Master Gardener, Master Gardener Emma Murphy demonstrates the Kiss Principle of Winter Seed Sowing.

Vegetable Art--More Fun for Kids

Here is an idea that you can enjoy with your family, by raiding the refrigerator drawer and finding a carrot, a piece of cauliflower or broccoli and a piece of celery. You can also experiment with other things but these are what I used.

You need to get out your acrylic paints, a plastic tray, jar of water some paint brushes, and some paper towel.

Cut the carrot to make your circle shape, cut the celery to make the curved shape, and take a small piece of broccoli or cauliflower from the large piece.  Leave enough vegetable so you can hold on to it.

Use some old paper to experiment putting paint on the pieces and pressing them down on the paper to see the shape they make.

Now you can make cards for your friends and family, using construction paper or heavy paper. You may also like to try using a potato, and cutting out is shaped like a square or a triangle.

Have fun!  Article and pictures by Lanark County Master Gardener, Ankaret Dean

Gardening Activity for Kids

Here is an activity you can try while kids are home waiting for Covid19 to subside.  Try growing some easy vegetables/fruits from scraps. This activity and may spark your child’s interest in gardening.
Some of the easier vegetables you try from scraps are: Romaine lettuce, celery, green onions.
Romaine lettuce, onions, celery. Take the stump cut about 2-5 cm from the end of the vegetable. Fill a container halfway with water, set the stump side down in water. Place in a sunny window and watch for new growth, within a few days. Change the water every couple of days. For those of you on town water, keep some water on hand that has sat for at least a day to reduce the chemicals that would have been added to water. After about 3 weeks you will see new roots start to appear on my lettuce. At this point when roots are a few inch long you can place it in soil water and continue to watch it grow. Or cut off the small amount of lettuce which did regrow and enjoy.
Hopefully during this time your kids would have been excited with watching the regrowth occur.
Have fun and stay safe!  Photo and article by Lanark County Master Gardener Judy Wall

Pakenham Hort Christmas Centrepiece Workshop

Please join us for a Hands On Workshop.  All materials will be supplied.  Learn how to make your very own centrepiece using fresh greenery and flowers.  Cost is $25 for PHS members and $35 for non members.  Space is limited so if interested, please contact Pakenham Horticultural Society.

Fletcher Wildlife Garden Native Plant Sale

The Fletcher Wildlife Garden attracts naturalists, gardeners, school children and birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife.  It demonstrates how to create and restore wildlife-friendly habitats and garden with an emphasis on using plants native to our region.
Once a year, the Fletcher Wildlife Garden hosts a plant sale that offers hundreds of beautiful wildflowers native to the Ottawa region.  They will help you find the right plant for your yard and encourage you to plant a wide variety of native plants that change from month to month and attracts birds, butterflies, bees and other wildlife.  The Plant Sale and Garden are located on Prince of Wales Drive, south of the Arboretum.
To learn more about the Fletcher Wildlife Garden, visit the Slide Show to the right of this screen.
For more information, or if you have questions, contact Sandy at 613-730-0714 or fletcher@ofnc.ca

Reflowering Amarylis

Christmas is over.  Your beautiful Amaryllis bulb is nothing but green leaves.  Can you make it reflower.  Yes! You can. Follow our easy steps and your Amaryllis will rebloom again and again.

Sugar Tyme

What is that beautiful little tree growing all along Wilson Street in Perth?  It is a spectacular crab apple, know as Sugar Tyme.

Plant Sales

Plant Sales are a primary source of funding for many hard working garden related volunteer organizations.  These groups help to make our local communities brighter and more beautiful and a better place to live.  Across Lanark County, May is the month that your local Horticultural Societies host their Plant Sale. Lanark County Master Gardeners will be at all the Horticultural Societies Plant Sale and we will be selling plants at the Perth Sale.  See Calendar on the right for sale dates and locations.

Why should I buy plants at a Plant Sale?

• Some of the best gardeners in the county are members of the horticultural societies.  They divide and donate plants from their own gardens.
• The plants have proven to grow successfully in our climate.  If they didn't the gardeners have none to donate.
• The Horticultural Societies develop and care for many of the beautiful gardens across the county and their tireless work makes our home towns a better place to live. Funds raised at Plant Sales support these efforts.
• The plants are offered at a price you will not find anywhere else.
• There is always a wide range of perennials, some you will not find at any garden centre.  Sometimes there are roses, trees and shrubs and lots of vegetable bedding plants.

In addition to the Horticultural Society Sales, we have included information about two Ottawa based plant sales:

• The Native Plant Sale sponsored by Fletcher Wildlife Garden.
• The Rare and Unusual Plant Sale sponsored by the Friends of the Farm (Central Experimental Farm.

Hope to see you at one of the sales.

Quinte Botanical Garden

Quinte Botanical Gardens is located in Eastern Ontario.
Enjoy six acres of unique garden displays with extraordinary plant combinations.  An outdoor, healthy attraction, you can enjoy nature at its best.  Each garden offers interesting insight into the world of plants.Connect with nature, learn about horticulture or journey through the gardens at your own pace.
Gardens include:

• Bee, Bird, Butterfly Garden
• Oriental Garden 
• Romantic Rose Garden.

The Colour Wheel Garden is the largest in the world.

Wander, learn, unwind and relax all at the Quinte Botanical Gardens!  

World Plants

Our Blog is changing.  In the past, we had a widget on the left side of the Blog that provided access to Canada Plant Website.  That website has disappeared and our blog modified to provide access to World Plant Website.  Enter the website by various plant categories, such as Annual, Perennial, Woody, Bulbs and search for your plant based on common name or botanical name.  If you are looking to identify a plant, enter various plant features and conduct a search.  In addition to searching for plants, the website has other resources that you may find helpful, such as links to presentations, articles and images.  All are copyrighted but may be used for educational purposes.  Spend a little time looking around this new feature and we are sure you will like it as much as we do.

Canada's 150th Birthday celebration is drawing to a close.  Our special Side Bar Feature, Canada's Garden Route will soon be removed from our blog.  Hope you enjoyed it.

Technical Update--Designing resilient gardens for our times.

Technical Update--Designing resilient gardens for our times.  What is a gardener to do?  One year (2016) is a severe drought.  The next year, record rainfall brings floods.  How do you create a garden that can thrive in all these sessions.  The Master Gardeners of Ottawa Carelton and Lanark County and pleased to present an all day seminar to help you, the gardener create a resilient garden for all of these times. This seminar covers three major topics:

• Water and drought management
• Soil Management
• Wash and wear plants (planting for resilience).

More details about each session and the speakers biographies.

When:  Saturday October 21

Where:   Rideau Park United Church 2203 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa

What is the cost: Only $35 which includes lunch.  (After October 7 price is $40)

How do I sign up:  Registration Form Single or Group

View Poster.

The Power of Pollinators Presentation by Dr James Coupland

The Power of Pollinators, by Dr. James Coupland--a presentation sponsored by
the Almonte and District Horticultural Society and the Mississippi Mills Beautification Committee on Wednesday, May 10 at 7:00 pm upstairs at the Almonte Old Town Hall. This event is open to the general public and is free of charge. We encourage residents of Mississippi Mills, Carleton Place and surrounding areas to participate in this educational opportunity.  A strong advocate of pollination, conservation and the value of ecosystems, he’ll talk about the importance of pollinators and their decline. Pollinators, which are critical to plant reproduction, are “a huge part” of the value of nature, he says. And even individual gardeners can have a big impact in solving the problem of habitat loss and the effect of insecticides.

Canada's Garden Route--Feature

Canada's Garden Route Feature--2017 marks Canada's 150th Birthday.  To celebrate many Canadians are taking the "Great Canadian Road Trip".  If you travel to another province or stay right at home, there are many spectacular gardens you can visit.  Canada's Garden Route has been developed to help you find a garden wherever your travels take you.

This Sidebar Feature  (on your right) is a tribute to Canada's 150th birthday celebration and a promotion of Canada's Garden Route, drawing extensively from the material on the Canada's Garden Route website. The goal is to present the material as a cross country tour, and supplements "Featured Garden" destinations on Canada's Garden Route with additional images and videos for individual destinations. This feature attempts to be impartial, in every way, limited only by the available material.

Sidebar Features are specifically designed for viewing in the popup window opened when clicking the Sidebar Feature label or image on the Lanark County Master Gardeners blog. Other viewing options will result in distorted or fuzzy results.

Please note that there is a built-in navigation capability. It is triggered using the leftmost button (just before the backward/forward buttons). After clicking the appropriate button you can navigate to a specific province and to a specific Featured Garden within a given province. This is particularly useful if you get interrupted while viewing the entire Sidebar Feature or have a vacation planned in a specific province.

Carleton Place Community Garden

Gardening Calendar Workshop--April 8th 10-noon.  Join Lanark County Master Gardener, David Hinks and CBC Gardening expert Ed Lawrence for a discussion on what plants to plant and when to plant them.  Also learn about plans to revitalize the Carleton Place Community Garden.  Want to help?  We need volunteer builders and dirt moves to get this project going.For more info email carletonplacecommunitygarden@gmail.com.

Fletcher Wildlife Garden Native Plant Sale

Fletcher Wildlife Garden Native Plant Sale June 3, 2017 9:30-12:30.  Help pollinators and butterflies, attract birds to your backyard. We’ll show you which native plant species are favourites with wildlife at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden and which species will do well in your growing conditions. We have milkweeds for monarchs, asters to suit any garden location, goldenrods, blue-eyed grass, bergamot, beardtongue, a few native grass species, and hundreds of other species from our own garden. Watch our website www.ofnc.ca/fletcher for a list of species for sale later this spring. Annual Native Plant Sale

Fruit Trees 101: Workshop

Fruit Trees 101: Workshop Saturday Feb 25 9-noon.

What?

• The Mississippi Mills Urban Orchard
• Fruit tree care--pruning, pests and diseases
• Question and Answer

Who?

• Ed Lawrence--CBC Gardening expert, Former head of Rideau Hall gardens and Mississippi Mills Gardening guru
• David Hinks--Millstone gardening columnist, member Lanark County Master Gardeners, Board member "The Hunger Stop".

Where?

• Mississippi Mills Youth Centre 134 Main Street, Almonte (beside Milano's Pizza)

Cost?

• Donation to the Mississippi Mills Youth Centre

This is a joint project of the Mississippi Mills Youth Centre, Lanark County Master Gardeners and the Neighbourhood Tomato.

Seedy Saturday and Seedy Sunday

Seedy Saturdays and Sundays take place across Canada in January February and March.  Many are free admittance and all are fun. You can swap and exchange seeds and buy seeds from suppliers.  Meet with fellow gardeners.  Many Seedy days have free gardening seminars.  In Lanark County, your local Master Gardener group is on hand to answer your gardening questions. In Almonte, join us on Saturday February 9 at the Almonte Civitan Club from 9 am to 3 pm and in Perth on Sunday March 2 at the Perth Civitan Club.  Read more.

What do you know about Ontario's Pollinators?

What do you know about Ontario's Pollinators? Be Wild! Take the Ontario Natures Pollinator Quiz to test your knowledge.