Hill City Master Gardeners
Association
Gardening Tips for December
Perennials – If it’s brown, cut it down! Remove leaves, stems, spent flowers as they often harbor insects and disease causing organisms. However, you may want to leave some up for wildlife or for shapes and textures in your winter garden.
Soil Test – Get your soil tested. Instructions and boxes are available at VCE Office. Filling and grading around the yard during December will give the loose soil time to settle during cold months.
Lime – Apply lime when ground is not frozen. It will work over the winter to improve soil conditions in the spring for plants that like a sweet soil.
Focus on Natives
Now that the rain has stopped, and I can get out in my garden again, I am enjoying the Blue Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum), a native perennial which is sometimes called “wild ageratum” which it resembles. I’ve been waiting all summer to see it bloom, and now that fall is here, it is in its glory, providing abundant nectar for butterflies as they take in food to prepare for migrating or overwintering. The photo here shows an American Lady butterfly relaxing on a mound of blue mistflower in my garden.
Blue Mistflower
Welcome to our Newest Master Gardeners.
New Master Gardeners from the Class of 2023
Applications for the 2025 Class
are now available.
Important dates:
January 17 (5 pm) –Application Due
January 31 — Payment Due
February 6 — Class Orientation
February 10 — First day of classes
Blue mistflower likes full sun but will do well in part shade also. It prefers moist soil, but mine survived the summer’s drought with only maybe two or three waterings from me. My native garden has a healthy layer of accumulated leaves also, which serve as mulch and help retain moisture in the soil.
Early in the season, well before bloom time, this plant was browsed by the neighborhood deer, but recovered well, and looks great now in October, at about three feet tall. It is supposed to be an aggressive plant, spreading through abundant seed production and rhizomes. Mine is at least twice the size it was last year! I will be dividing this one when it emerges in early spring. My native garden is ever-expanding, so I’m glad to have a good spreader.
Some older references to this plant classify it as a Eupatorium, but recent phylogenetic studies have indicated the genus should be divided, and it is now classified with Conoclinium. It is native to about 50% of North America, the eastern and central portion. Several other species of Conoclinium are native to Texas, Mexico, and the southwestern U.S.
FESTIVAL OF GARDENING
The 2025 Festival of Gardening, our annual plant sale and celebration of all things gardening, will be here before we know it. We’ll be setting up again on the lawn of E.C. Glass High School with thousands of plants for sale, from heirloom tomato varieties to sought-after perennials to fragrant herbs. There will also be vegetables, annuals, native plants, trees and shrubs, vines and groundcovers as well as container gardens and garden décor items. All plants are grown from seed, divisions, or cuttings by our Master Gardeners. This sale is our annual fund-raising event that supports our training programs, and various community projects. Keep watching this site for a map of the sale layout so you can plan your plant-shopping adventure!
SAVE THE DATE!
FOG 2025
Saturday, May 3, 2025
Virginia Master Gardeners are volunteer educators who work within their communities to encourage and promote environmentally sound horticulture practices through sustainable landscape management education and training. As an educational program of Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Master Gardeners bring the resources of Virginia’s land-grant universities, Virginia Tech and Virginia State University, to the people of the commonwealth. All information we disseminate must be research-based by VT/VSU.
Find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/hillcitymastergardeners/
Look for our latest HCMGA postcards.
Available at HCMGA events and project sites, and at the Community Market Information Booth.
Cooler AUTUMN days have arrived and the lush growth of summer is beginning to ebb. A time for harvest, it’s also time to plant bulbs in anticipation of Spring. As leaves begin to fall new beauty emerges.
There is always something new to see as the garden transforms through the seasons. Whether planning the next season’s planting, moving the garden indoors, or shifting to maintenance projects, there’s always lots to learn and lots to do. A garden gives back everything that you put into it.
What’s next for your garden?
Our next Master Gardener Training Class will start in February. Information and the online Application are available now on our Become a Master Gardener page. The Training Schedule is available for download here.
In the Garden This Month
DECEMBER
Gardening Tips for December
Perennials - If it's brown, cut it down! Remove leaves, stems, spent flowers as they often harbor insects and disease causing organisms. However, you may want to leave some up for wildlife or for shapes and textures in your winter garden.
Soil Test - Get your soil tested. Instructions and boxes are available at VCE Office. Filling and grading around the yard during December will give the loose soil time to settle during cold months.
Lime - Apply lime when ground is not frozen. It will work over the winter to improve soil conditions in the spring for plants that like a sweet soil.
Winter Protection - Insulate borderline hardy plants by piling leaves on top of them. A fence shaped into a circle and filled with two feet of leaves will protect plants such as banana and elephant ear. If it is an expensive plant that you do not want to lose, you should dig and overwinter inside. If severe cold is forecast, water evergreen trees and shrubs before the soil freezes.
Pesticide Storage - Clean out your pesticide storage and discard containers that have lost their labels or that you no longer use. Please use your county’s hazardous waste collection program to dispose of pesticides. If liquid pesticides are stored where temperatures will drop below freezing, move the pesticides to a more protected storage area. To minimize the amount of pesticide you store, buy only what you need and use them according to label directions. Pesticides degrade with age, so a small bottle may actually be a smarter purchase than a larger size that is cheaper by the ounce.
Live Christmas Trees - Should not be kept inside the home for more than a week if kept in a warm room.
A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows. – Doug Larson.
