Hill City Master
Gardeners
Association
Gardening Tips for January
Plan – Get your photos out. Decide what you will have in your gardens this year to make them absolutely perfect. Order seeds. Don’t wait too long as those in short supply sell out quickly.
Get Educated – Attend garden shows, workshops, and conferences. Do internet searches and read books.
Flower Garden – Prune old foliage of Hellebores before new leaves immerge in late winter. Leaving old foliage will protect flower buds during a cold snap in January and early February and will also keep the soil cool during our winter warm-ups helping prevent blooming too early.
Lawn – Avoid traffic on frozen lawns. Assess your lawn. If you have brown patches, most likely it was crabgrass. If all plant (roots, too) are brown, it probably is and you’ll have more next year. Plan for control.
Winter Protection – Removing snow from evergreens may prevent breakage, but if the branches are cold and brittle, you may cause more damage by snow removal.
Tools and Equipment – Service equipment. Replace old spark plugs, change engine oil, clean the air filter and sharpen mower blades.
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 closed. If you have questions about future training classes, please contact us here.
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.
Winter’s chill has arrived. As Fall wanes there is still a lot to do in the garden: annual maintenance and preparation for winter crops or spring plantings. Want to learn more? Registration for the 2025 Master Gardener Training Class is closed but you can contact us about the 2026 class here. Applications for the 2026 Training Class will be available in the Fall.
More information is available on our Become a Master Gardener page.
In the Garden This Month
JANUARY
Gardening Tips for January
Plan - Get your photos out. Decide what you will have in your gardens this year to make them absolutely perfect. Order seeds. Don't wait too long as those in short supply sell out quickly.
Get Educated - Attend garden shows, workshops, and conferences. Do internet searches and read books.
Flower Garden - Prune old foliage of Hellebores before new leaves immerge in late winter. Leaving old foliage will protect flower buds during a cold snap in January and early February and will also keep the soil cool during our winter warm-ups helping prevent blooming too early.
Lawn - Avoid traffic on frozen lawns. Assess your lawn. If you have brown patches, most likely it was crabgrass. If all plant (roots, too) are brown, it probably is and you'll have more next year. Plan for control.
Winter Protection - Removing snow from evergreens may prevent breakage, but if the branches are cold and brittle, you may cause more damage by snow removal.
Tools and Equipment - Service equipment. Replace old spark plugs, change engine oil, clean the air filter and sharpen mower blades. Clean soil and debris from tools. Wiping shears and loppers with a rag dipped in paint thinner will remove sticky resins. Apply a light coating of oil, WD-40 or cooking spray to help prevent rusting. Paint the handles of garden tools red or orange. This will preserve the wood and make the tools easier to locate when you lay them down in the lawn or garden.
Ice - When ice makes walkways and driveways hazardous, spread sand or kitty litter to roughen up surface. Salt will wash off solid surfaces onto your turf or gardens and damage your plants.
A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows. – Doug Larson.
