Email Yard & Garden Questions to Master Gardener Rae

By C  Rae Hozer, Cumberland County Master Gardener 

Everyone I know seems to be eager for winter’s end. The season has been colder and wetter than usual where I live. Though we won’t see the last day of winter until next month (March 19, 2009), my friends and neighbors are already thinking about springtime. I know their minds are on milder temperatures and working outside because they’ve been ringing me up on the telephone with gardening questions. Others have been stopping to chat about landscape issues in the grocery store and during coffee hour after church. 

I was flagged down recently by my buddy across the street, while walking my dog. That neighbor needed help identifying some weeds that had popped up throughout the groundcover in his front yard. (Common name is Hairy Bittercress, botanical name Cardamine hirsuta.) In Tennessee, these cool-season annual weeds sprout in the fall, survive cold weather, then flower in late winter. Hairy Bittercress normally start to set seed before we have our last spring frost (May 10) and make more seeds throughout spring and summer. The seed pods are “touch-me-not” type. Brushing against the plant as you walk by causes the pods to pop open—slinging seeds in all directions. The best way to stop those devilish weeds from spreading is to dig them up before seeds form. (A herbicide spray could be used to kill the weeds, but spraying can have bad results when weeds grow close to desirable plants. In this case, overspray might kill the groundcover as well as the weeds.) My neighbor got the information he needed. I enjoyed sharing horticultural knowledge picked up from Master Gardener (MG) classes and/or learned while researching answers to questions residents bring to our local UT Extension office. And Goldie, my golden retriever, got a dog biscuit from the neighbor. What a good MG house call!  

I think questions are great! The only time I really minded answering horticulture questions was right after completing my initial MG training in 1998. My exercise instructor announced to the class that Rae was now a Master Gardener. Doing stomach crunches was already tough enough to take my breath away. I found trying to answer garden questions and diagnose plant problems during a cardio workout was sometimes more than I could handle. 

The main purpose of Plateau Gardening is to bring useful information to folks tending home gardens and landscapes in Tennessee’s Upper Cumberland Region. Inquiries from readers help with selection of topics ensuring these newspaper articles relate specifically to local conditions and common gardening challenges found here. Email Master Gardener Rae home landscape questions you want answered. Send to mgardenerrae@frontiernet.net. Attaching a digital photo to show details is a good idea. Mention where your property is located—Carthage, Cookeville or the Crossville area, as conditions vary slightly in each of the three counties where this column is printed. Because articles are written in advance and at times a series of two or three articles is planned to run in sequence, there is usually a delay between the time questions are submitted and printing of an article on that topic in the newspaper.  

Please take questions that need an immediate answer directly to your local UT Extension office for resolution. The Cumberland County office mailing address and telephone number are: UT Extension Cumberland County, P.O. Box 483, Crossville, TN 38557, (931-484-6743). Visit this location to ask about becoming a Master Gardener or to sign up for the March 2009 MG training class, to get quick answers to specific yard and garden questions, or to submit soil test samples. It’s also the spot to pick up printed information on topics like home vegetable and flower gardens, lawns, growing fruits and landscaping. (Most publications are free.) Go to the University of Tennessee Extension Publications website “http://www.utextension.utk.edu/publications” then click on the section entitled “Home Garden, Lawn and Landscape” if you have Internet access and wish to download publications to your home computer.