Care for New Bedding Plants 

Home gardeners are itching to get outside and will soon be buying bedding plants – both annual flowers and vegetables - from local garden centers and greenhouses. Selecting strong, healthy plants, along with proper care and planting, will help insure a successful start to the gardening season.  Select short stocky plants with dark green foliage.... Continue Reading →

Pruning Hydrangeas

As spring gets closer, questions about how to best maintain our gardens come to mind. A very common question I receive each spring is "How do I prune my hydrangea?"  Pruning HydrangeaNo wonder it’s confusing - there are several hydrangeas species commonly grown by Nebraska gardeners, with a different pruning strategy and timing for each.... Continue Reading →

2023 All-America Selection Flower Winners 

All-America Selections (AAS) announces four national flower award winners this year. National awards are given to plants with consistently great performance across the United States. To see pictures of these and other great plants visit the All-America Selection website. Coleus ‘Coral Candy’ is a new release from PanAmerican Seed’s Premium Sun coleus series and the first seed-propagated... Continue Reading →

Care of Holiday Plants 

During the holidays, poinsettias become the decorative plant of choice for many. And many green thumbs who enjoy working with plants are eventually tempted to save a poinsettia after the holidays with the intention of getting it to re-bloom the following year. Christmas cactus and Amaryllis plants also make great houseplants - easy to grow... Continue Reading →

Keep Gift Plants Under Wraps

A holiday plant can be the perfect gift for many occasions, but to ensure a beautiful, healthy plant use care when selecting and transporting your gift.   Selection When choosing a poinsettia, look for a full, well-branched plant with good color development in the showy bracts and dark green leaves. A fresh poinsettia will have little or... Continue Reading →

Extension Master Gardener Volunteers – Now Accepting Applications for 2023 Program

A frosty winter day is a great time to stay indoors and enjoy a good book, a warm fire in the fireplace and a hot cup of cocoa. But for gardeners, winter is also time to dream and plan next summer’s gardens. Soon gardeners will be looking through mail-order catalogues, making up their 2023 plant and seed orders.  But for Nebraska Extension Master Gardener volunteers, winter is also a time... Continue Reading →

Chrysanthemums Brighten Up the Fall Garden

Mums are the stars of the fall perennial garden. They bloom profusely and continue blooming even after frosts have zapped tender annual flowers.  They are now available at garden centers in a wide range of colors including white, yellow, orange, bronze, red, purple and pink.  “Chrysanthemum” is now a common name for this large group of plants.... Continue Reading →

Plan for Late Summer Color with Asters

Late summer and fall can be a dreary time in the landscape, with little else but coreopsis and Black-eyed Susan blooming. So it's a good idea to plan, and plant, now for color in your fall gardens. Asters are an excellent plant to add for additional fall color. Two species of aster, which are both... Continue Reading →

2022 All-America Selection Flower Winners 

This article is provided by All-America Selections, including pictures and plant information. Visit them at all-americaselections.org for additional information and pictures.  All-America Selections (AAS) announces six flower award winners this year, including two Gold Medal winners and four National winners. Gold Medal awards are reserved for breakthroughs in plant breeding, signally a plant with a completely unique feature not previously found in similar plants. So Gold... Continue Reading →

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