Rhonda Ferree's ILRiverHort

The Spoon River Valley Scenic Drive is about to begin! I challenge you to ignore the crowds and traffic jams and to focus on our beautiful Spoon River Country. As a former guidebook stated, "The Spoon River Valley is filled with woodlands and fertile farmlands that provide both a natural beauty and rich cultural heritage." During these two weekends, take the opportunity...

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Flowers are a great way to communicate your love and affection. Over the years, flowers have developed meaning and are known as a way to convey a special message. Flowers can represent everything from friendship to true love. Chrysanthemums show friendship. Gardenias represent secret love. Lilies are a traditional wedding flower and mean chastity, innocence, and purity. Give a primrose...

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I enjoy shopping for plants each spring. In addition to our usual local spots, my husband and I like to visit new garden centers each year. This year's garden shopping trek included Jacksonville, Springfield, Champaign, Danville, and Ottawa. At each location, I pay particular attention to new plants and garden trends. This year's trends were obviously fairies, succulents, and butterflies....

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Arbor Day and Earth Day happen each April. This year Arbor day is April 28 and Earth Day is April 22. Both offer an opportunity for us to step back and enjoy our natural world. Arbor Day was founded about 145 years ago in Nebraska, on April 10, 1872, after much urging from Julius Sterling Morton, a journalist and member of the Nebraska Board of Agriculture. Morton got the board to appro...

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February often gives me the winter blahs. When that happens, gardening tasks help perk me up. Consider these various February gardening activities to reduce the winter blues. GENERAL Repair and paint lawn and garden tools, window boxes, lawn furniture, tools and other items in preparation for outdoor gardening and recreational use. Continue planning for the sum...

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Once the Christmas holiday is over, the chore of taking down and disposing of the cut Christmas tree remains. Today, because of solid waste regulations, most communities will no longer permit the used Christmas trees to be hauled out with the garbage and sent to the sanitary landfill. However, Christmas tree disposal does not have to be a problem, because there are several environmental...

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What is a Christmas Rose? It may be roses given at Christmas or a particular china pattern. It could also refer to a perennial plant called the Christmas Rose or Lenten Rose. The Christmas and Lenten Roses are Helleborus plants that are said to bloom at Christmas or in the winter. In actuality, they bloom in February or March in our part of the world. Still, they are a joy to see bloomi...

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My 2017 Garden Calendar is now available. It provides garden tips, a calendar of events, and a picture each month spotlighting Master Gardener (MG) projects. Here is a preview. January displays MGs teaching over 2000 students about watersheds during the annual Peoria Clean Water Celebration. A tip suggests that we feed and water birds regularly. February features the Peoria MGs...

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Holly and mistletoe are symbols of the Christmas season. They are very different plants, but both quite beautiful in their own unique ways. Mistletoe is actually quite a pest in the South. It is most often found in the South, although it is occasionally found in Southern Illinois. It is a semi-parasitic plant that attaches itself to deciduous trees and "feeds" from that...

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Cranberries are a staple for many people during the holidays. We use them to make cranberry salad or jello for the holiday dinner. Many people also string them with popcorn to make a beautiful garland decoration. I love to eat cranberries and find their history and production practices fascinating. Jennifer Fishburn, University of Illinois Extension Educator in Horticulture, explains all about...

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Last year I had a lot of browning on one of my evergreen yew plants. It is next to the house near the dryer vent. The vent's hot air caused my plant to dry out quickly, with some areas dying completely. This year I am prepared to protect this plant and others like it. Here is how I'll do that. Narrow-leaved evergreens such as yews, arborvitae, and hemlock are especially susceptible to w...

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There is nothing like the smell of a fresh Christmas tree to put you in the holiday spirit. Here are some tips to help you choose the perfect tree for your home and assure it stays fresh throughout the holiday season. The first step to the perfect tree is the selection. The most popular cut tree sold is the Scotch pine, but there are other types available too. Scotch pines are often loc...

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If you plan to add an evergreen tree to your landscape next year, consider using it as a Christmas tree now. Unfortunately, this isn't as easy as it sounds. It requires some planning ahead, and only allows a Christmas tree in your home for a few days. Many trees used as Christmas trees also make good landscape trees. We typically think of pines, firs, and spruces when talking about Chri...

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Are you searching for the "perfect" gift for a gardener in your family? Rhonda Ferree, Horticulture Educator with University of Illinois Extension, provides the following some ideas that might prove helpful. Gardeners always love gift plants and flowers. Since gardeners tend to be choosy about the type of plants they grow, get them a gift certificate to their favorite nursery. Or, give...

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As the holiday season approaches, it seems appropriate to discuss the issue of sweet potatoes versus yams. Officially a sweet potato is never a yam, but sweet potatoes are often sometimes referred to as yams. Sweet potatoes ( Ipomoea batatas ) are yellow or orange tubers that elongate into ends that taper to a point. There are two types of sweet potatoes, which creates the confus...

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Are you searching for the "perfect" gift for a gardener in your family? As Black Friday and Cyber Monday approach, here are some tools and gadgets that every gardener needs. Gardening is therapeutic, but it can also be hard work. Proper tools help get a garden job done safely, efficiently, and maybe even faster. Always choose the right tool for the job. Shovels are used for digg...

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You see the ads in the newspaper, along roadsides and just about everywhere else at this time of year: FIREWOOD FOR SALE. Knowing where your firewood comes from can keep you from making some costly mistakes, according to Duane Friend, a University of Illinois Extension Educator in environmental and energy stewardship. Friend is the co-author of University of Illinois Extension's new "Fi...

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Although Christmas is still a couple of months away, it is time to begin preparing some of them to flower during the holiday season. This typically involves changing their environment in some way to force them into bloom. Poinsettias initiate flowers through a process called photoperiodism, which is the plant response to light levels. The colorful part we see are actually modified leave...

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Start next year's flower display this fall. Now is the time to set out the spring flowering bulbs. It seems like a lot of work now, but after the long winter, you will enjoy those blooms. In addition to the standards such as tulips and daffodils, try some of the other small flowering bulbs. For example, anemones, snowdrops, and winter aconite all bloom very early and have extraordinarily beauti...

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For many years I've been growing banana plants around my pool to give it a tropical feel in the summer. By autumn they have large stems with four- to five-foot-long leaves that sour to heights over ten feet tall. Bananas are grown here for their ornamental value. Although some might bloom, we don't have a long enough growing season for fruit to develop and ripen. Ornamental bananas come...

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Many of the plants in the autumn garden can be used to make decorations, said Martha Smith, a University of Illinois Extension horticulture educator. Making them can be fun for the whole family. "Autumn brings its own personality," she said. "Plant colors change in response to shorter days and cooler temperatures." "Flowers can be collected and dried or preserved. Seed pods...

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We've all heard wives'-tales that predict the weather. I can still hear my grandma saying, "Red sky at night, sailors delight; Red sky in morning, sailors warning." There are legends of people using groundhogs, hornets, woolly bear caterpillars, and even pig spleens to predict the weather. Recent Facebook posts say the Farmer's Almanac predicts a cold, snowy winter for us here in the M...

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If you are like me, your gardens did not develop exactly as you had planned in the spring. I have more weeds than I usually do in early fall. Parts of my lawn has too much crabgrass and some plants simply do not like their location in the garden. Now is a good time to assess this year's garden successes and challenges and begin planning for next year. If you have a vegetable garden, con...

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Spring flowering plants make an impressive display at a time of year when we need it most. Redbuds, magnolias, forsythia, tulips, and so many more are a welcome sign that we are finally past the long winter. But, if you look closely you will find some less obvious spring displays that are just as welcome and impressive in their own way. One of the earliest flowering shrubs is witchhaze...

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Believe it or not, there are actually a lot of gardening tasks you can do in January. Here are some to consider. For those of you who received poinsettias or other flowering holiday plants, be sure that they are near a bright window and water as the top of soil becomes dry. Most holiday plants will last many years with proper care. The most obvious January gardening activity is...

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