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Garden Basics

About Gardening in Virginia

Whether you are a new or experienced gardener, there is always something to learn about plants, landscapes, and the environment!

Green mounding herbaceous plant

Herb Culture and Use

This publicaton covers choosing a site for your herb garden, propagating herbs, harvesting, and more!

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Reducing Pesticide Use in the Home Lawn and Garden

Pesticide use affects the quality of human health, the environment, and nontarget organisms in the ecosystem.

Multicolored vegetables jumbled in a box

Intensive Gardening Methods

The purpose of gardening intensively is to harvest the most produce possible from a given space.

Rows of apple trees laden with fruit

Tree Fruit in the Home Garden

This publicaton covers choosing, planting, and caring for different types of tree-fruit in your home garden.

Plant with rain water dripping around it and off leaves

What is a Watershed?

Together, land and water make up a watershed system. Your patio or garden is part of a watershed!

White flowers on the branch of a tree

Selecting Landscape Plants: Flowering Trees

Flowering trees provide showy and unusual features with their floral beauty and seasonal interest.

White flowers on the branch of a tree

Get a soil test!

The first step to growing a successful garden or lawn is to get a soil test through your local Virginia Cooperative Extension Office!

Need help with pruning?

Overgrown trees and shrubs must be pruned appropriately and at the correct time of year.

Gloved hand holds pruners and reaches towards a bare branch
Person stands in a green field with a backpack sprayer as mist sprays from a wand in their hands

Pesticide safety

Virginia Tech's amazing Pesticide Programs team is here to teach you about Integrated Pest Management, safety, and more.

Recent Garden and Landscape Design Publications

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  • Virginia Virtual Farm to Table: Greenhouse and Nursery Ornamentals From the vegetable transplants, you planted this spring to the shrubs and flowers that decorate the outside and inside of your home, Virginia’s greenhouses and nurseries supply a wide range of crops to regional and local markets. In addition, we have many farmers producing specialty cut flowers to decorate your home and dinner table. After learning about growing ornamentals, you will learn how to create some arrangements for your dinner table.
  • Garden Mums for the Home Garden Garden mums (Chrysanthemum x morifolium) are known for their vibrant blooms and resilience and are a popular choice for adding color to gardens and landscapes in the fall. They are one of the best perennial plants for late summer and fall bloom. They are important in many Virginia landscapes, flowering during September and October when few other plants are in bloom. They bloom over a long period, exist in a very wide range of flower forms and colors, and require a minimum of care.
  • Annuals: Culture and Maintenance Annual flowers live only for one growing season, during which they grow, flower, and produce seed, thereby completing their life cycle. Annuals must be set out or seeded every year since they don’t persist. Some varieties will self-sow, or naturally reseed themselves.
  • Flowering Bulbs: Culture and Maintenance “Bulbs” is a term loosely used to include corms, tubers, tuberous roots, and rhizomes as well as true bulbs. This publication will refer to all of the above as bulbs. Many vegetables are propagated from or produce edible organs of these types (e.g., tuber, Irish potato; tuberous root, sweet potato; rhizome, Jerusalem artichoke; bulb, onion).
  • Perennials: Culture, Maintenance and Propagation
  • Patriotic Gardens: How to Plant a Red, White and Blue Garden
  • America's Anniversary Garden: A Statewide Corridor and Entrance Enhancement Program
  • Patriotic Gardens: Red, White, and Blue Native Plants In 2007, Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) developed the America’s Anniversary Garden to help individuals, communities, and groups commemorate America’s 400th Anniversary with a signature landscape, garden, or container planting. These signature gardens have red, white, and blue color schemes. Although the commemoration has passed, this guide continues to be useful for creating a patriotic garden.