We had a great day sprucing up the Ag Center!

Find the Master Gardener, Summer 2022 Newsletter, “Through the Vine” posted here in PDF format. Articles include:

• Forest Bathing
• Connie’s Corner
• Help needed in June
• Successful DIG
• Petunias planted at Ag center
• Teaching at 4-H camp
• Wagnalls’ new gourd tunnel
• Helping Hands in the Garden
• New LNE project
• Plants for Pollinators project
• This and That
• Ruth Stout method of planting potatoes
• Stopping bagworms
• Importance of wetlands
• Vinegar as a herbicide
• Gardening with allergies
• Featured Book, Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies by Sara Lewis
• Garden Musings
• Summer Gardening for Old Folks
• Special Events
• Step-by-step painting class
• Food preservation classes
• Dawes trolley tour (correction; call Wagnall’s with your reservation at 614-837-4765)
• In/Around the Garden

– Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County OSU Extension

You can pick the flowers, but please destroy the honeysuckle plant!

Honeysuckle is a commonly found plant that often draws attention of passersby with its pleasantly fragrant blossoms from April to July. The sweet nectar inside its tubular flowers is edible by many animals and even people. There are over 180 known honeysuckle species in the northern hemisphere. It’s beauty and fragrance lead to the introduction of many non-native honeysuckle species to North America in the 1800s primarily for ornamental use. Despite the sweetness it adds to the air, the impacts it has on our environment are certainly not sweet.

Unfortunately, four of these introduced species are extremely aggressive in our landscapes and have created an imbalance in natural systems due to their ability to outcompete native plants for resources. The types of honeysuckles which are damaging to these spaces are Japanese honeysuckle, which is a vining type, and three bush type honeysuckles- amur, morrow’s, and tartarian. Some species form dense thickets of shrubs and some spread with vast creeping vines that can strangle neighboring plants. These honeysuckle species are commonly found in pastures, woodlands, reclaimed sites, and waste spaces.

Because of their invasive status in Ohio, it is every landowners’ legal responsibility to control their spread. Although they can be used as Continue reading Less Than Sweet Honeysuckles →