gardening

Spring into 2 CFAES plant sales

Get a jump on planting this spring with help from CFAES’ two arboretums—and by doing so you can help them in turn.

The Chadwick Arboretum & Learning Gardens at Ohio State’s Columbus campus and the Secrest Arboretum at the CFAES Wooster campus both have benefit plant sales slated:

  • Chadwick’s Plant Sale and Auction Fundraiser is May 10–11
  • Secrest’s Plant Discovery Day is May 11 (member presale, May 10)

You’ll find trees, shrubs, and more to buy and experts to answer your questions. Proceeds help support the two facilities.

Dig more here, here, and here.

See signs of spring in Secrest Arboretum

CFAES’ Secrest Arboretum in Wooster hosts a Guided Spring Walk at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 24. “Take a stroll through the arboretum and listen as our experts point out the signs of spring,” the event description says. “Keep an eye out for early bloomers.” Find further details.

A good sign: Wednesday’s forecast by the National Weather Service calls for sun and a high of 63 degrees. (Photo: Saucer magnolia, Getty Images.)

Visiting Secrest? You’re (even more) welcome

CFAES’ Secrest Arboretum in Wooster, a place that’s all about practicing, showing, and teaching ways to sustain healthy plant life, will soon have its first-ever visitor center. Called the Secrest Arboretum Welcome and Education Center (pictured), you can check it out plus buy some plants on Saturday, May 11.

Learn more. (Photo: Ken Chamberlain, CFAES.)

Grow your own lettuce

Interested in growing your own greens? Early spring is a good time to start. Lettuce can tolerate cool soil and weather, writes Master Gardener Volunteer Faye Mahaffey in a piece published by OSU Extension’s Brown County office, “so you can plant seeds in a well-prepared seedbed as much as 4 weeks before your last frost date.”

Further, if you have limited space or mobility, you can easily grow lettuce in pots, compact salad boxes, and raised salad tables, too.

Read the full story.

Ohio’s last frost date ranges from the first week of May to the first week of June, depending on where you live. See when yours is.

Learn more about CFAES’s Master Gardener Volunteer program. (Photo: Getty Images.)

We want … sustainable shrubbery

CFAES’ Secrest Arboretum in Wooster will give a Shrubs for the Landscape workshop from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Feb. 22. The event, its website says, will cover “the many kinds of shrubs and how to combine them for beautiful, sustainable landscapes.”

Registration is $40 for members of the Friends of Secrest Arboretum and $45 for nonmembers.

Find out more. (Photo: Rhododendron, Getty Images.)

Enjoy fall, see pollinators today at 2 pm

CFAES’s Secrest Arboretum hosts a Guided Autumn and Pollinator Walk from 2-3:30 p.m. today, Tuesday, Sept. 25, starting at its Seaman Orientation Plaza.

The arboretum is at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, 1680 Madison Ave., part of CFAES’s Wooster campus. Free admission; dress for the weather (a chance of showers).

Find out more. (Photo: Common buckeye butterfly on goldenrod, Getty Images.)