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****************************************************************** GARDEN RESOURCES ON THE INTERNET PART I
BY
This time of year the soil is frozen, the tender plants have been
put to bed and are covered with snow, and the tropicals have been brought
inside and are sheltered. Now is a good time to get that question answered
that has bugged you for years, and a good time to learn about new
gardening techniques, and new cultivars. You can buy a new book or a new
magazine, or check one out from the library. You can also go to the
computer. Gardening
information on the internet is growing faster than ground ivy (Creeping
Charlie). Simply typing the
word “gardening” in a search engine will bring up more than 1000
sites.
In part I on Internet Gardening will deal primarily with the web
sites that I use the most. I use them and the links they provide, when I
get ready to write an article or when someone has asked me a question
about a particular plant, shrub, tree, insect, disease or lawn problem. I
have not included many commercial sites as I prefer University based
information. As
The web site I use the most is the “UNL Extension Catalog of
Publications” (http://ianrpubs.unl.edu).
At the end of many articles I have referred to a NebGuide or other
UNL Extension publication that can be accessed from this
Or, if you go down from the search box you will see “Publication
Indexes”. You can click on one of three categories and get a list of 936
publications by number or by topic. The third category is “New
Releases”. These are “new” publications and not all related to
gardening.
On the left if you go on down further you will see “UNL
EXTENSION”. Click on that and you will get the UNL Extension home page.
Then click on “HOME, LAWN,
Some of the articles I have accessed from the “Home, Lawn and
Garden” web site (www.extension.unl.edu/home-lawn) by typing in the name
of the article, the name of a plant, disease, or insect, or the name of a
problem in the search box includes “The Toxicity of Common
Houseplants”, “Plants Poisonous to Your Pet”, “Rabbit Resistant
Perennials”, “Edible Flowers”, “Drying Flowers”, “Prevention
and Control of Rabbits”, “Bluegrass lawn Calendar”, “Fescue Lawn
Calendar” and “Walnut Toxicity”.
If you find bugs and insects are a problem, type in “Plant
Pests”. This will show articles such as “Grasshoppers of Nebraska”,
and “Wildlife/Home Pests”. You will find 16 pages of articles.
From the UNL Extension Horticulture web site (http://extensionhorticulture.unl.edu)
if you click on Articles,
Publications & Other Resources you will also get links to
more resources than you probably have time to explore. Also under
newsletters you can access “
If you go to “http://lancaster.unl.edu/hort/masterg.shtml”,
check out the “Insect Visual Media Library at the Entomology Department
at UNL”, “Penn State Plant Disease Facts”, “Pests &
Diseases” from
Another way to get UNL publications is to go to http://extensionhorticulture.unl.edu/Articles/Articles.shtml.
Here you will find articles written by Extension staff from around the
state categorized all the way from “Annuals and Bulbs” to
“Houseplants”, to “Trees and Shrubs” to “Vegetables”, to
“Wildlife”, to “Windbreaks”. For lawn care type in the kind of
grass you have or the nature of your problem to access the information you
need.
Be sure and check out “Lawn and
Plants and insects can be searched by common or botanical name, or
browse through the entire list of about
172 trees that will grow in Nebraska, information and pictures of 40
vegetable garden plants, 450 annual and perennial plants, and 195 house
plants. There is also a link to “Wildlife Control” and other links
that have helpful information.
I am afraid I may have given you too much for one time. My
suggestion is to browse some of the web sites and bookmark a few you find
easy to use as references.
Next week I will have Part II of Internet Gardening where I will
list some more web sites, and publications. Have a Happy New Year. Copyright
2010 |