Do you use the World Wide Web to help you garden? I use it regularly as a research tool and I thought I’d introduce you to a few of my favorite Web sites. If you’re without Internet access, don’t feel slighted, technology isn’t all that, and you’ll do just fine in the garden without it, that is if you keep reading my columns.

The very first gardening Web site I frequented, back when Windows 98 was still a popular operating system, was Dave’s Garden (www.davesgarden.com). Presently, Dave’s Garden has over 407,000 members who post pictures, comment in numerous forums and discuss any and all things related to gardening. Dave’s Garden offers subscriptions ($20.00/yr) that allow paid users to access its entire databank of gardening resources. A nice feature for regular members (non-paid) as well is short informational videos on a variety of topics, this feature wasn’t available when I was a paid subscriber. Dave’s Garden is user friendly with lots of community forums open to non-paid members.

I take a lot of photographs, mostly of plants and flowers and rarely discuss botanic details regarding the subject. For photos with plenty of botany-speak, you need to click your way over to Botany Photo of the Day (www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/) where Daniel Mosquin provides detailed descriptions and photographs of plants of North America. “In science, beauty. In beauty, science. Daily.” That’s a good definition of how The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada views plant science. Their Botany Photo of the Day features high resolution images with short, fact-filled details about plants from most all corners of the globe. Use this Web site to stay informed about plants and botany, and subscribe to receive the Botany Photo of the Day daily.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources can help you decide if “going native” is a tribal gardening method you’d like to try. Visiting DCNR’s Web site, “Landscaping with Native Plants in Pennsylvania,” will provide you with all the necessary gardening information regarding wild plants indigenous to our neck of the woods. I’m seriously considering establishing a section of my garden for native plants only. Their Web site (http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/wildplant/native.aspx) lists 47 garden variety wild plants of the more than 2100 species that have thrived in Pennsylvania’s ecosystem since before the settlers arrived. I suspect most of you might have a few native perennials already established in your backyard gardens; did you know bee-balm (Monarda didyma) is indigenous to Pennsylvania?

One last Web resource I’d like to mention is gardening blogs. A blog is an acronym for “Web” and “Log” and are user-created journals where you can read about various topics, gardening being only one of thousands of subjects to choose from. I googled “gardening blogs” and the results listed over 300,000 different blogs. With so many blogs, how is it possible to choose only one? Well, you really can’t, unless you want to limit yourself to a choice few to follow (The Write Gardener’s is listed at the end of my column). If you’re like most Web surfers, you take in bits of information from numerous Web sites and use it as needed; I do the same thing when I’m researching information for my articles. This is one of the greatest benefits of Web technology I think. You don’t have to limit yourself to one particular book or magazine article when you’re surfing the Web.

Before you start thinking I’m against reading the old fashioned way, you know, with a real book in my hands, let me assure you, I’m not. You can’t curl up with your monitor in an easy chair, there’s no pages to dog-ear, and although you can bookmark Web pages, you can’t smell them as you can those in a book. Use the Internet, and the above Web sites I mentioned, to help you become better informed, and at the same time you’ll also be helping yourself become a better gardener.
 
Gardening Tips

Dividing some perennials such as hosta, shasta daisies, rudbeckia, and daylilies can be done now, as long as you get them in their new beds six weeks before the ground freezes.

Chives, garlic, fennel, sage, tarragon, and thymes all are hardy culinary herbs. Self-sowers such as dill and borage will come back yearly if you let them go to seed (they might not come back where you want them, but they’re easily moved).

Unfortunately, it’s still common to see mulch-against-trunk syndrome. Doing this invites fungal diseases, insect infestations, and (especially in winter) bark-eating mice and voles. Don’t be a mulch maniac, leave some open ground between the mulch and tree.

I think it only appropriate to recommend a real book: “Bringing Nature Home” by Douglas Tallamy is a new release from Timber Press that will tell you why growing native plants is crucial for a healthy insect population. Here’s one reason he mentions: Cultivated “Pest-free ornamentals” such as kudzu and multifloral rose have crowded out native plants and insects don’t find them very palatable. Invasive plants can cause a decline in insect populations.