The Garden Gate: Master Gardener's Guide

The Master Gardener's Guide to Finding Answers on the Web

The Web offers access to an ever-growing collection of high-quality horticulture information. Whether you're at home wrestling with your own gardening problem or staffing a MG hotline you can:

learn new things and further your own education as a gardener
research questions for the public
provide factsheets and other information on request
hone your diagnostics skill
Learning your way around the Web equips you with the skills to take advantage of a wealth of opportunities for education, research, and just plain good green fun.
This guide is aimed at Master Gardeners and is an expanded version of The Gardener's Guide to Finding Answers on the Web

Local Resources for Champaign County

MG email discussion group
Champaign County Master Gardeners Online (ccmgol) - to join, e-mail listmom Karen Fletcher at

Public email discussion group
Grow Illini! - a new mailing list for public and MGs. Once MGs have completed their internship, they can earn volunteer credit for answering questions from the public. For more information and to subscribe, visit https://mail.prairienet.org/mailman/listinfo/grow-illini

Local newsgroup for gardening discussions and announcements
Champaign-Urbana's own newsgroup cmi.rec.gardens. [This link will only work for you if you have a local Internet Service Provider.]

University of Illinois Extension
Illinois Master Gardeners
Horticulture and Home Garden
Urban Programs Resource Network
Hort Corner

Champaign County Extension Unit - Horticulture Programs
About Horticulture Programs
Master Gardeners
Master Gardener Idea Garden
The Homeowner's Column

Broad Topics

For broad topics - e.g., daylilies, herbs, rhododendrons, strawberries - check one of the following collections. With luck you will turn up a hobbyist's or association's homepage with original content and a good collection of further links.
The following collections are organized by topic:

The Teaching Garden

Here at The Garden Gate. Offers databases, glossaries, FAQs, special topic WWW pages, collections, and plant lists.

Gardening at About.com
Annotated gardening links organized by topic.
Open Directory
Another organized directory maintained by knowledgeable volunteers.
World Wide Web Virtual Library: Gardening

Looksmart: Gardening
Alta Vista's subject guide.

If your topic is more specialized, you will want to make use of Web search engines and catalogs. Search syntax and additional search capabilities vary widely from site to site. Your best bet over the long run is to settle on a few search engines that you use regularly and become fully acquainted with their more advanced features.

Google.

Google ranks search results not only by relevance but by popularity. This is my personal favorite by far.
Alta Vista.

Be aware that the results at the top of the hit list are actually sponsored links. The capability to do advanced queries permits highly focussed searches.

Lycos: Home: Gardens
Offers advanced search options

Yahoo WWW Guide

Was one of the first, and still a very useful directory-style catalog of sites.

Specific Questions

If you are looking for more specific information, for instance, the answer to a particular gardening question - 'Is it too late to plant my bulbs?', 'When should I divide my irises?', 'Why is my spathiphyllum looking so puny?' - you best off searching the wealth of information made available by Universities and Cooperative Extensions around the country.

Plantfacts Factsheet Database (Ohio State).

Guides for answering plant-related questions from 46 different universities and government institutions across the United States and Canada. Over 59,000 pages of Extension fact sheets and bulletins provide a concentrated source of plant-related information. Materials can be printed and provided to clients.

Horticulture Solutions (Illinois Cooperative Extension)

Hundreds of concise solutions to common gardening problems. Organized by topic.

Virginia Cooperative Extension Consumer Horticulture

An excellent collection of detailed, easy-to-read factsheets, particularly for Fruits and Vegetables and Indoor gardening - potted plants.
PENpages (Penn State)

Over 20,000 documents on a wide variety of topics.

Diagnostics and Identification

A growing collection of tools is available online to assist in problem-solving and ID. Some notable examples:

Diagnosing Plant Damage
A excellect tutorial from the Arizona Master Gardener Manual to help you hone your diagnostics skills.
Woody Plants
An excellent tool to help brush up your identification skills. From UIUC's own Gary Kling.
Weed ID Key
Interactive weed identification. UIUC.
Weed Images and Descriptions
Know the enemy! Rutgers University.
Weed Identification Index
Excellent closeups and detailed information on hundreds of weeds from Virginia Tech. Grass Weed Identification Key can help you key out a grassy weed.
Horticultural IPM
An excellent resource from those useful Aggies (Texas A&M). Thumbnails of groups of pests allow quick ID. Factsheets have closeups and life cycle information. There is also a list of pests you can browse. Remember that pesticide recommendations are always state-specific.
Troubleshooting and Diagnostics Tools
Texas A&M.
Texas Plant Disease handbook
Illustrated plant pathology. Texas A&M

Plant Selection and Care

Plants selection is by turns enjoyable and frustrating. Even the best books can offer no more than lists meeting one or two criteria. These online databases let you choose plants by multiple criteria.

Illinois' Best Plants
Select from plants that will grow well in Illinois. An excellent searchable database from the Chicago Botanic Garden.
PlantAmerica Plant Encylopedia
Search this database of over 38,000 plants by family, botanical or common name or search by soil, light, water requirements and blooming time to find for your particular growing conditions. Detailed, illustrated plant caresheets include information on common pests and diseases.
Perennials Database
Database of over 1500 perennials offered by Heritage Perennials.

This collection of plant lists may help you find plants to solve a particular garden problem.

Master Gardener Programs

Visiting the state Web sites of other Master Gardener and Extension programs can be an education. Some states have invested a lot of time and effort in moving horticultural information onto the Web.

Texas A&M Master Gardener Information
Offers these Problem Solvers
Arizona Master Gardener Manual
Excellent example of what can be done with Web publishing.
FAQ from Minnesota Master Gardener Program
Good example of how FAQs (frequently asked questions) can be put online for reference by MGs throughout the state.

Karen Fletcher
April 2004

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