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Your USDA Hardiness Zone
Featured Articles!

Do you or does someone you know suffer from seasonal allergies, hay fever or asthma triggered by pollen? Are you tired of watery itchy eyes, a scratchy throat, a runny nose, sneezing and a stuffy head whenever you venture into your backyard? No, this isn’t a commercial for the newest antihistamine or decongestant miracle drug. Instead, it’s about how to have a garden that is virtually allergy-free.
>> read “Plant Selection Key to Reducing Allergies” #Health and Safety #Spring #Weather
One of the most common topics of conversation between gardeners is the weather. Rain, heat, cold and drought all present challenges to maintaining a good-looking garden and landscape. Together, these environmental factors are referred to as the “climate” for a particular area or region. Since these areas can be rather large, we can call these environmental factors the macroclimate for a given area. The USDA Hardiness Zone map is a resource we use to determine growing conditions over wide areas and regions.
Within the larger macroclimates are smaller areas that have different or modified conditions. These pockets may be warmer or cooler, or wetter or drier than surrounding areas. These areas are termed “microclimates” and can be influenced by buildings, trees, bodies of water or elevation changes.

Some years are bad years to be a tree. Tornadoes, borers, diseases, monsoon-like rains and snow storms tag-team to blow down, rot out and crack apart untold thousands of landscape trees throughout the East and Midwest. That puts many a tree-less homeowner in the market for replacements in spring. Future storm-related tree trouble can be reduced greatly by better selection, better siting and especially better planting and care practices.
>> read “Bad Storms, Better Trees” #Trees #Weather
Featured Books for Iowa

A complete guide to simple container gardening designed for anyone who has ever killed a plant. It includes illustrated instructions to create gorgeous, fool-proof container gardens that even you can't kill!
>> more information

Enhance your health naturally with herbs from your own garden. Even if you've never gardened before, you can care for yourself and your family using time-tested herbal remedies harvested from your own medicinal herb garden. Master Gardener Dorie Byers offers simple growing instructions for more than 20 versatile medicinal herbs such as garlic, chamomile, and echinacea. You'll also find recipes and tips for using the herbs for first-aid and preventive health care.
>> more information