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UC Marin Master Gardener Articles in the Marin Independent Journal

UC Marin Master Gardeners have contributed to the Marin Independent Journal's "Ask a Master Gardener" column every Saturday since 1999. We have a team of dedicated writers who have covered nearly every aspect of gardening for Marin County over the years. View articles from recent years below.

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stinkwort flowers gone to seed

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

Hold your nose and pull this weed

August 24, 2024

Whenever someone describes a plant as “aromatic,” the question to ask is whether the aroma is pleasant or unpleasant. In the case of Stinkwort (Dittrichia graveolens), the answer is in the name. “Wort” is Old English for “plant.” Therefore, stink plant. And it’s stinky for another reason: It’s an…

stone pathway between garden beds

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

Lights, camera, (low-stress) garden!

August 17, 2024

For those of us who adore gardening, putzing around with rakes and wheelbarrows and hand trowels is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon – even better if you work up a good sweat. But for those less enamored with these kinds of chores, one nagging question persists: “How can I have a nice-looking landscape…

white and pink apple blossoms

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

The effects of light pollution on night pollinators

August 10, 2024

Not long ago, one could gaze at the night sky and see the Milky Way. Light pollution, or artificial light at night, now significantly impedes our view of the Milky Way; air pollution contributes, too. Light pollution is growing at an ever faster pace, driven in part by the transition from incandescent…

lettuce, kale, and collard plants in the ground

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

The science behind crop rotation

August 3, 2024

You grew tomatoes successfully in that sunny corner of your garden last year, so why shouldn’t you plant this year’s seedlings in the same spot? It’s tempting to follow the identical garden plan that worked well last growing season, but the advice from gardening experts is to rotate locations for…

Japanese-made pruners, ARS-120-S and their case

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

Gardeners’ favorite tools

July 27, 2024

Most gardeners would cite their pruners as their favorite tool, probably because pruners are one of our most utilized tools. I never go into my garden without my pruners. Interestingly, my informal survey of master gardeners, members of the Marin Garden Club, and friends yielded four different brands…

brown leaves indicative of boxwood blight

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

Battling boxwood blight: protecting your garden greenery

July 13, 2024

Picture this: your once vibrant boxwood hedge suddenly starts to wilt. The leaves develop brown spots, and then their lush green foliage turns a sickly brown. That, my friends, is the handiwork of Boxwood Blight, a stealthy infiltrator attacking the leaves and stems of boxwood plants, leaving them…

Powdery mildew on a dahlia

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

Warm weather makes our gardens more vulnerable to fungus

July 6, 2024

Fungi are the most common causal agent of plant disease. Of the more than two to four million species of fungi in the world, eight thousand are known to be detrimental to plants. These microscopic organisms cause symptoms such as root and crown wilts, leaf spots, rusts, cankers, downy and powdery…

red foliage of the Acer palmatum (Japanese maple)

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

The case of the Copper Beech, pursuing the color purple

June 29, 2024

In the gardens of Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill's birthplace in Oxfordshire, England, there stands an immense Copper Beech, Fagus sylvatica "Purpurea." The tree is at once majestic and dramatic in large measure because of its bronze leaves amid an otherwise very green, leafy garden. It begs the…

red-tailed hawk sitting on a tree branch

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

Red-tailed hawks

June 15, 2024

I have a friend who measures outings in red-tailed hawks. “It was a five-hawk drive!” she’ll exclaim after visiting a bucolic setting.That’s an easy image to conjure: fierce hawks perched high on telephone and fence poles, eyes laser-locked on anything that moves, soaring and swooping to onlookers’…

Whitefly adults and nymphs

UC Marin Master Gardeners: Article

Fighting clouds of whiteflies

June 8, 2024

Have you ever brushed a plant, and a cloud of white particles flew into the air? Or, noticed veggies like summer squash turning an unappetizing silvery gray? If so, you’ve likely met whiteflies (Homoptera Aleyrodidae) and, in the case of summer squash, a B-biotype species called the Silverleaf…