Gardening help is at your fingertips

There comes a time when every gardener needs some advice. Even the most knowledgeable person needs some gardening advice. Master Gardeners are the first to admit that you can't know everything about everything. One of the things we are taught in our classes is where to look for the information we need. Often, we just call another Master Gardener who has that information. That option isn't always available to the average weekend gardener so today, I'm going to give you a number of sources to use to find this information.

Master Gardeners are usually in the Clemson extension office Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until noon. This will vary depending on the time of year. Spring through fall is the busiest time for calls so you may not always reach someone during the winter. The phone number is 649-6949, ext. 122. If your call isn't answered immediately, leave your name, phone number and a short message about your problem, and you should get a return call within 24 hours.

The next best source, if you have Internet service, is the Clemson Home and Garden Information Center at www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic. This is a wonderful site that has information about any gardening topic for South Carolina. It also has a "news" section that will alert you to any unusual gardening occurrence such as an insect infestation or a drought warning.

Besides using the Clemson site, you can also check out the University of Georgia website at www.caes.uga.edu. This homepage is the portal to many additional sources of gardening information. When looking for information online, remember to look at websites that connect to a land grant university and one that is located in a climate zone similar to Aiken's. We are in USDA Zone 8a. Be careful about using information from "blogs" that may or may not be factual. A lot of this information is connected to websites promoting a specific product for sale.

Another great source of gardening information specific to "Aiken is the Aiken Master Gardener Gardening Almanac." This publication was written for our area by Master Gardeners and is based on seven years of calls received at the Clemson extension office. It has a monthly calendar of things to do and things to watch for. At present, the almanac is being revised for 2010 and will be available for purchase in late January or early February. It can be purchased at the Clemson extension office on Richland Avenue.

The Master Gardeners are at the Farmers Market on Richland Avenue on the first Saturday of each month from March through November. They will answer questions and identify plants, weeds, insects and other garden items from 8 a.m. to noon. They also have almanacs and cookbooks for sale. There are more than 200 Master Gardeners in the Aiken area. Any one of them will help you with a problem that you may be having in the garden. Finally, if you have a question, reach us by e-mail at aikenmastergardener@hotmail.com or www.aikenmastergardeners.org.

More on ladybugs: The Standard carried a story about ladybugs last week describing how they are moving inside. Here is a little more information about our love-hate relationship with this little creature.

They are attracted to light-colored, usually older homes, and they are attracted to heat that the homes reflect. Once ladybugs have penetrated the home, they are hard to evict. Ladybugs release pheromones, which is sort of like perfume to attract other ladybugs. They use pheromones as a means of communication during mating and hibernation. Insect pheromones are powerful. They can be detected by others up to 1âÑ4 mile away. This helps ladybugs find each other, and it allows future generations to know of a good place to "camp out" for the winter. The pheromones don't go away easily. The chemical "scent" can remain year after year, and not only on the outside of a structure, but also within the walls where ladybugs tend to hide before emerging into your home. Scrubbing pheromones off a house is a big task, if not impossible. The yellow stuff you might see from time to time is their blood (hemolymph). It, too, contains pheromones and it stains. You can see the yellow blood when you hold a ladybug and it becomes frightened. This is a normal reaction to stressful situations called reflex bleeding. Releasing some of its blood is one way the ladybug can protect itself. The blood smells bad and sends signals to a predator that this ladybug is not a good lunch choice. To prevent ladybugs from getting in, make sure all cracks around windows, doors, clap boards, pipes, etc., are sealed securely. Some exterminator companies offer this service, sometimes called inclusion. This, too, is no small project, and may be expensive.

The Aiken Master Gardeners lost one of their own on Nov. 8 when Bill Adams was taken suddenly. Bill was known throughout the Aiken-Augusta area as "The Master Gardener's Master Gardener." Bill was certified by both Clemson and the University of Georgia but his knowledge went far beyond classroom education. Bill learned the old fashioned way by working in the soil. When he discovered something new, he immediately shared the information by e-mail or letter. He was the first to volunteer and was always generous in funding a new project. Bill once said: "No one is irreplaceable. It's like putting your arm in a large pail of water. While it's in there, it fills up space. Pull it out and the space fills up. No one knows you were there." Bill put himself in the Master Gardener organization. He's gone now, but the hole is still there.

Bill Hayes been in Aiken since 1982 after moving from Chicago, Ill. He was in the chemical process industry for more than 40 years before retiring in 1999.