Sunny Garden Renovations 2014
Written by Elaine Mills, Extension Master GardenerPhotos by Elaine Mills and Liz Pittleman With the support of their team of Master Gardener volunteers and interns, coordinators Kate Donohue and Joe …


Written by Elaine Mills, Extension Master GardenerPhotos by Elaine Mills and Liz Pittleman With the support of their team of Master Gardener volunteers and interns, coordinators Kate Donohue and Joe …

Twenty-six years ago, Bon Air Park’s Quarry/Shade Garden was neither a quarry nor a garden. The 40‘ x 30’ site, once used as a quarry for inferior- grade building stone, sat idle and overgrown...It is fitting that the idea for reclaiming the present site was conceived during an Earth Day celebration in Bon Air Park in 1988. It would become the first of seven demonstration gardens in Arlington and Alexandria, developed and maintained by MGNV.

Written by Mary Free, Certified Master Gardener After one of the warmest winters on record, the March Shade Garden (pictured below) in Bon Air Park was awash in color with …

Audrey Evans was born on a coffee farm outside the town of Nyeri in Kenya in 1941. She recalls the “small” 600-acre farm as a beautiful place, with steep hillsides, rivers, bush, and a view of Mt. Kenya. Her father, who went to Kenya from South Africa, started the farm in 1911. Her mother, his second wife, went to Kenya in the 1930s from England as a nurse and met her future husband when he was a patient in the Nairobi hospital where she worked. “He fell in love with her voice,” as the story goes.

While it’s time to put many of our garden beds to rest for the winter, some gardeners may enjoy perusing Mid-Atlantic Fruit & Vegetable Gardening by Katie Elzer-Peters to help them plan their plantings of edibles for the spring growing season.

The Simpson Demonstration Gardens, next to the Alexandria YMCA, celebrated their 20th Anniversary with an Open House on Sunday, September 22, 2013.
