Home Lawn and Garden

Let our gardening information help with your questions!

Gardening and taking care of a home yard and lawn have long been important parts of life for families in Massachusetts and across the country. Many people have a tradition of coming to their Cooperative Extension when they have a pressing question to ask or need to find a service like soil testing. We hope that the resources you will find on this page will help with many of those needs. (If you still need to ask us a question after viewing all of these great fact sheets and other resources, we’ll do our best to help you, but please be patient if we take a little time to respond.)

Do you have a question on a home garden topic?

  • Check out the links below for fact sheets, services, and additional resources for home gardeners.
  • E-mail specific home garden and landscape questions to greeninfo@umext.umass.edu. Please include a detailed, high quality photo of the issue you are asking for help with when emailing us. This will enable us to more effectively advise you.
  • Sign up for our email announcements list by sending an email with subscribe Clippings in the subject line to eweeks at umext.umass.edu.
  • Follow UMass Garden Clips on Twitter: https://twitter.com/umassgardenclip

Online Fact Sheet Series

Browse over 150 home garden facts sheets from UMass Extension

MassAggies Fruit Growing Workshops

Each year, the UMass Extension Fruit Team and Stockbridge School of Agriculture team up to offer a chance for home gardeners to learn from the experts who work closely with commercial fruit growers all year. Details and registration information for the 2021 MassAggies series (conducted virtually, with materials delivered where applicable) can be found here.

Food Gardening in Massachusetts

Growing Your Own Food with Franco and Beto is a home gardening blog series published by UMass Extension in 2020 with content provided by now-retired Extension Professor of Vegetable Crops Frank Mangan and graduate student Heriberto Godoy-Hernandez. In response to the uncertainties around the Coronavirus pandemic and the economy, the series provided research-based information in English and Spanish on how to grow your own vegetables and herbs in Massachusetts, and was supplemented by some video content shot in Frank's home garden. 

Newsletters

Hort Notes: Clippings from the Garden

We have combined aspects of Garden Clippings (our horticultural newsletter for home gardeners) with our Hort Notes newsletter to provide one-stop shopping for all of your educational needs!

Hort Notes: Clippings from the Garden is our monthly newsletter for landscapers, grounds managers, arborists, and other green industry professionals with the understanding that home gardeners may also look to this publication for information as well. Emailed monthly, this newsletter includes alerts to emerging landscape insect and disease problems while providing timely Integrated Pest Management strategies and emphasizes timely plant health care practices and problem-solving information.

Hort Notes: Clippings from the Garden is created by the specialists of UMass Extension's Landscape, Nursery and Urban Forestry Program. To be added to the email list to receive a monthly reminder for each new issue, send your request to eweeks at umext.umasss.edu with subscribe Clippings in the subject line.

Current and back issues of Hort Notes: Clippings from the Garden

Back issues of Garden Clippings

 

Resources and Services

  • Plant Problem Diagnostics
    UMass Extension Plant Diagnostic Lab
    This Lab provides reliable and prompt diagnosis of plant problems in turfgrass, flowers, vegetables, ornamental plants and trees.

Tick Testing Resources
 

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