For growing information specific to your area, we recommend that you contact your County Extension agent. The following are a sampling of sites offering reliable information and user-friendly navigation.
GENERAL GARDENING
All-America Selections
www.all-americaselections.org
All-America Selections is a non-profit organization that tests new flower and vegetable varieties for home gardening. The AAS website offers a searchable database of 1933-present AAS Winners, AAS Trial Ground information, a searchable database of AAS Display Gardens, Store Locators for AAS Winners, and direct links to AAS winner seed sources.
Internet Directory for Botany
www.bgbm.org/idb/botgard.html
Internet Directory for Botany provides lists and links to worldwide organizations that provide gardening information. You can link to botanical gardens, museums, horticultural societies, as well as university botany departments.
Plants National Database
plants.usda.gov
This national plant database provides standardized information about US plants. It includes names, plant symbols, checklists, distributional data, characteristics, images, plant links and references. Link topic areas include Culturally Significant Plants, Plant Photos, Plants & Names: Floras, Databases and Nomenclature, and Educational.
STATE UNIVERSITY COOPERATIVE EXTENSIONS
Colorado State University Cooperative Extension
www.ext.colostate.edu
Colorado State University Cooperative Extension "Horticulture" includes Fact Sheets, Gardening in the Rockies, Gardening Questions and Answers, and Plant Select offers annual selections of landscape plants suited to Colorado conditions. Planttalk Colorado™ provides reliable, timely information on more than 400 horticultural topics.
University of Georgia and Environmental Sciences Cooperative Extension
pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/horticulture/horthome.htm
University of Georgia and Environmental Sciences Cooperative Extension "Fact Sheets & Publications" offers in depth gardening information. (Have plenty of printer paper on hand - the Vegetable fact sheet is 21 pages, and the Flowering Annuals for Georgia Gardens is 17 pages.) The site provides special emphasis for Georgia gardeners and links to Georgia Gardens.
University of Illinois Cooperative Extension
www.urbanext.uiuc.edu
Click "Hort Corner" for a wealth of gardening information including "Today's Featured Sites," "Homeowner's Column," "Home Hort Hints," and "Garden Discovery Series". Northern Illinois gardeners will want to check out "Gardening This Month," "Full Garden Calendar," and "This Month's Garden Tips." Do you have a garden question? Click on "Ask the Expert" to view past questions and answers or send in your unanswered question. "Hort Videos" provides downloadable videos on topics that include pruning, annuals, and container gardening.
University of Kentucky Department of Horticulture
www.uky.edu/Ag/Horticulture/homehort2.html
University of Kentucky Department of Horticulture provides thousands of pages of information about plants on the Home Horticulture page. A monthly newsletter provides practical information for home gardeners, and an interactive county map provides links to Kentucky extension agents. The "K-12 Teacher Resources" page offers instructors plant information and gardening activities for young students. Commerical growers will find links to information on flowers, fruit, nursery/landscape and vegetables in "Commercial Horticulture."
University of Minnesota
www.extension.umn.edu
From the homepage "Topics" section select-"Garden" for flower and vegetable culture information with emphasis on cool climates and Minnesota. Treat yourself to a large slide show (104 slides) on Annual Flowers for Minnesota. The site also provides "Disease Watch","Soil Testing Lab", "Plant Disease Diagnostics" and a "Ask A Master Gardener" section that lets you search thousand of questions asked by gardeners. Link to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum at the University of Minnesota.
Mississippi State University Extension
www.msucares.com/index.html
From the homepage, click on "Lawns & Gardens" for flower, herb and vegetable gardening information designed to help the home gardener find information about all aspects of gardening. Includes selected annual flowering plants and vegetable varieties for Mississippi gardens.
North Carolina University Cooperative Extension
www.ces.ncsu.edu/dept/hort/consumer/index.html
North Carolina University Cooperative Extension offers over 4,000 "Plant Fact Sheets" indexed by scientific name and by common name. The fact sheets contain photos, scientific and common name, and information that includes height, flower/fruit/foliage, and life cycle. "Floriculture" includes the NC University plant trial results, "Consumer Hort Leaflets" offer 100 articles on growing plants, and "Hort on the Internet" offers 5000 links neatly organized into 50 convenient categories.
Ohio State University
webgarden.osu.edu
Ohio State University "Plant Facts" offers an international knowledge bank. "Images" is a plant dictionary where you can hear the scientific name pronounced and the family, genus, species, and cultivar are provided. "Videos" is a collection of 200 short gardening videos, and FAQ's offers illustrated answers to over 800 commonly asked gardening questions.
Cornell University
www.hort.cornell.edu/gardening
Cornell University "Home Gardening" provides searchable flower and vegetable databases for selecting the perfect plants for your garden, flower and vegetable fact sheets, and garden photos illustrating garden design techniques. View photos and read about a Cornell University horticulturists garden.
