UNL Extension in Adams County

06/05/2026

This is a statewide webinar series that is scheduled once a month on the second Wednesday of the month at noon.
The next GroBigRed Virtual Learning Series will be about Beyond Pollinators: Predatory and Beneficial Bugs with Ian Petersn
June 10th, from 12-1 PM CT.
Register at https://hles.unl.edu/lawn-garden/gro-big-red/

06/05/2026

Adams County Classic Open Horse Show - Hastings NE Use QR code to pre-register or contact Tia Douglass @ 402-984-7546

06/04/2026

06/02/2026

African violet cuttings respond well to longer days and therefore tend to be more successfully propagated in the spring and summer.

A couple more tips:
- Start cuttings in soil rather than water for stronger plantlets.
- Choose a firm, healthy, medium-aged leaf for the cutting -- not a young, small, innermost leaf nor a large, outermost leaf.
- Cut the leaf with a sharp blade so the leaf stem is 1-1.5 inches long.
- Insert the leaf stem at an angle into a pot with soil mix of half vermiculite and half coarse sand, and then gently press the soil around the stem.
- Water the soil and let the water drain from the pot for a few minutes before covering the top of the pot with a clear, plastic bag (secured with tape or a rubber band to stay on the pot) to trap humidity for cutting.
- Place the bagged pot in bright, indirect light such as an east window or under fluorescent lights -- the temperature should be 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Keep the soil in the pot moist until the cuttings have rooted.
- Rooting African violet cuttings takes 3-4 weeks, and new leaves of the plantlets should appear by 8 weeks.

Need more info or have another question? Adams County residents can call the Adams County Extension office at 402-461-7209 and ask for Rita Brhel. Or find your local Extension horticulture professional here: https://hles.unl.edu/

06/01/2026

June - Learning Ala'cart - Old Jewelry Junk or Treasure. Pre registration is required by June 15th by calling Adams County Extension 402-461-7209

05/29/2026

No.

There is an Internet-perpetuated claim that transplanting tomatoes and peppers with an antacid tablet, containing calcium carbonate, will prevent blossom-end rot in these summer vegetables.

Blossom-end rot causes the bottom of affected tomato and pepper fruits to rot while on the vine.

It's true that blossom-end rot is caused by a lack of enough calcium in the developing fruit. But putting more calcium in the soil will not fix this.

Unlike other nutrient deficiency disorders, blossom-end rot has nothing to do with how much calcium is in the soil but rather whether calcium is consistently moving through the plant.

Most soil, especially here in south-central Nebraska, has enough calcium. Blossom-end rot is instead a condition of widely fluctuating water availability to the plant especially during summer heat -- water flow through the plant is what moves calcium to the fruit when needed.

Save your money and spare the antacid. Instead focus on keeping your tomatoes and peppers consistently watered through the season.

Aim for a total of 1 inch of water per week, though container gardens may need more water to keep up with the summer heat.

Other tips include using a soaker hose or drip irrigation to let water soak into the soil slowly and deeply, watering once or twice a week instead of light daily sprinklings to encourage deeper rooting, watering in the morning to prepare the plants for the hot afternoon, and mulching to conserve soil moisture and reduce heat stress to roots.

If you’re still concerned about a possible nutrient deficiency in your garden, the recommendation is to do a soil test—the analysis of which will provide you with exactly what to put on your garden, when, and how.

Questions? Contact your Extension horticulture professional; find yours at https://hles.unl.edu

05/27/2026

This is a tough, but very common, environment that many people like to add a little color to.

The plants you're looking to fill your planters with will be labeled as both heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant.

Start by researching the native environments of the heat-tolerant plants you’re finding for sale in the local garden centers. Look for flowers that naturally grow in very hot, dry environments because the extreme heat of a concrete space exacerbates moisture loss and not all heat-tolerant plants are also drought-tolerant.

Towns are on average a few degrees warmer (day and night) than rural areas, according to Heat.gov. But urban locations made of mostly or all brick, concrete, and/or asphalt can be 50-90 degrees hotter than the actual air temperature on a summer afternoon!

That means that on a 100-degree summer day, the flowers on your concrete may need to endure 190 degrees. Whew!

But don't give up hope! There are plants able to survive these types of urban heatscapes. The Nebraska Extension office at Adams County keeps summer container gardens in its own brick-concrete-asphalt jungle, purchasing summer annuals labeled as "heat tolerant" to see which flowers and plants can truly stand the heat.

What we've found is that many common annuals that do well in gardens with less water than other flowers, such as marigolds and floss flower, are not able to handle a highly developed urban environment.

Some of the plants that have so far done well in the Adams County Extension office's heatscape containers are livingstone daisy, purslane, and purple heart as well as African daisy, lantana, and the Mystic Illusion dahlia hybrid. If you have any shade during even a portion of the afternoon, your choices expand to dusty miller, dracena, Mexican heather, and zinnia whose non-succulent leaves otherwise may scorch during an afternoon of full sun reflecting off brick and concrete.

There are more ideas out there among Extension horticulture professionals; find yours at https://hles.unl.edu

05/23/2026

It's spring planting season - there are so many beautiful plants to choose from, but not all play nice in our backyards! Rita Brhel, Adams County Extension Horticulture Aide, will give you the low-down on the trees and shrubs that can become headache-inducing weeds in your yard (and our wildlands), and which trees and shrubs to choose instead. Join Rita and local Extension Master Gardener Volunteers on Tuesday, May 26, at 6:00 pm at the Adams County Extension office.