URI Master Gardeners awaiting your call (or email)
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| The URI Gardening & Environmental Hotline is now open and in full operation through Nov. 1. (URI Photos / Cooperative Extension) |
Have a garden quandary or need some advice before you start planting your 2026 garden? Ready to celebrate spring but don’t know where to start?
The University of Rhode Island Gardening &
Environmental Hotline is now open and in full operation through Nov.
1.
Southern New Englanders are welcome to send an email and
photos to the University’s Master Gardener volunteer
educators or call for science based-answers to their gardening and
environmental questions. In-person visits are also available by appointment at
URI’s Mallon Outreach Center on the Kingston Campus. Just call 401-874-4836 or
email gardener@uri.edu.
Sponsored by the University’s Cooperative Extension, URI’s free help desk is available year-round but runs part-time hours during the winter.
From March through Oct. 31, the hotline operates from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. The free service provides high-quality, science-based solutions to problems encountered by residential gardeners and is staffed by trained URI Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners who connect callers with answers they are looking for.
Last year, the 18-member Gardening Hotline team fielded
1,020 emails, 641 phone calls, and 135 in-person customers — nearly 1,800 total
community gardening inquiries. Queries typically begin in late winter and peak
in May.
Callers dialed in with questions about composting, flowers
and vegetables, wildlife, lawn care, invasives, and weeds. Hotline staffers
field virtually any gardening topic under the sun: Can you add orange peels to
your compost pile? What do you do with bulbs that aren’t flowering? How do you
keep a groundhog at bay? What’s a good choice for a memorial tree? Does power
washing impact plants? What kind of plants are good for a privacy fence or
butterflies? A few calls last year inquired about “chill hours” — not a new
mindfulness technique, but temperature impact on plants.
Some queries are small, focused on ants and other insects,
others large, such as what to do about knotweed covering three acres of
property (answer: invite goats).
They’re all welcome, says Matt Durham,
who oversees the service, which is a cornerstone of the Master Gardener Program
and offered as part of URI’s land-grant mission.
Master Gardener volunteers log the queries and advice given
and, if needed, refer callers to the University’s Plant Diagnostic Laboratory or
groups such as the Rhode Island Wild Plant Society. Master Gardeners also field
questions about indoor plants.
If emailing, send multiple photos of your plant problem,
including an item for scale and any identifying characteristics; take photos of
the entire plant to view it in context.
URI
Master Gardeners also offer a free soil testing service for residents
of Rhode Island and surrounding areas from March through October, as well as
online gardening resources and free gardening-related workshops.
To learn more, visit uri.edu/mastergardener or
contact the Gardening Hotline: 401-874-4836 / gardener@uri.edu. To get on the
Cooperative Extension email list for additional programs, email coopext@uri.edu.
