Smart Landscapes Videos
Roof Garden
Here’s a neat gardening challenge for you: Growing plants -- on a roof. Roof gardens have actually been
around for centuries, and they do a lot of good things for the environment, including reducing flooding, reducing urban heat temperatures, increasing building energy efficiency,
and a host of other benefits.
In this video, we will show you how we recently constructed a small green roof over the porch area of an outdoor storage shed.
Drought-Tolerant Landscapes
If watering your garden during the hot dry summer months is a problem, you might consider planting a drought-tolerant garden next year. Drought-tolerant landscapes, also known as xeriscapes, feature plants that need little water.
In this video we’ll show you how to make a xeriscape garden, to help get rid of the sparsely growing lawn In this Mississippi front yard.
Pollinator Gardens
How to Make a Bug Hotel
This video will show you how to make a bug hotel. Bug hotels, like these, will encourage good garden bugs to winter in the garden by giving them a place to hibernate and nest over the colder months, so they’ll ready to help in the spring.
Toad Abodes
Toads are a familiar sight in many Mississippi landscapes, and can be encouraged to take up residence in your garden by creating miniature houses or “toad abodes.” These beneficial amphibians are a welcome addition to the home garden as they eat a wide variety of insects and small invertebrates.
Publications
News
RAYMOND, Miss. -- The Piney Woods Heritage Festival will be held at the Mississippi State University Crosby Arboretum Nov. 4 to celebrate the region’s heritage. The 21st annual event offers various displays and demonstrations for the public. The event begins at 10 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m.
PICAYUNE, Miss. -- School groups, nature enthusiasts and the public can enjoy two fun-filled days of exciting, hands-on learning about the environment, ecosystems, wildlife and insects at the Mississippi State University Crosby Arboretum in Picayune. BugFest offers insect-related displays, interactive exhibits, games and crafts. Biologists, naturalists, entomologists and other experts from Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama will host booths and give presentations on butterflies, bats, caterpillars, beetles, crayfish, ladybugs, hissing cockroaches, dancing praying mantises, native and exotic arthropods and more.
Native plants have garnered a lot of attention, especially because of their relationship to pollinators, but these plants are valuable for many other reasons. In addition to pollen, they provide food and shelter for birds and other wildlife, as well as creating biodiversity in the ecosystem.
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- A water sampling program conducted by the Mississippi State University Extension Service has encouraging initial data about lead levels in drinking water collected at child care centers around the state.
Preliminary data gathered as part of the SipSafe program paint a reassuring picture for most of the faucets sampled.
Heavenly bamboo, commonly referred to as nandina, is a popular, evergreen landscape plant that produces vibrant red berries and resembles hollies.
Success Stories
Mississippi State University and partners have been awarded a grant of nearly $6.6 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Federation for shoreline restoration work on the Gulf Coast.
Sledge Taylor is no stranger to cover crops —he first planted vetch on 100 acres of his Panola County farmland in 1979—but he has ramped up his cover crop usage and added other sustainable agricultural practices over the past 15 years.
Brian Andrus irrigated exactly zero times on his Sunflower County farm in 2021. He didn’t even turn on his well.
See what's new in Extension: a new monarch garden, a storytelling series will begin, the Garden Expo highlights Extension education, and Keep America Beautiful recognizes MSU Extension.
