Cornell University is the Land-Grant University for New York state. They operate New York state’s Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Agricultural and Life Sciences. They also operate the state’s Cooperative Extension, including their NYC office.
Still, resources for home gardeners are hard to come by. Most of the information available through Cooperative Extensions focuses on issues and practices with economic importance. Cornell has addressed this with a Web portal for Gardening Resources.
Most, but not all, of the links on the portal home page lead to other pages on Cornell’s Gardening or their school of Horticulture. A Web portal consolidates information and arranges it by theme regardless of its location or origins. This is especially helpful when the information has been developed independently over time. For example, on the sidebar of Cornell’s Gardening Resources home page is a link to their Allstar Groundcovers section. The URL for the groundcovers section places it under Cornell’s Entomology department, not the first place I would look for information about groundcovers.
Highlights
Here are a couple more examples of information available through Cornell’s Gardening Resources portal:
- The Urban Horticulture Institute has information on trees in urban settings, such as recommended urban trees. They also have a great document on deciduous woody groundcovers (PDF).
- The Lawn Care links provide information on how to reduce the environmental impacts of lawns, such as creating healthier lawns to reduce and eliminate pesticide use.
- The Weather section includes important planting information such as the average last and first frost dates (before April 10 and after November 10, respectively, for NYC).
- Resources on soils and composting for both home gardeners and commercial growers.