By Norman Winter
MSU Horticulturist
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center

Planning, growing and maintaining beautiful gardens is not always an easy task. Gardeners who rely on expert advice typically have the prettiest, most successful gardens, but finding that expert advice can be difficult during the spring rush using traditional sources such as local nurseries, catalogs and books.

Mississippi residents have a new tool in their search for such information. Mississippi State University recently unveiled msucares.com, a new website with a wealth of information on topics as varying as horticulture, agriculture, family life science and communities.

MSU's Extension Service and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station has always had you in mind, but as technology has changed and interest has increased, we've sometimes found ourselves behind the proverbial eight ball. For example, a couple of weeks ago I got a message on my computer saying "Your mailbox has exceeded its quota!"

I could not receive some vital information I needed, so I deleted about 600 emails praying that I had answered them. Everything was then back to normal. I am sure I'm not the only Extension professional this has happened to. Where do all of these emails come from? A lot come from folks just like you who need information. Now those of you who have computers have a new first option, msucares.com.

This site is your key to obtaining almost every publication MSU's Extension Service has to offer its clients. If you want to select a turf for your new home, the information is there. How do you get rid of those pesky fire ants? That answer is there, too. Do you have a child that might be interest in joining 4-H? You can find that as well.

This new web site is so easy, you will come to rely on it often, so go ahead and bookmark it and add it too your list of favorite sites. From my standpoint, it is nice because through technology called streaming, you can hear Southern Gardening radio program if you missed one on your favorite station. You can also see the Southern Gardening TV news segment. The technology is only going to get better to allow for higher quality online audio and video.

The site offers a calendar of events that should prove to be a tremendous help. Maybe you want to take a timber short course or some other class related to your line of work. This site offers a 12-month, ever changing master calendar.

Is another dome of Arctic air poised to come south? An easy click of the mouse on the weather button takes you to all the weather sources you will need to stay on top of the situation.

The msucares.com web site will really assist you with living in our state, not just with agricultural topics. Community government, health and nutrition, and business assistance information is all there. If you still want to pick up the phone, we're still here for you. If you don't have a computer and you want the Gardening Tabloid, your local county Extension agent will get one in your hands.

The bottom line is that Mississippi State University cares about everyone in the state and we are here to help in whatever method is most convenient for you.