DATE: Monday, April 7, 1997                 TAG: 9704050504

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY CHRIS KOUBA, PILOT ONLINE STAFF 

                                            LENGTH:   61 lines

KNOW BEFORE YOU GROW: GARDENERS REAP ADVICE ON THE INTERNET

Spring is in the air, and that means many of you are scratching your heads and wondering how to green up your philodendrons or get rid of the violets that have taken over your lawn.

Robert Stiffler knows you're wondering. For more than two decades, he has been Hampton Roads' answer man in The Virginian-Pilot's Sunday Home & Garden section.

``There are some questions that come back year after year,'' says Stiffler. ``How to eliminate moles and voles. How to eliminate crabgrass, and how to fertilize in this area.''

``This area is a transitional zone, like St. Louis, like Memphis. We are neither North nor South in climate. But we're different because of the water and humidity. We're not the same planting zone as Richmond. Even Smithfield is different from Virginia Beach in terms of frost and what you can plant.''

The oddities give rise to lots of questions about gardening in Hampton Roads. So Stiffler's weekly Q&A columns and reminders lists remain two of the most popular features of the Home & Garden section.

In fact, a recent book sold out of two printings.

Now you can find Stiffler's advice in one more place: This week, Pilot Online adds a Gardens section featuring an archive of Stiffler's answers and reminders. And if you can't find an answer to your local gardening questions, an e-mail to home&garden(AT)pilotonline.com will reach Stiffler for consideration in his weekly column.

Beyond Pilot Online, the Internet is ripe with Web sites to help weekend weed warriors. One site that has spruced itself up for this season is the Virtual Garden from Time-Warner. It includes the Electronic Encyclopedia, a searchable database that contains ``almost 3,000 species selected for general use in North American horticultural practice.'' You can search by name, geographical area or criteria such as lighting, type, color, etc.

Another resource from a major media outlet is Bloom! from Hearst Home Arts. Bloom! also offers a searchable plant encyclopedia as well as interactive features such as the current ``Tales from the Garden'' essay contest.

Gardening.com from Books That Work Inc. also offers a searchable plant index but goes one step further by indexing the gardening info available on the Web.

If you'd rather talk with other gardeners in a more democratic setting, try GardenTown's bulletin boards.

In the realm of personal home pages, Joe and Mindy's WebGarden offers a beautiful tour of their own garden space plus well-designed links to other popular resources.

PILOT ONLINE

Spring is in the air, and so are the flies - pop flies, that is. The Norfolk Tides kicked off their baseball season last week. Follow the progress of Hampton Roads' minor league team on the Pilot Online Sports page, where we will keep an archive of Tides stories and columns by Virginian-Pilot writers throughout the season. You'll also find a link to the official Tides Web site, complete with schedules, player profiles and more. MEMO: Have a new Web site or a new feature on a current site? Send

Internet announcements, questions and suggestions for this column to

pilot(AT)pilotonline.com with ``online column'' in the subject field.

Or, write us at Pilot Online, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, VA 23510.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu