Perennials and Winter

This is such a great time of year - the kids are off to school, the veggies are showing the results of all the Summer's hard work and the pressure to keep up with the Jones' garden is easing up. Back to being a happy housebound garden-book reader.

But before I settle into my over-stuffed chair with a good book, I really must get the perennials ready for their long winter's sleep.

In an earlier posting, I said that I leave my Blue Oat Grass up all winter, preferring to pull out the dead leaves in Spring.  I've found that the seedheads look really nice waving gently in the winter breeze and snow balances very prettily on the thin blue leaves.  But the Karl Foerster Grass needs to be cut back since it's huge and impossible to "de-leaf" in the Spring the way I clean up the Oat Grass.

So I'll snugly tie a length of garden twine around the leaves of the Feather Reed Grass about 6" above the ground and cut the grass with hedge clippers. In the Spring it'll be easier to clean out any dead leaves when the new ones emerge from the clump.

The Peonies are fading fast so I'll cut them down to the ground. The Roses can be trimmed down to keep the canes from whipping around in the winter wind and breaking.  I usually leave about 8 or 10" since my Roses are growing in a protected area but many gardeners will wrap their Roses in burlap and mound mulch or soil around the bundle.

Some people trim their Lavender in the Spring but I've found it's easier to get the flower "wands" trimmed off in the Fall since the new growth in Spring comes up right in middle of the old stems. I'm carefully to not disturb the woody stems which will produce next Summer's flowers. There usually are some old dead branches underneath so I clean them up while I'm there. It also gives me a chance to evaluate the plant and look for any new starts that have sprouted over the Summer. By next Spring or Summer, I may be able to cut them free of the older plant and move them to a better location.

The Butterfly Bushes need to be cut back hard - in many parts of Oregon, it's an invasive plant but here in the High Desert we just need to prune it hard in the Fall to keep it under control. Mine have been growing about 8 years so I prune them down to about 12". When the early Summer growth appears, I often trim them back again, pruning out old branches then.

The Forsythia, the Hibiscus and all the Spireas will stay un-pruned for now - in the Spring I can see where any damage was done by the Winter and cut back to green wood then.

Once I've done the Performance Review of the plants and cleaned up fallen leaves and branches, I'll get the hose out again and do some heavy watering. So many plants suffer from the drying cold winds of Winter unnecessarily - dragging out the hose every 6 weeks will prevent a lot of dieback next Spring. If we get a few good snowfalls or some timely rainstorms, I'll mark my calendar and check the soil again in a month.

Many of us remember that the past couple Winters have brought shockingly cold temps - minus 25 and below! With temps like that, we really can't determine what Hardiness Zone our plants are living in. And as much as I'd like a greenhouse that encloses my entire yard, it just isn't practical (and my hubby won't agree to buy it for me - imagine that!), I'll have to use other methods to protect my perennials and trees.

Toasty warm decomposing compost (cornell.edu)

So I turn to mulch.  Once the plants are trimmed, the ground beneath them is cleaned up and well watered, I can put down a nice 4 or 5 inches of mulch. I use either ground bark from a landscaping company or the aged compost from Knott Landfill, making sure to keep it back a bit from the trunks of any plants. (The insects are looking for a good, warm place to over-winter in safety and a shrub with mulch against the trunk is ideal.) In the Spring, I'll turn the mulch into the soil as an amendment.

That should do it, my plants are as ready as I am for the winds to blow and, I hope, the snows to fall.

More information about mulching is here: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/deschutes/sites/default/files/Winter_Care_of_Perennials-reference_list.pdf

Cooling Down

Big blue sky, chilly, dew-laden mornings - I love September!

It'll be hard to say goodbye to the little hummingbirds at the feeder by the window.  And all the plants on the front porch have to go to "sleep" in the cold room inside, leaving an empty doorway to greet visitors.

But the harvest is fully underway with daily tomatoes, green beans and herbs arriving in the kitchen in almost overwhelming numbers. Every armful of veggies brings the promise of flavorful winter meals from the freezer - yum!

Until this past week, I hadn't noticed that some of my neighbors have veggie gardens - are you wondering how I missed it all summer but notice now, in September? Our gardens are all open, no fencing, with lots of small trees and bushes that keep most backyards secluded. But the view has changed recently with the cooler overnight temps -

Row Cover! Wrapped over some PVC hoops pushed into the soil. I'll bet there are some tomatoes under that fabric.

In my garden the green beans are still producing so I'm determined to protect the vines from any frost. And the tomatoes haven't all reached the blush color that means they'll ripen off the vine. Last year my corn plants weren't ready for harvest by the time of the first frost so I wrapped up the 6' tall plants - it was quite a sight, especially when a slight breeze made the row cover look like a huge ghost lurking just behind the garden fence!

The floating row cover I bought from the Master Gardeners protects the plants when the temperature drops to about 30 degrees. I use clothes pins to anchor the fabric to the trellis and tomato cages and it stays there until the weather forecast promises above freezing nights.  The irrigation can pass through the fabric and it's not so heavy that the sunlight is blocked. (In the middle of summer, I use it to protect the cabbage from the moths that eat huge holes in the heads.)



My other season extender is my cold frame, made from old windows and 2x12 lumber. I was lucky to have the windows and lumber but I've seen other cold frames made of stacked straw bales with a 'lid' of rigid plastic on top. If you've got the space, you can even just dig a hole in the groundabout 12 - 15" deep and make a cover of plastic. If the ground is soft, you may want to line it with lumber but the important part is having the cold frame face south.  As you can see, the back is higher than the front so when the lid is closed, the light gets all the way to the back.
If you're going to use the cold frame farther into the fall and winter, you can add some heating cables on the bottom. I've used  incandescent light bulbs in a shop light but they're getting harder to find. This picture shows a cold frame with water jugs - the water is heated from the sun all day long and gives off the heat overnight. I'd put the jugs in clusters all around the plants and not expect too much once the daytime temps go below freezing. Some veggies like broccoli, peas and spinach do really well in this setting but warm temp plants like eggplant, green beans and tomatoes, not so much.

If you've still got plants in the ground not quite ready to harvest and there's a sudden cold snap, go for anything that can cover your plants: blankets, sheets, cardboard boxes, even bottomless milk jugs for small plants.

There are lots of options for getting your crop to harvest despite the weather.  Here are some sites with good information:
http://www.uaf.edu/files/ces/districts/tanana/mg/manual/9-Greenhouses-and-Season-Extenders.pdf
https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/files/project/pdf/pnw548.pdf
http://extension.illinois.edu/hortihints/0402c.html

Dig Now for Spring Bulbs

I'm anticipating Spring - it's hard to believe I'd say that in late September, but it's a really important thought for me since (if you've read any of my previous posts, you know) I'm a lazy gardener.  I don't like to work too hard without a really good reason.

But here are a few good reasons:

 

And the only way I can have these wonderful flowers is if I kneel in the dirt with my back to the sun, and dig holes. Lots and lots of holes!

First I shop for the best bulbs Holland has to offer.  Why Holland, you ask? It's a long, fascinating story about price gouging, insider trading, huge deals and massive market losses - when you've got some time, look up "Dutch Tulip Mania of 1637".  It makes the housing bubble and market crash of 2008 look like kindergarten games. But the bottom line is, the premium bulbs in the world come from Holland. We've gotten some pretty good growers here in the Pacific Northwest, too, so I shop a number of stores, looking for the healthiest, most unique blooms.

Estella Rijnveld Tulip

When I shop for bulbs, I make sure they'll survive our Zone 5 climate - if I was in Madras, I could buy Zone 6 plants and in Sunriver, they'd be Zone 4 (or maybe even 3 if I was at a higher elevation). I never buy dahlias since I forget to dig them up before the ground freezes (and kills them) and I haven't had a lot of luck with growing Amaryllis inside (one year's bloom for an $8 bulb seems impractical). So I buy lots and lots of Muscari, Daffodils, Alliums and Anemones. Many people love the Crocus and Chionodoxa, too. The Chionodoxa multiply so they need a large area to go crazy in.

I spend a lot of time in the aisle at the stores, checking the bulb packages to be sure the bulbs aren't soft. I won't know until I have them in my hand if they have any diseases or maggots, but softness is a good indicator before I pony up my money. Once the bulbs are home, I look them over carefully to avoid bringing anything harmful into my garden. Out of 100, I might get one or two shriveled bulbs but I think that's pretty good if they came all the way from the Netherlands!

My favorite part of Spring bulb planting is the weather - it has to cool down to plant. No sweltering heat, no blindingly bright sun, just the cool, sweet-smelling days of late October with a gentle breeze if I'm lucky.  Unfortunately, I've also dug bulbs into muddy soil in driving rain because I was running out of calendar.  But the reward is great no matter the planting conditions - the important thing is to be sure the soil has begun its cool-down before the bulbs are planted.

Little bulbs, big bulbs, HUGE bulbs - how deep should the hole be dug? I follow the grower's advice: the bottom of the hole should be measured 3 times the diameter of the bulb.  It's not an exact science so I just use the trowel with the inch marks on it and figure the size against the marks. The bigger the bulb, the deeper the hole. The Gladiator Allium is HUGE and you might be digging an 8" deep hole for it. But the little Crocus and Squill need only about 2".

 

So far, so good - the worst is almost over.  Now just scratch up the soil at the bottom of the hole and mix some fertilizer in.  If you can find a Bulb Fertilizer it'll say it's something like 5-10-5 with more phosphorus than nitrogen or potassium. Bone Meal has lots of phosphorus too, but we've found that critters like to dig up the plants to eat the bone meal. I once had a cat who would lick the dirt wherever the bone meal spilled!

If Bulb Fertilizer is hard to find, a balanced fertilizer will work too - use one that's 10-10-10 or 16-16-16.  It's especially important to not let the bulb sit directly on the fertilizer since it would "burn" the root plate of the bulb where the roots grow.  

After you've placed the bulb in the hole and replaced the dirt, pat it down and pour water over it.  The flow of water will push dirt into the air pockets so the bulb is in full contact with the soil.

That's it. You're ready for Spring - how easy was that? Well, except for digging in rocks or tree roots or while it's raining/snowing. But, like childbirth, the work is forgotten when you see those lovely blooms brighten a grey March day.

Here's some more information you may enjoy:
 http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/flowers/spring-flowering-bulbs/
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scenece3a.html

Tulips and Daffodills and Crocus - Oh My!

Keukenhof Gardens, Holland

Need some inspiration? This photo is from Holland, in the Netherlands, where they've made Spring bulb design an art and a very profitable business. It's much like the annual New York Fashion Week when design houses parade their newest and most exciting creations. The bulbs in the Keukenhof Park are planted each Fall to showcase the work of the Dutch growers. Almost 80 acres are planted with 8 MILLION bulbs! Imagine a photo of what the annual Fall planting must be like!

 Has the photo inspired - or intimidated you? They make my wallet hurt - I once tried to count just the blue Muscari in the first picture and stopped when my estimate went over 1,000 bulbs. That was a design dream that quickly turned into an economical nightmare.

But the amazing number of bulbs they manage to plant every year heartens me - surely I can get a few dozen in the ground this fall without too many complaints. Right?

"White Lion" Double Daffodil

"Faith" Daffodil

In the past few years, I've planted hundreds of daffodils.  After the initial fascination with the big trumpeted  old-fashioned King Alfred, I bought  some gorgeous double daffodils, some multi-flower, and some split-cup narcissus. The originality of some breeders stops me in my tracks - just look at those pink trumpets!

But every Fall when the bulb catalogs arrive, I fall in love with the newest varieties (oh you fickle woman!) and carefully choose a few dozen new ones. Last year it was "Spring Beauty" Scilla which popped up between the ornamental grasses in early Spring this year - the brightness of the little blue flower was startling to see. 

"Spring Beauty" Scilla siberica

Sweet Woodruff (photo by Heather Birkett, Wash.)

Anemone Blanda

            A month later, the Anemone Blanda I had naturalized in the side garden bloomed just weeks before the Sweet Woodruff flowered.  I had seen the effect of the anemone coming up through the green leaves of the woodruff in a fellow Master Gardener's yard (thanks, Bev) and the effect was so charming, I've been gradually adding the anemone to the bed. It's early yet so I don't have a good photo of the bed but if you apply a little imagination with these two photos, you might see what I'm working toward.

 Once the design is planned and the purchases are made, the work begins.  Next time I'll explain how the magic happens and any tricks we can use to make it a little easier. Meanwhile, one last Keukenhof:

And a couple of good websites for design ideas: http://extension.illinois.edu/bulbs/landscaping.cfm
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene74a6.html

What is this thing called "Permaculture"?

Recently I've been seeing and hearing about something called "Permaculture". It's one of those things that you think you know but, if you're asked, you're not able to really describe. So, being a Master Gardener with a love for googling (is that a word?), I've done my research focusing on edu websites.

Permaculture = permanent + agriculture. Simple enough, right? But I still don't know why permaculture is different than any established farm or my yard with the perennial plants I've been growing for ten+ years. More research is needed...

Quoting the University of Massachusetts Permaculture Initiative: "to design sustainable human settlements based on ecological principles that restore and renew natural systems" - in much simpler words, have a lifestyle based on simplicity, balance and a respect for the world around us.

25 Acre Permaculture Design by Andrew Millison, OSU

Mahatma Gandhi espoused a belief that, in part, spoke of self-reliance as an important part of freeing people from dependence on large-scale consumerism.  The India of Gandhi's time (1920 - 1948) was a colony dependent upon the British Empire and its culture. He believed many small steps, such as wearing locally produced clothing, would loosen the bonds that kept the people in poverty. He didn't use the words, but he was talking about living in a sustainable, independent India and is often remembered for the words: "You must be the change you expect to see in the world."

Permaculture wraps into a sustainable lifestyle, a strategy for keeping your impact on the earth at net zero: aim to replace what you take. "Sustainable gardening" isn't a new term but is just becoming a popular idea with home gardeners: the right plant in the right place, use native materials, conserve resources.

We've all lived with high maintenance things: haircuts, relatives, cars, plants. The kind of thing that takes so much time and energy that you sometimes dream of eliminating it from your life. Roses come immediately to my mind - so much trimming, feeding, treating, tying up and protecting that you almost neglect the rest of the garden just to end up with a couple dozen exquisite blooms.

But a Rugosa Rose is a tough little plant that will bloom almost in spite of mistreatment.  It's not as showy and as fragrant as its more famous relatives but I like a plant that treats me as well as I treat it.

Many folks who raise chickens for the eggs have realized how efficient it is to use a portable chicken house: move the chicken house (and attached 'yard') to a new area periodically and you've got some of the best weed and insect-eating machines at your command.  AND they fertilize with fantastic manure, ready to be turned into the soil when they move to a new location.

OSU Corvallis,, Oregon

So if I apply the principles of Permaculture to my yard, I'll be designing with more native plants, looking for dought-tolerant species, planning a veggie garden that makes the most of the location (enough sun and warm temperatures), growing only plants that don't require massive amounts of fertilizer or pesticides and using local materials whenever possible.

If we all work toward a Sustainable World, we can hope that our great-great-grandchildren will live in a world of clean air, abundant water and healthy food.

For more information, check out these links: http://www.umass.edu/sustainability/get-involved/permaculture-initiative
http://permacultureprinciples.com/
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=13190

Do You Compost?

A couple days ago I wrote about my Gardening 101 class - the class with just one student, my hubby. I explained about the different types of plants and which ones will be back next year and which ones will be gone after the first hard frost.

In passing, I mentioned both our burn pile and our compost pile. You may be wondering why a Master Gardener has a burn pile when we promote composting so vigorously. It's a valid question and I'll have to admit to adapting the sustainable gardening rules to fit my lazy gardener lifestyle.

My first year as a Master Gardener was amazing: I weeded, mulched, fertilized, deadheaded, pruned and irrigated on an exact schedule.  My garden was perfect! Of course, it was also quite sparse since we hadn't lived in our house very long and the plants I could afford had huge spaces around them, waiting for plant sales to fill in the gaps.

Fast forward ten years.  Several trees have been planted, the veggie garden is filled to overflowing, the butterfly bushes reach higher than the windows and the birds have spread the sunflowers far and wide. Nowadays, I'm lucky to weed every bed every couple weeks and deadheading has moved lower on my to-do list.

Don't get me wrong, everything gets done but not on such a regular schedule and with a lot more time between each chore. And yet (!!) everything keeps growing (except the birch and two service berry trees that the beaver cut down and dragged away about 8 years ago...) and producing leaves, flowers, berries, low-hanging branches and, at the end of summer, frost damaged stems.

Since composting experts suggest chopping up large "yard debris", one year we used a chipper to break up all the branches. It wasn't such a bad idea but it didn't work on the hollyhock stems, the corn stalks or the sunflower stalks. So we used the material we chipped to mulch the flower beds and pushed the chipper into the back corner of the garage with the power washer and the snow tires.

And now my compost pile is built with fallen leaves, dried grasses and paper from the office shredder (the necessary "brown" or carbon part), deadheaded flowers and stems, cut back frost damaged plants, grass cuttings, kitchen waste and weeds that I've pulled before they flowered (the important "green" or nitrogen part). If I remember to keep the pile watered every couple weeks and turn it over every month or so, I'll soon have a rich smelling, earthy pile of humus to put back on the garden. It sounds a little barbaric, using this year's decomposed plants to feed next year's garden, but that's Nature, I suppose.

What's left? Well, I still need to get rid of those corn stalks, the spent hollyhock stems and the huge sunflowers after the birds have picked them bare.

I could cut them up and fill my trash with them (and they'll end up in the household waste section of the landfill, not the compostable yard debris section) but I hate filling up the dump with material I can take care of myself. So we have a burn pile.

Our soil here in Central Oregon is a mixture of many types, depending upon where you live. Generally, we have sandy, volcanic soil but some areas have clay. I've gardened in clay soil in the Portland area and if that was my current fate, I'd use my burn pile ashes to amend my soil and raise the alkalinity. But since I live in rocky, sandy soil, I use the ash to control the weeds in the outlying area of our property. Not a great solution but better than waiting a few years for the butterfly branches to finally decompose in a compost pile!

If you'd like to read more about composting, check out these sites and publications: http://web.extension.illinois.edu/homecompost/intro.cfm
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1189.html
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/node/1070

Fall Cleanup: Rake, Water, Mulch

You've got to love Central Oregon's weather - cold and windy with light rain.  Then a week goes by and it's 75 degrees and sunny. I wonder if the plants get confused: is it time to grow? time to go dormant? should I turn color or push out some more flowers?

What I do know is that the animals (that includes me) are thinking: Yay! a reprieve before the long cold winter! Time to finish up that seed gathering, hibernating den building, fat-building-for-the-long-flight-south! And the animals must be thinking the same way...

Seriously, the temperature swings help motivate me to get out early in the day to do all those chores that will cause great a Winter-long guilt if I neglect them. A cool day helps the last of the weeds come easily out of the ground and a sunny day encourages pruning and a thorough raking.


Here's my list of September tasks:

• Shasta Daisies, Echinacea and Rudbeckia get cut 'way back. I don't leave too much green behind when I trim them because I know that if there isn't too much snow, they'll put out some growth even in winter. The Hollyhocks and Foxgloves (both biennials) will just get their flower stalks cut down.
• Herbaceous flowering plants like the Peonies are beginning to fade, with the stems flopping and the beautiful green leaves looking worn and tired. I usually cut them down sometime before I head inside for the Winter - they go down to the ground even if a few leaves still look green. They'll be back in the Spring, growing from their roots.
• The ornamental grasses (Blue Oat Grass and "Karl Foerster", a feather reed grass) are left standing through winter.  I know a lot of gardeners who either cut them back in the Fall or in the Spring but I've found that the stubby grass left behind keeps the clump from filling in well. So in the Spring, I get some vinyl palmed gloves and "comb" through the new leaves, gently pulling out
  
  the old, dead ones. It's tedious and hard on the back but I like the look better in Summer with only new leaves and seed heads on the plant.
• Once everything is cut down or back, I rake up everything.  Everything! All the cut stems, fallen leaves, flower buds that dropped off, weeds that died a natural death (hidden under all the blooming plants). Anything left behind can become a winter haven for some of the insects we particularly despise, like earwigs, weevils, and caterpillars that will grow into destructive moths next Spring (if you have an Apple tree, the codling moth may have hidden some larva under the fallen apple leaves this Fall). Any of the refuse that's healthy can be composted.
• Those of us who live in the States that get snow in Winter, often forget to water if the snow is skimpy. The plants may be in hibernation mode, but they aren't dead; they need some kind of water all year.  If it doesn't fall from the sky every 6 to 8 weeks, we have to get out the hose and water deeply. It feels strange to be bundled up, wearing a wool hat and mittens and holding a watering hose, but the alternative is to replace your plants next Summer when they have more dead branches than green ones.
• The sight of clean, damp earth around my plants is always so satisfying, which may be why I like to get my mulch from the Bend Landfill.  They sell aged compost from a huge pile which has been sitting and steaming for months (a year?), the weed seeds have been killed and the decomposition has begun. It's a dark brown material and I like to spread it about 3 or 4 inches deep around my plants after I've watered and the temperatures have dropped. Kind of like a tender blanket, tucking them in for the winter. I never push the compost/mulch up against the stems or trunks, though, since that just invites any insects to winter-over against my plant. 

Do you follow the OSU Extension Service calendar? It's a handy way to remember your garden chores every month.  Here's the link (Tips are at the bottom of the page): http://extension.oregonstate.edu/deschutes/general-gardening-central-oregon

Fall Cleanup: Cut Down or Pull Out?

While cleaning up the veggie garden last Fall, my hubby asked me a great question:
   "Why are the Sunflowers pulled out but that Daisy plant (it was an Echinacea) was cut down at the ground?"

When we married, he had a few scrubby-looking plants around the house foundation and the rock garden that the former owners had created was most grass weeds. He was totally content to keep the "garden" just the way it was.

After a period of adjustment (several summers) he learned to accept that I was going to buy and plant lots of trees, shrubs and flowers. Last summer he even helped me build raised cedar beds for the vegetable garden.

But the plants remained in just two categories for him: organized and dis-organized. It's an engineers mind that classifies flowering plants that way and it's not always easy for a gardener to predict (Foxgloves are organized, Geraniums aren't). He's never gone beyond that simple classification so I wasn't surprised by his question during last year's annual Fall cleanup. He doesn't know about perennials and annuals or our hardiness zone (as an avid reader, he does know there are such things) and he knows that some trees are evergreens because, well, duh!

So we had a little Gardening 101 out by the burn pile which was stacked high with spent sunflowers, yarrow stems, butterfly bush branches and corn stalks.

This is what "The Class" sounded like:

The Peonies are herbaceous perennials - the stems will rot and die back when the frost hits them but will always sprout new stems next Spring. We cut them back to remove any hiding places for over-wintering insects.

The Sunflowers are self-seeding annuals - we have them every Summer in just about the same place because the birds have spread the seeds. Nothing will grow from this year's roots so we pull them out of the soil to make room for next year's plants.

The Shasta Daisies are perennials that hunker down in winter and manage to keep a few sad-looking leaves growing right through snowfall. So they get cut back, leaving a small leaf rosette to support the roots this Winter.

It's sad every year to pull out the frost-killed plants (the veggie garden looks particularly bleak by November) and the compost pile behind the garage is very large with withered annuals, seedless weeds and dead squash vines. But next Spring when we can see the first new  green shoots appear in the barren garden beds, it'll be heartening to realize that February is far behind and May will, once again, soon arrive in Central Oregon.

If you want to know more about the plants in your yard, this is a link to OSU's Landscape Plant ID:  http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ldplants/. You can search by Latin or Common Name.

What IS a "Master Gardener"???

It was years ago when I first heard the modern term: Master Carpenter.  It was on a public broadcasting show and I didn't give it much thought since the person they were describing was the only expert they consulted for carpentry advice. Master, Schmaster - as long as the advice works, who cares?

Fast forward to the 21st Century and here I am,  a Master Gardener. Who knew, back in 1978, that I'd be considered a Master of anything! Certainly not me, the jack (or jill, actually) of all trades who's never been the master of anything.

Then I heard about the Master Gardener program, begun in 1973 in the Seattle area. Horticulture agents working in the Cooperative Extension Service offices set up by land-grant universities, were finding their time being filled with questions from homeowners in addition to the farmers they were intended to help. It was a surprising phenomenon since gardening had always been a small hobby for homeowners who just needed to keep their properties looking good. Suddenly, it seemed, everyone wanted to grow vegetables to eat, flowers for bouquets, herbs for more creative cooking, and shade trees to cool their homes in summer.

The Horticulture Agents across the country were overwhelmed! People wanted their expertise and, being horticulture experts, they wanted to help everyone who asked. But how?

Brilliant answer: train volunteers who love gardening and make them available for free to answer the needs of the gardening public. Ta-Dah! The Master Gardener Program was begun.

There are now approximately 95,000 Master Gardeners in the US and Canada, providing 5 million volunteer hours to their communities every year. Amazing, huh?


We're not all the same, of course. The training is done locally with a variety of educators. Here in Central Oregon, our program uses many Oregon State University professors to teach new Master Gardeners the bare bones of Entomology, Sustainable Gardening, Integrated Pest Management, Soils, Pest and Plant I.D., Weeds, Wildlife, Trees, and more. Since the program is only 60 hours of classes, we barely skim the surface of Horticulture but we learn how to find the answers to most questions, even if it takes a few hours or days of research.

Did I say it's free?  The program is supported by OSU which, of course, is tax supported. Everyone who calls, visits or emails the Extension Service with a question or problem gets their answer without any hassle or expense. How cool is that?

Sometimes you may hear that the Master Gardeners are asking for donations - that's usually when we need to pay for materials for plants we've grown or for classes we've taught.  We hope to cover our costs of educating the public without using the Extension Service's limited budget. Our mission statement is Teach Support Promote (and have some fun doing it).

If you're interested in joining the program, the OSU Extension website has all the details: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/mg/.