howard county · 3300 north ridge road, ·suite 240 ... · ris, ronald fiskum, patricia fletcher,...
TRANSCRIPT
A Publication of the Howard County Master Gardeners
March 2015 From Georgia’s Desk
On Sunday, February 1, we had an opportunity to acknowledge the achievements of eighty four Master Gardeners. The first group welcomed was the newly certified MGs- the class of 2014. They are: Sharon Baker, Dr. Willa Brooks, Jim Cimaglio, Anne Cottle, Paul DiCrispino, Melisdsa Far-ris, Ronald Fiskum, Patricia Fletcher, Phyllis Geiger,Lisa Geisler, Sara Her-man, Sally Johnson, Gregory Jones, Gary Laidig, Anne Lee, Debi MacKay, Gail Mason, Rita Moy, Mary K. Muncie, Janet Ocheltree and Dorothy Rockstroh. In recognition of three years of service, the class of 2011 received ser-vice pins (the event was held in 2015, but acknowledgement is based upon the year of certification): Michelle Bryden, Carolyn Cradler, Joanna Cumbie, Roy Heath, Pat Hooker, Karen Koebel, Car-ol Link, Monica May, Molly McElwee, Elizabeth Riordan and Ann Vieth. In view of my error in recogni-tion at last year’s event, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the class of 2010: Michele Connolly, Car-olyn Cregan, Joe DiGiovanni, Sharon Gordon, Debra Higdon-Buono, Yvonne
Howard, Michelle Kopp, Gloria Lam-bert, Barbara Polonsky, Anne Rivera, Kathy Rosendale, Debbie Salles, Michelle Santos, Debby Silber, Barbara Smith and Beth Blum-Spiker. Now these folks are almost ready for recogni-tion of five years of service! The following MGs were rec-ognized for their years of service: Five years: Kim Biro, Bill DeVuono, Dr. Margaret Filbert, Aleta Gravelle, Irene Hillen ,Pat Kasuda, Joanne LaPorte, Leon LaPorte, Kent Phillips, Dorothy Sogn, Patricia Summers, Jim Wilk, Elizabeth Wilkinson and Patty Wise. Ten years of service: Joan Bielski ,Gaye Holcomb, Suzette Holiday, Irene Mac-Donald and Deborah Patton. Fifteen years: Robin Crosby, Kathy Davis, Lisa Nylund and Nancy Perkins. And then for twenty years of service: Barb Lan-gridge- quite a record! The following folks received a dedication award for more than one hundred hours of service in 2014: Jim Cimaglio, Ann Coren, Carolyn Cradler, Linda Decker, Paul DiCrispino, Joe DiGiovanni, Richard Freas, Judy Ful-ton, Aylene Gard, Aleta Gravelle, Ja-nine Grossman, Kathy Hartley, Suzette
Holiday, Roy Heath, Sylvia Huestis, Robert Kiwak, Gary Laidig, Susan Levi-Goerlich, Carol Link, Molly McElwee, Dorothy Mooore, Kent Phillips, Betty Rice, Sharon Smith, JoAnn Russo and Barbara Schmeckpeper. It was also important to recog-nize those persons who served as men-tors to the class of 2014: Coordinator, Roy Heath, Molly McElwee, Carolyn Rimes, Kent Phillips, Phyllis Yigdall, Kathy Rosendale, Robert Kiwak and Janine Grossman. A note of appreciation as well to Karen Palm and Janine Grossman (preparation of the PowerPoint) and Aleta Gravell for making this a special event -- and I enjoyed the lovely bou-quet of roses which decorated my table! The dedication and motivation of our MGs is documented by these achieve-ments. Many thanks to all. Georgia Eacker Master Gardener Coordinator 410-313-1913 [email protected]
The University of Maryland Extension programs are open to any person and will not discriminate against anyone because of race, age, sex, color, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry, national origin, marital status, genetic information, political affiliation,
and gender identity or expression.
Educating People to Help Themselves
HOWARD COUNTY · 3300 NORTH RIDGE ROAD, ·SUITE 240, ELLICOTT CITY, MD 21043
HOWARD COUNTY MASTER GARDENERS · (410) 313-2707 · FAX (410) 313-2712
www.mastergardener.umd.edu/local/howard/index.cfm
LOOSELEAF
March 2015 Looseleaf 2 Howard County Master Gardeners
March 2015 Looseleaf 1 From Georgia’s Desk 3 Continuing Education 4 Mt. Pleasant 5 Grow It Eat It
Suzette Holiday, MG, Editor [email protected]
Check our Online Calendar For Times and Locations
March Events 2 Bay-Wise meeting 4 Presentation on Trees 5 Presentation on Trees 5 Whipps work day (and each Thursday!) 10 Continuing Ed: Gardening Under Glass JANINE GROSSMAN, MG [email protected]
Announcing the “Spring 2015 Garden Smarter Series” This spring, Howard County MGs will be offering a series of presentations/classes on gardening at the extension office. These classes include information on composting, food gardening, attracting birds and butterflies to your garden and Bay-Wise practices. The brochure listing the classes, dates and times can be found on the Howard County MG website under “Upcoming Events.” You can view the brochure by clicking on this link. Attendance at these classes count as advanced training. Karen Palm is coordinating volunteers for this program. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact her at [email protected].
Youth Education Committee Please join us for the Youth Education Committee meeting on Monday, March 9 at 1 pm at UME. Dur-ing this meeting, we will be offering training for the Environmental Report Card (ERC) program. This spring Master Gardeners will be supporting fifth grade teachers with the ERC program. The ERC pro-vides a meaningful on-site evaluation of schoolyard with regard to biodiversity, vegetation and erosion/runoff. Students, teachers and Master Gardeners participate in evaluating the property and making sug-gestions for improvements. This program fulfills many environmental education objectives. Please join us on Monday, March 9 at 1 pm and become part of this excellent student experience. If you have more questions, contact me at [email protected] or 410-418-9240.
Submit items for the April 2015 Looseleaf by Thursday, March 26 to Suzette Holiday at [email protected]. Submit items for the Howard County Master Gardener Calendar to Janine Grossman at [email protected] or Roy Heath at [email protected].
March 2015 Looseleaf 3 Howard County Master Gardeners
Continuing Education Speakers for 2015
Tuesday, March 10 Gardening under Glass, speaker Pat Greenwald, MG: 9:30 am - 11:00am Extension Office Tuesday, April 14 The Humane Backyard, speaker Nancy Lawson: 9:30 am -11:00 am Extension Office Tuesday, May 12 An Evening with Keynote speaker, Professor Doug Tallamy. He will teach the community how to create ecological y sound landscapes for our local conditions. 7:00 pm-8:30 pm at the Howard County Conserv-ancy – Gudelsky Center, 10520 Old Frederick Rd. Woodstock, MD. He will speak to Howard County residents and Master Gardeners on his new book The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden. This presentation will be free of charge thanks to generous contributions from Straughan Environ-mental, Howard County Conservancy, and River Hill Garden Center. Tuesday, June 9 Tour the Green Farmacy Garden, Fulton, MD – see a collection of 300 plant species used/researched for medicinal purposes: 9:30 am Tuesday, July 14 Tour Brisco Daylily Garden, Ellicott City, MD – see 1100 daylily cultivars during peak bloom; impulse buying allowed: 9:30 am Tuesday, August 11 Gardens of Lakes Como and Maggiore, Italy , speaker Judy Petersen, MG: 9:30 am-11:00 am Extension Office Tuesday, September 8 Native Plant Nursery at the County Corrections Facility, speaker Lori Lilly, Manager, 9:30 am -11:00 am Extension Office Tuesday, October 13 A Retrospect Look at What Sets the Bay-Wise Home Tour Landscapes Apart? speaker TBD (The Bay-Wise Committee): 9:30 am -11:00 am Extension Office Tuesday, November 10 Tree topic TBD, speaker Wanda MacLachlan, UME Area Educator – Residential Land-scape Management: 9:30 am - 11:00 am Extension office
CHECK UPCOMING MASTER GARDENER NEWSLETTERS AND CALENDAR FOR MORE DETAILS
SUBMITTEFD BY KAREN DELAITSCH, [email protected]
Continuing Education Speakers and Topics for 2015
Think spring at our March Continuing Education program on Tuesday, March 10 at the Extension office from 9:30 am to11:30 am. Please join Pat Greenwald, Master Gardener, to learn about Gardening under Glass. She’ll explain how cold frames, windowsills, portable green houses, and bell jars extend the growing season. This timely talk explores the joys of under-glass propagation, demonstrating how to grow plants under glass from Jan-uary until mid-May. All Master Gardeners and guests of Master Gardeners are invited to learn more about this topic. As always, we look forward to your attendance! We are thrilled to have a “finalized” calendar for 2015 which includes keynote speaker, Professor Doug Tallamy, on Tuesday, May 12. This special presentation will be open to Master Gardeners and the general public, free of charge – so invite your friends and neighbors! At last, an evening program for Master Gardeners who are unable to attend daytime programs. As added bonuses, we’ll be promoting the Howard County Extension Master Gardener program and providing a MG community outreach program to engage the community to create ecologi-cally sound landscapes for our local conditions. Save the date!
March 2015 Looseleaf 4 Howard County Master Gardeners
Doings at the Howard County Conservancy at Mt. Pleasant In spite of the weather, as this is written we are getting ready for the spring planting season in the Historical Vegetable Garden, starting with a planning luncheon. We will start regular workdays on Friday, March 27 at 9 am if the weather cooperates. Crops which should be up by then are onions, garlic and spinach. We will need to lift the native plants that have been over wintered in the garden beds and renew the beds in preparation for planting. Hopefully we will have cool weather transplants ready to go in when we are ready for them. Spring school programs will be starting in April with a new elementary level program “No Place Like Home.” The Master Gardener portion of this program will involve introducing them to the im-portance of native plants to our plant pollinators and the importance of both in the food chain. At present we have students from Running Brook Elementary coming on Tuesday, April 14 and students from Clarksville Elementary coming on Friday, April 17. Both groups will be at the Conservancy from 9:30 am until noon. On Thursday April 9 and Friday April 10 students from Elkridge Landing Middle School will be pre-sent from 9:00 am until noon for service learning projects. These involve mainly removing invasive plants and trail maintenance. Volunteers for both groups are asked to come to the Conservancy a half hour early in order to receive instructions for the task at hand and tools for their small group. The Conservancy is open every day from 9:00 am until at least 3:00 pm with occasional evening pro-grams. Check the website www.hcconservancy.org for Saturday and evening programs at Mt. Pleas-ant and the new Belmont site. Come out to Mt. Pleasant to hike the trails and see what is in bloom any month of the year, BY JOANN RUSSO, MG [email protected]
Volunteer Opportunities at the Conservancy
Thursday and Friday, April 9 and 10 Service Learning with Elkridge Landing Middle School
8:30 am until noon
Tuesday, April 14
Third grade program with Running Brook Elementary
Friday, April 17
Third grade program with Clarksville Elementary
March 2015 Looseleaf 5 Howard County Master Gardeners
On Tuesday, February 24, the State GIEI meeting was held at the Howard County Extension office. On the agenda were updates from attending counties; a discussion about
seed swaps and exchanges, and the “Grow 100” initiative for 2015, where gardeners maximize the yield from a 100 square foot garden, (information on last year’s contest can be found at this link). New PowerPoint presentations on “Beans and Peas”, “Seed Saving” and “Yields and Harvesting” are available on the MG website, new business cards were distributed along with GIEI lettuce seeds for clients and various varieties of beans seeds for demonstration gardens. Alicia Bembenek, the new state advanced training coordinator (and also wearing other hats), presented a research brief on the effectiveness of the Carroll County GIEI classes/presentation on increasing the knowledge of their local gardeners with regard to best gardening practices. The data Carroll County collected both before and after their 2014 classes showed that knowledge had in fact increased. At the end of her presentation, we explored ways to potentially gather these types of data in other counties. More on this to come in the future. At the meeting, I also presented Howard County’s “Spring 2015 Garden Smarter Series,” which will be conducted in March, April and May. This series of presentations includes a number of GIEI presentations. A listing of the GIEI presentations can be found on the GIEI website under Howard County classes. These classes will count toward the continuing education requirement of 10 hours. As these classes come up, I will be asking for volunteers to assist with giving the presen-tations. If you are interested in volunteering, please email me at [email protected] Also, you might want to explore the food gardening classes available at Brookside Gardens. Beside classes on organic food gardening, herbs, fall and winter gardening with low tunnels and container gardening, Brookside offers many other interesting classes. The class listing can be found in their catalog. On final note, the GIEI blog is looking for some additional bloggers that would be willing to write one blog a month on a topic related to food gardening or preparation of fresh produce. If you would like to volunteer to be a blogger, please contact Erica Smith at [email protected]. And just so that you know that spring isn’t far away, shown below are my 3 week old Pack-man broccoli transplants that will be ready to go in the garden under row cover around 4/1.
SUBMITTED BY KENT PHILLIPS, MG [email protected]
March 2015 Looseleaf 6 Howard County Master Gardeners
March 2015 Looseleaf 7 Howard County Master Gardeners
March 2015 Looseleaf 8 Howard County Master Gardeners
The Patuxent Research Refuge’s School Yard Habitat (PRR SYH) is located outside the National Wildlife Visitor Center, 10901 Scarlet Tanager Loop, Laurel, MD 20708. It is a Conservation Landscape site which, in miniature, attempts to recreate each of Maryland’s major habitats; meadow, prairie, forest, wetland. It’s goal is to educate the public about Conser-vation Landscaping and to encourage people to transition lawns to wildlife habitat. The garden is free and open to the public. It attracts families out for nature walks, and photographers. School groups use it for environmental education activities, and church groups and scout troops for their volunteer service hours. The job of re-establishing the garden began last year. So far we have restored part of the pollinator meadow. Since it is Federal, part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, we are very selective in assuring that all new plants are as close to the native ecotype for the site as possible. Master Gardener volunteers at this stage are a welcome part of the design phase. You’re welcome to share our passion for native plants and to teach the public about the benefits of gardening for biodiversity. Since this is a new project, we do not yet have regular meetings. Planning happens via email and garden maintenance according to each volunteer’s availability. We can establish regular meetings and activities as the group grows. All new long-term volunteers will need to complete the one-day PRR volunteer orientation at the Refuge (see below). If you’d like to volunteer for this rewarding new opportunity or would like more information, contact: Ann Coren, the Master Gardener Coordinating this project, [email protected] or Diana Ogilvie, Ranger and Volunteer Coordinator at the Patuxent Research Refuge, [email protected], 301-497-5565. Please register in advance for the upcoming Orientation for all volunteers at the Patuxent Research Refuge. The Orientation will be held Sunday, March 22, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm at the Patuxent Research Refuge Visitor Center. This orientation is only offered 2-3 times a year. Single day volunteer opportunities will also be listed in the Looseleaf monthly.
Volunteer Opportunity with New MG Project: Patuxent Research Refuge School Yard Habitat
Volunteer Opportunities in the School Yard Habitat Garden maintenance tasks: such as weeding, clearing paths, planting, … Garden planning tasks: such as researching appropriate native plants to restore each unique habi-
tat within the site, working with growers to source the plants, and planning the landscape de-sign.
Identify plants in the garden as native or invasive. Hike the larger Refuge searching for seeds and plants for the SYH gardens. Participate in educational activities such as: tabling during the Wildlife Festival; leading activities
in the garden for school groups, church groups and/or scouts; teaching workshops on garden-ing with native plants, attracting pollinators, …
Raise funds to buy plants and supplies: including writing and managing grants. Create educational literature: for instance a brochure for the public explaining pollinator plant
interactions in the SYH; pictorial literature for new gardener volunteers to distinguish be-tween native plants and weeds….
Supervise and/or train non-gardener volunteers. Photograph the changes in the garden: seasonal, plant, pollinator… Collect data on plant survival, plant/pollinator interactions, etc. Create a composting area.
SUBMITTED BY ANN COREN, MG [email protected]
March 2015 Looseleaf 9 Howard County Master Gardeners
Volunteers plant a new sec-tion of the Pollinator Meadow at the Patuxent Research Refuge School Yard Habitat as part of the ‘Day to Serve, Day of Remembrance, Sep-tember 11” Grant from the Maryland Governor’s office. Photograph: Ann Coren
Whipps Garden Cemetery
CALL FOR PLANTS
Whipps annual plant sale will be held on Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9. We invite you to share any
extra garden perennials and small shrubs (no invasives, please) you are dividing with us for the sale.
They can be delivered to Whipps Cemetery at 3651 St. John’s Lane starting in May.
Please have the plants potted up nicely and labeled – common and Latin name if you know it. We have
large wooden craft sticks available, if needed. It would also be nice to indicate “Native” and “Sun” or
“Shade”. If you have plants and cannot pot them, please call me. We will not refuse them, but will need
time to pot them so they get well established before the sale.
For more Information, call or text 410-274-7795 or email [email protected]
March 2015 Looseleaf 10 Howard County Master Gardeners
Daffodil Day
THE 8TH ANNUAL
Whipps Garden Cemete ry 3651 St. John’s Lane
About 2 blocks south of the Frederick Road intersection.
Street parking available.
Saturday, April 4, 2015
10 a.m to 3 p.m.
Po ed daffodils, tulips, hyacinths,
helleborus, Virginia Bluebells, Easter lilies, and Hydrangeas
will be available for sale.
All proceeds go to the Whipps’ Garden Cemetery.
For more Information, call 410-274-7795
Hor cultural Presenta ons
by Howard County Master Gardeners
Whipps Woodland Theater
10:15 a.m. – Daffodils and More
11:15 a.m. – Pruning Q & A