Sheboygan County

Master Gardener

H ello and Goodbye!

Hello to all the Master Gardeners reading this and goodbye because my presidential term ends in Octo-ber. I have had a blast being on the board for 6 years and I recommend it to anyone who wants to help shape our organization and learn more from a great group of people. Thanks to Mike Ballweg and Tammy Zorn for giving me so much assistance! Our master gardeners would not be such a smooth running group without their continued help and guidance. This has been an awesome summer for growing plants (and weeds) due to the continued hot and then wet weather. Lawns are lush and green instead of dry and brown this fall. Some people said they are mowing their lawns twice a week! Now that is a good reason to “lose the lawn” and grow another crop other than grass, which is pretty useless overall. As we are har-vesting and cleaning up beds for fall, it is a good time to plan out a new flower or vegetable bed. Gardening is a work of art, constantly changing and evolving, so don’t be afraid to try something new; a butterfly garden, herb garden, raised beds, or a water feature. Look for bare spots and plant some bulbs too! I hope all your projects went well this year. I had a great time helping on some of our projects around the county and I am amazed at how hard you all work to keep places like UW Campus, Bookworm Gardens,

Message From the President Lori Walker

Fall 2016

University of Wisconsin-Extension Sheboygan County 5 University Drive, Sheboygan, WI 53081 · (920) 459-5904

Mark your Calendars!

September 2016 September 29 - Master Gardener Banquet and Annual Business Meeting

Up-Coming Events

Hospice, Children’s Museum and other smaller sites looking great. Please con-tinue your efforts this fall and don’t forget to record all your hours of work on your timesheets. Sheets are due to Tammy by October 1. Save yourself a trip and bring them with you to the banquet on September 29. We will be meeting at Town and Country for a delicious meal, short meeting, and a unique speaker on mosses. We will also elect 2 new board members and the 2 candidates are Marty Steinbruecker and Lynn Thornton. I hope you can join us for this event. See you soon! Lori Walker President, Master Gardener Volunteers Sheboygan County

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Mystery Plant

T he mystery plant at the MGV booth at the Sheboygan County Fair was….Parrotia persica ‘lamplighter’.

The website plant lust describes it thusly: “Persian ironwood is a somewhat slow growing relative of the witch-hazels originating in north-ern Iran. 'Lamplighter' has medium green foli-age irregularly - edged with white. Stunning fall color is burgundy to pink. This fairly rare variety makes a great addition to partially shady gar-dens with well drained soils. Once established, it tends to be a fairly tough tree.” At maturity it is 20 feet high and wide. The only person to guess correctly was Ray Rogers, plantsman, author, and horticulture in-structor at LTC. As a horticulture professional he was ineligible for the prize.

County Fair

T hanks to everyone who worked on the MGV booth at the County Fair. This is a great opportunity for Master Gardeners to

gain exposure and explain ourselves to the wid-er community of gardeners, homeowners and farmers. If you have never worked the Fair, consider doing it. It really IS fun talking to folks about their garden problems and successes.

Once again Sue Droll and her minions created a fabulous and interesting display with a patriotic theme and a focus on pruning techniques. The invasive plant materials attracted a lot of atten-tion with many queries about what to do with an ash tree. Lots of our homeowners have gotten the message about Emerald Ash borer and are concerned about the care or removal of their ashes.

Page 3 Master Gardener Volunteers - Fall 2016

Bus Trip to Milwaukee Area Gardens By Sue Mathews

Growing Power Boerner Botanical Garden

Monches Farm

Paul’s Spectacular Sculpture

Greenfire Woods

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2016 Board Members and WIMGA Representative

President: Lori Walker

Vice-President: Barb Retlich

Secretary: Kristi Richerson

Treasurer: Debbie Ott

Board Members: Ruth Davis, Niles Klaves

M uch has happened since we asked

our community to collect shoes for

our first ever shoe drive. It was held

as a fund raiser during our 2016 WGCF State

Convention held at the Osthoff in Elkhart

Lake. Of course we asked the entire state

membership to start collecting last fall. We

even had some members advise their church,

work place, clubs, garage sales, and other or-

ganizations to start gathering shoes. The goal

Garden Club Shoe Drive a Big Success By Doris Weber

was to fill 100 bags with 25 pair of shoes. We

filled half of a garage in Sheboygan Falls wait-

ing for the semi to pick up our collection. They

finally connected with our committee chairman

and they arrived on Saturday, July 16th for pick-

up. Total shoes collected: 179 bags or 4,410

pounds with a net profit of $1,764 profit for the

WGCF. The Sheboygan District would like to

thank all who donated to this cause.

T his fall we are once again hosting a Lev-

el 1 Training Class for all future master

gardeners. We host this class every

other year and have 34 participants currently

enrolled. Lori Walker is the facilitator of the

group and we meet at the UWEX on Tuesday

nights from 6-7:30 pm. Students complete

work on the computer and in the manual on

their own time, and then attend classes for 12

weeks. They will need to pass an exam at the

Level 1 Training Class

end of the course. Classes cover many gar-

dening topics and we will have speakers for

some of these. Any master gardener may at-

tend these presentations if interested. I will

send an email out when speakers are coming

so you can join us! We have a great class and

they are all invited to our annual banquet at no

charge, so I hope you can meet some of them

and welcome them to our gardening group!

WIMGA Representative: Pat Mersberger Visit the Sheboygan County Master Gardener website at: http://sheboygan.uwex.edu/horticulture/master-gardener/ Visit the State Master Gardener website at: http://wimastergardener.org/

Page 5 Master Gardener Volunteers - Fall 2016

T here are all kinds of gardeners and there are all kinds of gardens. Our featured speaker at the Annual Meeting and Ban-

quet is Dale Sievert of Waukesha. Dale’s kind of garden is a moss garden and it was featured in the September/October 2016 issue of Chi-cagoland Gardening. In his garden Sievert grows more than 50 different species and has over 300 mosses in containers and more than 600 mosses blanketing rocks. His garden was featured in a Garden Conservancy Open Day in August.

If you tend to think that mosses grow only in damp, shady areas then you have a lot to learn about moss gardening. Many mosses do prefer a shady environment, but others thrive in full sun and some prefer a spot that is half-sun/half-shade. And too much moisture can be more of a problem than not, encouraging mosses one real disease problem--a fungus. Sievert doesn’t baby his mosses: he doesn’t protect them in winter, he doesn’t water except in case of drought and he doesn’t worry too much if they dry out and turn brown as mosses will bounce back from long periods of dormancy.

If Dale’s passion for his beautiful mosses in-spires you to give moss gardening a try, he will give you a few tips and tricks to get started. But there are a couple of nice books in our local li-braries that will give you even more information.

The Magical World of Moss Gar-dening by Annie Martin is a com-prehensive reference for moss gardeners. This is a thorough exploration of the topic by a gar-dener who really knows and

loves her mosses. Martin first gives us a tour of moss gardens in Japan and the U.S. On a re-cent visit to Japan mosses at shrines and public gardens often drew my attention as they were obviously nurtured features and contributed to the serenity that so characterizes Japanese out-door spaces . Even the small private home gar-den that I was privileged to visit had a tiny area devoted to mosses.

Book Review By Sue Mathews

Martin then moves on to discuss the botany and natural history of briophytes (the division of plants comprised of mosses and liverworts), de-scribes 25 different species that are recom-mended for cultivation, gives you ideas for de-signing a pleasing moss patch and provides plenty of tips and tricks for planting, establish-ing, maintaining and troubleshooting your gar-den.

Did you know that: • Mosses, liverworts and hornworts were the

first land plants on Planet Earth and are 450 million years old.

• Rhizoids hold mosses in place but do not feed them like the roots of vascular plants.

• Mosses have leaves that are only one cell lay-er thick and absorb water quickly. Along with water they acquire sustenance from dust parti-cles directly through leaves.

• Mosses are impervious to cold, possessing their own built-in anti-freeze and can grow and reproduce even in winter months.

• Internal biochemical properties protect mosses from insect pests and herbivores (e.g. deer and rabbits) as well as diseases.

If your interest in moss gardening has been piqued, another book, Native Ferns, Moss and Grasses by William Cullina, has only around 20 pages devoted to mosses and would be a good place to begin for a concise introduction to moss garden-ing. For additional information about cultivating mosses look to the internet. Mossacres.com tells us that “now, anyone can grow a moss gar-den!” This moss nursery has everything you need to grow mosses and offers lots of practical information and a gallery of luscious spaces to covet. Mountainmoss.com is the website of the moss nursery of author Annie Martin and, as you might expect, is also full of quick tips and practical advice for growing mosses.

Page 6 Master Gardener Volunteers - Fall 2016

2016 Master Gardener Banquet and Annual Business Meeting

Thursday, September 29, 2016 Town & County Golf Club W1945 County Rd J Sheboygan PROGRAM 5:00 P.M. Social/Cocktails 6:00 P.M. Welcome and Dinner Family Style...Chicken Saltimboca and Baked Cod New Potatoes and Vegetable Medley Dessert…fudge brownie or cherry cheese cake Vegetarian Entrée upon request

7:00 P.M. Business Meeting and Election of 2 Members for Board of Directors Speaker: Dale Sievert... Moss Gardening www.sievertgardens.blogspot.com Please make _______ reservation(s) for the Annual Meeting and Banquet on September 29th. Reservations are due by Thursday, September 22, 2016. No reservations will be accepted at the door. Guests Welcome! Name(s) _______________________________________________________________________________ Address ______________________________________________________________________________ City__________________________________________________________ Zip____________ Phone: _________________________ E-Mail:_______________________________________________ __________ Number of attending Dinner x $15.00 = _________________ (tax & tip included) __________ Number of Vegetarian Dinners __________ 2017 Membership Dues x $10.00 = —————————- Dues MUST be paid by November 1 TOTAL ENCLOSED _________________

Make checks payable to: Sheboygan County Master Gardeners Return Form and Payments to:

Tammy Zorn Sheboygan County UW-Extension 5 University Drive Sheboygan, WI 53081 P.S. You can mail your volunteer and education hours form to Tammy at the same time. Deadline for hours is the October 1. You can drop them off at the banquet or at the office before October 1. EAR-LIER IS BETTER!!!

And don’t forget to bring a unwrapped gift (<$10) for the raffle.