Delaware County Master Gardeners

News for Delaware County Master Gardeners

Vol. 11 No. 10 November, 2006

We have included an invitation to the Holiday Party in this month's newsletter. Please send your RSVP to the office as soon as you can. The committee will appreciate your early response. At the Holiday Party we will honor Master Gardeners with 10 and 15 years of service, members with 500, 1000, and 1500 volunteer hours. We will also choose the winner of the two round-trip US Airways tickets to any of the 50 states, Puerto Rico, or US Virgin Islands at the party. We have included some tickets in your newsletter in case you wish to make a donation to the Memorial Bench project and was unable to attend October's meeting.

Congratulations to the Class of 2005 members who received their Master Gardener badges at the October meeting. They presented their class project, the Hortline Training Manual to the membership. It is an excellent and extensive guide to the Hortline. If you are on the Hortline Committee, you should have your own copy. The manuals are in the office. The committee co-chairs were Tracey Carson and Hope Jones-Gary. Members included Veronica Connor, Janice Duffin, Beth Gianopulos, Carolyn Langdon, Barbara Marinelli, Gail Schneck, Minnie Ullman and Kimberly Venezia.

I attended the Master Gardener Steering Committee meeting at State College on November 2nd. The committee will be developing a strategic plan and mission statement for the state. Hopefully, this will be completed by the end of the year. Meeting will be by Polycom. (This program allows you to see and hear everyone at the meeting, even though you are at several different sites, and works very well for those of us who are furthest from the campus.) Our next phase will involve reviewing educational materials that have been developed (or need to be created) for Master Gardeners, including the manual, the training courses, and Power Point presentations. There will also be sub-committees working on coordinators' resources, sustainability for the MG program, and a statewide policy statement for MGs. The State Master Gardener Conference for 2007 will be a two-day event at State College in mid to late June. I'll let you know more details as they become available.

While checking the volunteer hours entered in the MG reporting system, I noticed that some of us still need volunteer and educational update hours for 2006. We do need help in several places:

The Teaching Gardens need a fall clean-up. This activity can be done at your convenience.

We have some data to add to the Hortbook program so that the yearly report for Hortline will be correct.

Volunteers are needed for set-up and clean-up at the Holiday Party, December 3.

2nd Saturday at Smedley on December 9 will offer two wreath-making workshops.10-12, and 1-3. We will need help with set-up (9am), clean-up and also assisting clients with the wreaths.

November's meeting will include presentations from the other two 2005 Class committees. The Speakers' Bureau Committee will present their Winter Interest program and the Urban Gardening Committee will report on their urban beautification program at the Chester YWCA. Come out and support these most recent Master Gardener members. This meeting will have an educational component and will count as update hours. We hope to see you at the meeting.

Thanks to all who have entered their hours and educational updates. If your entries are incomplete, please bring them up to date by entering them online or sending the paper report to the office.

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It is Time to Leave and Branch Out!

Gosh, two years have gone by and my rain as president has stolon away before I node what happened. Bud, let me digress for a moment and take a bittersweet reflection on going into dormancy.

Like plants, there is always a lot of ground to cover in any organization and hopefully, we have cultivated new and interesting projects. When I first realized the natural progression from vice president to president, I was somewhat half hardy about the idea. Bud like plants, I had some transplant shock and was a bit green at the job but then hardened off and naturalized; thankfully never becoming root bound!

Master Gardeners are filled with an amazing amount of knowledge, zest, and passion for what they do and this fact always made the position so enjoyable to me. Everyone has a specialty in some way and are always eager to share their knowledge with others as well as learn about others specialties. You might say we are all hybrids but never scions!

So, thank you for everyone who saved my grass, helped me to turn over a new leaf with regards to public speaking (still not great on that one), put up with my sometimes impatiens, and helped me to see when there was mulch to do about nothing!

I will alpine when I bolt because I have grown quite frond of everyone but this is a biennial job that needs a new cultivar to keep it interesting and Kathy will be a wonderful new planting to Master Gardeners.

Thank you all berry mulch.
Alyce R. Zellers (now dormant president)

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Be Alert to Diseased Rhododendron

If you live in southeastern Pennsylvania and purchased the rhododendron variety known or labeled as 'Joe Paterno' this year, it's important that you contact the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's regional office in Creamery, Montgomery County, at (610) 489-1003. A rhodie with the disease called "sudden oak decline" (Phytophthora ramorum) was reportedly found in September in a Delaware County nursery. Sudden oak decline is a potentially serious disease for a variety of plants including lilac, mountain laurel, pieris, camellia, and viburnum. Until recently, sudden oak decline was confined to the west coast. Pennsylvania officials hope to limit its escape in the environment by asking consumers to report purchases of this potentially diseased rhododendron cultivar.

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(pictured right) The monarch butterfly just emerged from his chrysalis is (appropriately) in the Bird and Butterfly garden.

...Like Finding a Dinosaur Alive by Elsie Mueller

Genealogy that can be traced back 200 million years is extremely rare -but possible. This distinction belongs to a tree, the Wollemi Pine (Wollemi nobilis).

I got to see a seedling of this tree family, one of the world's oldest and rarest, while traveling in Northeastern Canada. The 3 1/2 ft. specimen is growing in a large container comfortably sheltered in a wire fence box (to discourage deer) at the Kingsbrae Horticulture Garden in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada.

In a fitting grand finale of our garden tour, the guide led us to the tree and explained it was known from fossil records but presumed extinct. Until 1994, that is, when a hiker discovered a remote grove of the ancient trees in the Wollemi National Park near Sydney, Australia.

My fascination really peaked when I returned home and picked up the Sept. 20 Wall Street Journal with an article about "a nearly extinct tree." The National Geographic Society had announced it would be selling Wollemi seedlings through its holiday gift catalog. The 10-12 inch plants will be offered for $99.95 each to be grown in the home or yard.

Presently the trees can live in temperatures down to 23 degrees. In an effort to expand their outdoor growing range, tests are being conducted to determine if they can survive in as low as 10 degrees.

The account of how Kingsbrae Garden got the first specimen in Canada involves Jay Remer, Garden board member and former Sotheby's auctioneer and appraiser. Alerted to the news of Sotheby's first time "Jurassic Park tree sale" in late summer, 2005, he immediately placed a bid and got the tree.

The uncommon sale required complicated arrangements related to potting mediums, form of transportation and paper work. No tree had ever been imported from Australia to Canada, a journey of 10,250 miles.

Thanks to a successful importation, Kingsbrae's Wollemi, named Pericles because it was propagated from a parent in the original grove called Hercules, lives among 2,000 varieties of trees, shrubs and plants on the 27 acres public garden in the charming seaport of St. Andrews.

The cherished tree can grow into a majestic conifer 120 ft. high with a trunk diameter over 3 ft. with pendulous foliage. The bark, described as looking like bubbling chocolate, is difficult for me to visualize.

Less than a mere 100 trees remain in the world but it is believed they were once widespread across Gondwana, an ancient super-continent that existed before Australia broke off from Antarctica and moved north. The oldest known fossils containing samples of the Wollemi date back 90 million years. Scientists think it may have existed since the Jurassic period 200 million years ago and provided a tasty treat for the Cretaceous Queensland dinosaurs. In the Wall Street article, the 1994 discovery is credited to David Noble, a park ranger/bushwalker who sensed the odd-looking evergreens he spotted on ledges of a rain-forest gorge in the Wollemi National Park were special. He was right. His sample gave experts prove of the existence of the completely new genus and descendant of the fossilized image.

They named it Wollemi nobilis to honor where it was found and the founder. Precise location of the groves where the trees are growing in Australia's Blue Mountains is a closely kept secret.

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(pictured left) Enjoying the sun after a Second Saturday in October are Clown Scarecrow, Girl Scarecrow, Lois Sellers , Joe Daniels, Scarecrow with a bad complexion, Ellen Dunn, Blue scarecrow & Chantal Wildman.

ODDS 'N ENDS

2007 Election of Officers

Lorraine Altrichter has agreed to be the nominee for the office of Vice President.
Her acceptance completes the list of nominees.
They are as follows:

President	Kathy Hornberger
Vice President	Lorraine Altrichter
Secretary	Darlene Delany
Treasurer	Linda Bauerle

The election will be held at the regular January meeting.

Gardening Position Available:

Established Landscape Design & Hardscaping firm in Delaware County seeks Professional, Reliable & Knowledgeable Self-Motivated Salesperson with design skills. Experience preferred but will train. Very competitive compensation package available. Please call Tammy at (610) 543-7599 for more information or fax resume to (610) 604-9692.

Volunteer Opportunity:

Additional volunteers are needed for the Hort Therapy program at Broomall Rehab and Nursing Center. The residents are very enthusiastic and love having the opportunity to continue their gardening. The program is presented twice a month. If you are interested, please contact Mary Evans or Gail Schneck.

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