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The Intergenerational Plant and Seed Pick-up in Chester was another great day. The weather was perfect and the turn-out better than ever. Volunteers worked to prepare the raised beds, and make it a welcoming place to garden. The next pick-up is May 19 for warm weather vegetables and flowers. Thirty-eight county residents attended the April Composting Workshop and carried away compost bins. Thanks to Joe Daniels and Deb Hatton for the presentation and to Hope Jones-Gary and Darlene Delany for carting the bins to Smedley Park from the 4-H farm. Recruiting press releases have been sent to the local papers for the MG class of 2007. Applications are available in the office, or can be emailed to an interested county gardener. June 1 is the deadline for applications to be submitted. Garden Contest information has been sent to county residents. If you know of gardeners in your community who may like to enter, please let us know. June Wojtowicz is chairing this committee. Judging will take place the first week of August. We have formed two new committees. Tracey Carson is chairing the Public Relations Committee. If you are interested in working with this group, please contact Tracey. The second committee is a Grant-Writing Committee. We have had two workshops with a Cooperative Extension educator, and the committee is now ready to seek grants which are appropriate for Master Gardener programs. Thanks to Gail Sklar for chairing this committee. Gardening season is now in full swing. If you have volunteered to assist in one or more Teaching Gardens, please contact the chairperson to find out when planting, weeding, watering deadheading might need to be addressed. Additional volunteers are always welcome in the summer. We have been invited to participate in a Gardening Blog that has been set up by the Philadelphia Inquirer. If you have expertise in certain garden areas and would be willing to blog with home gardeners, please let me know. We will be working with Chester and Montgomery county hort educators, as well as Warren Goll, the Greenhouse Educator stationed in Delaware County. Thanks for all of your spring volunteer work. You've been very busy! And continued thanks to the excellent Hortline team who work Tuesdays and Thursdays, smoothly and patiently connecting to thousands of puzzled, frustrated, overwhelmed, and eventually happy home gardeners. A special thank you to Hope Jones-Gary and the Social Committee who prepared and organized breakfast and lunch refreshments for the Southeast Region Advanced Hortline Training at Scott Arboretum. The program was a great success. We will have a special educational presentation on Invasive Plants by our president, Kathy Hornberger at the May 15th Master Gardener Meeting. I hope to see you there! Our June meeting will be a picnic and plant swap, so gather up those extra treasures for sharing with other Master Gardeners.
Words
To Weed Through Happy Mother's Day Mother's Day is quickly approaching and along with it, world wide record setting plant sales. Letting my imagination carry me away, as I often do, I pondered the connection between moms and fabulous florets. I found myself standing at the foot of the ultimate query…"If your mother was a flower, what type of flower would she be"? Is she the cute, prickly, stand alone type making her a Cactus? Can she hear like a bat making her Colocasia's Elephant Ear? Is she the sassy mini-skirt wearing type making her the Echinacea After Midnight? Does she insist on cooking dinner for you even though she burns everything making her a Viburnum Crispa? Has age taken her to a new level of grace and beauty making her a Water Lily or a Daphne Chardonnay Pearl? Or would you describe her as the Potentilla Nana because some consider it to be a biennial (skips a generation); she joyfully loves her grandchildren, but you on the other hand, she can take or leave? What about your mother-in-law? When she treats you to dinner does she become an Azalea Hilda Niblett? But when you're paying the bill she becomes a Venus Fly Trap? Figuratively speaking, I envision my mother as a Zebra plant. I have no problem picturing her in a black and white striped jumpsuit with numbers on the back, because she just never seemed to care that reading other people's mail was a felony. Now leaching myself away from my vivid imagination, and finishing on a most sincere note, I wish each and every wonderful mom The Happiest Mother's Day Ever! Although displays of love and appreciation for great moms should not be restricted to one day per year, take this special day and honor your mother, or her memory, with a bountiful bouquet of blooms. "If I had a single flower for each time I thought of My Mother, I could walk in my garden forever." ~ Attributed to Claudia Ghandi
A
HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CONTRIBUTED RECIPES
TO THE COOKBOOK unfortunately I cannot name
everyone but you know who you are! However,
I have to give special thanks to the Class of
2005, which under the leadership of Tracey,
came through for me in a big way! I tried to
be very careful and organized with all the papers,
but it was bound to happen, I am missing the
author's name for the following recipes (handwritten
on a 3 X 5 white index card): Sue's Mom's Biscotti
and Skillet Pork Chops Dinner So when you recognize
your recipes, please give me a call or e-mail
me the answer. Merci in advance I know the deadline
has passed but I can still use recipes in the
following 3 categories: BREADS, ROLLS &
PASTRIES CAKES, COOKIES & DESSERTS BEVERAGES,
MICROWAVE & MISCELLANEOUS If you could oblige,
I would be forever thankful Kudos to all of
you, I knew we could do it!
Planning ahead is a good thing! Please continue thinking about what you'd like to contribute to our Fall Fest Plant Sale this year. People were quite impressed with the variety and quality of our plants last year. We are developing a reputation for a great plant sale…how cool is that? This
year it would be great to have more trees and
shrubs, so now is the time to think about propagating
some babies by layering branches of hydrangeas,
azaleas, rhodos, and other cooperative shrubs
in your garden. You could even layer them directly
into a pot---instant plant sale material! Don't
forget to check for those shrubby volunteers
that may be hiding in your garden. Save them
for our plant sale! And while you're out there,
are there any perennials you can divide and
save for the sale?
The powers that be have concluded that our organization, as a whole, would greatly benefit from a committee that focused solely on "Publicity". The general purpose would be to strengthen our connection with the community by letting them know who we are, and the great things that we do, by creating an almost task force like team to specialize in the utilization of public resources. Our concentration would be aimed on press releases, the internet, magazines, special edition news articles, and radio. We would implement having different people from our organization always in attendance at County Fairs and Conferences, and so much more. Yes, this will be a little challenging, but it also will be a lot of fun and very rewarding. We are looking for a few dedicated MGs to volunteer for this new Committee. We're starting at ground zero and aiming high. And guess what else???.... We want you! If you are interested, please contact me right away and let me know. I will personally get back to you with the details that we have available to us right now. Oh, by the way… My name is Tracey Carson. I'm a member of the 2005 Class.
May 24, Senior Expo sponsored by Senator Pileggi at Neumann College, 10 am-1 pm. Please contact Linda if you would like to participate.
Finally
- An Arbor Day Without Rain The temperatures climbed to 80 on Sunday, April 22 and the sun shone brightly (almost too brightly) as the Arbor Day program got a fun start with Joe Daniels' informational introduction. He spoke to the wide-eyed Jr. Girl Scouts, Brownies and several boys attending with their parents. Scattering out to the lovely grounds, we got the youngsters to watch attentively as Carl Pfeiffer and Stephen Hinds demonstrated the proper tree planting. They planted a large redbud near the site of the proposed memorial bench in front of the garden. This redbud and a black gum, which was planted near the creak next, were donated by Steve Koziak. Back up the hill, the boys and girls clamored excitedly on a picnic table planting seeds in transparent cups. Hopefully in 4 months they can transplant little honey-locust tree seedlings into the ground. The how-to information and materials for this project were provided by the Arbor Day Foundation through a grant given by PA Tree Vitalize. Gerri Eunson applied and received the grant after attending 3 week Tree Tenders training. Thanks to the grant also, Tara Clarke offered a variety of story books about trees to the children. And Diana Breen was handy with her leaf identification book to answer questions about leaves the kids collected. Known for his expert grilling, Carl attended to the grill and the result was irresistible hot dogs. They were donated by Carolyn DiPaulo. Mary Sambor organized all the components for the picnic. The grand finale - more planting -was excitedly messy. Delighted to work with the potting soil, the young people pushed it into the pots holding "cute" spruce seedlings. They held these pots tightly to talke home and asked, "When will we have these for our Chirstmas Trees?" The answer at least 10 years brought frowns to the sweet faces.
A group of like-minded gardeners met on March 24th to form the Mid-Atlantic Peony Society. Two garden tours are scheduled for May. The first is Wednesday, May 9th at 6:00 pm at Scott Arboretum and is a tree peony tour with Jeff Jabco. The second tour is on Thursday, May 24th at 6:00pm and is an herbaceous peony tour at my Gradyville peony on Route 352. (Map Quest directions) 1723 Middletown Road, Glen Mills, PA 19342). So mark your calendars for the peony tours in May and spread the word about the newest peony society. Eleanor Tickner
Please join the Delaware County Master Gardeners as we visit a major public garden, its associated shade garden and a specialty nursery on a day trip to Maryland, on Saturday, June 2. The itinerary includes a tour of Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Md., McCrillis Shade Garden in Bethesda and Behnke's Nursery in nearby Beltsville. The bus will leave at 7:15 a.m. from the Baltimore Pike entrance to Granite Run Mall and return at approximately 7:30 p.m. At Brookside Gardens, the group will have a special guided tour of native plants used in garden settings as an alternative to exotics. Brookside features 35 acres of formal and informal gardens as well as two conservatories. The landscape includes a Japanese pavilion and pond, fragrance garden, rose garden, azalea garden, butterfly exhibit, gift shop and information center. The nearby McCrillis Shade Garden, donated to the county by the original owners and now associated with Brookside Gardens, is approximately five acres in size and offers a selection of choice ornamental trees and shrubs that will extend bloom in the garden, as well as bulbs, groundcovers and perennials. The third stop of the day will be at Behnke Nurseries, one of the major nurseries for the Washington area. There the group will have the opportunity to tour the original 11-acre garden center and indulge in plant purchases. The cost of the trip is $55 per person and includes transportation on an air-conditioned, lavatory-equipped motorcoach. Participants should bring a sack lunch. The trip is held rain or shine. To register, or for more trip information, call the Delaware County Cooperative Extension Office at 610-690-2655. Checks should be payable to DCCE (Delaware County Cooperative Extension) and mailed to: Linda Barry, Delaware County Cooperative Extension, Smedley Park, 20 Paper Mill Road, Springfield, PA 19064. 7:15 am leaving from Granite Run Mall
May
22nd
Slow Gardening - now there's a gardening practice that's right up my alley and maybe yours too. Akin to the Slow Food Movement, I'd never heard of slow gardening before until I saw this article the other day. Slow Gardening is a term coined by a man named Felder Rushing, a retired horticultural extension agent form Jackson, MS, and refers to developing your own personal philosophy about gardening. In other words, what's right for you and only you, not your neighbor down the street or keeping up with the latest gardening gadgets and techniques. If you're a lazy gardener plant a garden that requires little effort to take care of. If you're favorite vegetables are tomatoes and cucumbers, then just plant these two vegetables. If you like fresh flowers in the house, pick a few varieties that hold up well and plant them. Slow gardening is also about enjoying your garden. If your flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds, then why not make sure you have a nice garden seat where you can watch the action. You get the idea. Not only that, Rushing is all for conserving and protecting resources. In the article he mentions that gardeners should choose plants that have little need for fertilizer, insect sprays or supplemental water once they are established. Hmmmm...Sounds a lot like eco friendly gardening to me and that's a good thing.
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