News for Delaware County Master Gardeners

Vol. 10 No. 7 July, 2005

We spent the week-end of June 25th interviewing 33 candidates for the next Master Gardener class. The most difficult part of the process is choosing from these excellent applicants.

We will send letters to all of them by the second week of July. Mentors will be assigned by Lisa Augustine, Master Mentor Committee chair. If you are interested in mentoring, but didn't sign up for this committee in January, please contact Lisa and let her know. This is our seventh year of the mentoring program, and we have significantly improved our retention rate for new Master Gardeners. Thanks to Marty Roelandt for the many hours she spent interviewing and organizing volunteers for interview scheduling, test proctoring and greeters during the interview weekend.

The Fall Fest committee has met several times, and we have made great progress. You will receive the brochure in early August. We still need volunteers for many of the activities scheduled for the day, so let us know if you are available and would like to help. Alyce Zellers is chairing the committee.

We have a new PC computer to replace the iMac on the Hortline desk. Penn State has set 2005 as a deadline for computer support for Macs, so the county has gradually replaced all of the office computers. Most of you who use the computer for Hortline will be relieved to have a more familiar system. However, if you are not familiar with the PC, I will be happy to introduce you to the new system. Our email will be changed from Eudora to Outlook.

Several volunteers have had problems logging on to the website because their password was not recognized. There is a new function that will send MGs their passwords via e-mail. You will need to provide your email address and phone number. The link is labeled "Send Page" on the login page. If you try this and still can't login, please let me know.

I will be on vacation the week of July 18th, but should be in the office on the 25th. If you need me to arrange for you to use the Environmental Center during the week, please let me know as soon as possible.

Take time to sit back and enjoy the color of summer.

Having just returned from Maine, I am always amazed at how much open space there is there as well the abundance of trees. Maine is the twelfth smallest state but is has more uninhabited forest-ten million acres-which is more than any other state except Alaska. Seeing that much greenery always makes life more pleasant. Most people respond to the presence of trees beyond simply observing their beauty, feelings of serenity, peacefulness, and calm can be felt especially if you are in a majestic grove of trees. Stature, strength, and endurance of trees give them a great presence that shrubs or perennials can only hope to achieve.

For all its size, a tree is a remarkably delicate thing. All of its internal life exists within three thin layers of tissue - the cambium, xylem and phloem-which is just below the bark. This thin layer, which really amounts to some living cells thinly spaced between roots and leaves and surrounds the dead heartwood in the middle. Think of the living part of the tree as a thin layer of icing on a really large cake. These three layers of cells lift great volumes of water from the roots to its leaves, where it is returned to the atmosphere. It also manufactures lignin, cellulose, tannin, sap, gum, oils, resins, extracts minerals and nutrients, and converts starches to sugars (maple syrup).

These are only the basics of what trees do but hopefully we can all appreciate them much more. There is a statistic that the world needs at least 321 million acres planted of trees just to restore and maintain the productivity of soil and water resources, meet fuel-wood needs in third world countries, and annually remove 780 tons of carbon from the atmosphere. (That's only a 25% reduction). So……have any more room to plant a tree? How about a great under story one such as a redbud or dogwood? Give a bird a great place to rest and possibly nest or a place for the squirrels to run when you chase them. This is your nudge to make more room for another tree in your yard or possibly in a friend's garden so they can enjoy the benefits as well.

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.....Annual 4H Fair at the Williamson Farm in Marple....Friday, August 12 , 3-8 PM....or Saturday, August 13....9AM-3PM.....We will have a booth set up to pass out literature and answer questions.....if interested contact Joe Daniels.

Second Saturday Meetings......We need to set up the program for the 2006 Second Saturday schedule.....Meetings will be.....Wednesday....July 27,2005....10 AM and 7PM...if you are on the Second Saturday committee or Speakers Bureau committee, please try to attend one of these meetings with some ideas for the upcoming year. If you are not able to attend, either call Joe Daniels with ideas or send your suggestions to him. Thank you in advance for all your ideas and help.

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FALL FEST 2005 - Saturday, September 24th
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

We want to make our first Fall Fest a resounding success. In order to achieve this, we will be mailing invitations to the community in early August. The exact date and time yet to be determined, but will most likely be in the early evening. If you can volunteer a couple hours to assist with the mailing (and enjoy the camaraderie of your fellow Master Gardeners), please contact Cynthia Sabatini.
	Above: Two MGs at Bowman's Hill.

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Easier Gardening By Paul McKenzie

Scan the gardening section at the local bookstore and you'll find numerous titles that include the terms low maintenance, carefree and easy.

Gardeners, of course, eat these up, looking for that secret formula to having a beautiful garden with no work. But do the covers ever show anyone holding a shovel?

The fact is, gardens need tending. Gardens need a gardener.

Not that you shouldn't read these books, but consider the source. They are written by people like me who are obsessed with gardening. They are written by people like me who plant 6,000 square feet of vegetables and flowers and pay $60 for a fancy hoe.

That said, there certainly are ways to make gardening easier, and I'll mention a few below. But lest you think I offer these with some altruistic motive of giving you more time for family and friends, rest assured you are mistaken. Rather, my hope is that the time you do spend gardening will be more enjoyable and productive, inspiring you to break new ground, build new beds, plant more flowers.

Let's face it, we've got an awful lot of ground to cover and the bulldozers have a head start.

Get some wheels. There are a wide variety of wheeled contraptions available, from wheelbarrows to carts to wagons. My beds are spread out over an acre, so a wagon was the choice for me. It's amazing how much easier it is to move bags of fertilizer, flats of flowers and baskets of squash when they are riding on a wheeled platform.

Garden close to home. The long-term dream for your landscape may include a secret hideaway in the back corner of your lot. The only problem is, the less frequently you visit, the less you'll maintain it. Put a flower bed somewhere between your front door and your driveway and you'll pass by it twice a day. That flower bed will be carefully tended, weed-free and immaculately deadheaded. The further the bed is from air-conditioning and lemonade, the more weeds it will have.

Invest in infrastructure. Gardening is all about the plants. But keep in mind that when you're first getting started, plants can be had on the cheap. You can start things from seed, take cuttings from a neighbor or divide perennials. Infrastructure, on the other hand, is pricey but gives you a lot of bang for the buck. I don't know what that might be in your area, but around here it's truckloads of compost, raised beds, terraced slopes and good-quality tillage tools. Spend money on infrastructure and your gardening will be a pleasure. Ignore it and you will soon trade in your trowel for a tennis racket.

Where's the water? Nothing is more time-consuming and frustrating than dragging hose. It gets caught, kinked and is never where you need it. An irrigation system makes the job much easier, but may be prohibitively expensive and requires monitoring and maintenance. At the very least, consider installing a satellite spigot in a central location in your landscape.

Get a good mower. This may seem counterintuitive, since many gardeners want less lawn, not more. Nonetheless, a significant portion of your yard-maintenance time will be spent walking behind a mower. A mower that's reliable, powerful, well-maintained and easy-to start will make time away from tending flowers less painful.

Train, don't prune. It's easier to train a child to do the right thing than to punish a child who's done wrong. Training plants is the art of directing the growth where you want it, rather than removing it from where you don't. Here in Piedmont North Carolina, corrective pruning--the kind that leaves you with monstrous piles of clippings--is done in late winter. But training and light shaping can be done in early to midsummer. It's easy enough to tell if a branch is going to grow in the wrong direction. Take it out when it's small, before it has a chance to do so.

Keep tools sharp. Two people chop wood. One takes frequent breaks. The other works non-stop. At the end of the day the one who rested has a larger pile of wood. "How'd you manage that?" asks the other. "During breaks," she replies, "I was sharpening my axe."

Do lots of planning and research. A plant in the wrong spot is a waste of your time and efforts. It will either die young, fail to reach its potential or require constant maintenance. A poorly planned garden will be a source of frustration. The best gardeners have extensive libraries and journals full of sketches and notes. Don't know where to start? Look no further, as you have stumbled upon one of the most fabulous gardening websites around.

Do a little each day. Even if it's only five minutes, make some time in your life each day for a bit of gardening. Instead of watching the news with your morning coffee, carry your mug out to the garden. Yes, you'll miss the crime blotter and the death toll, but you'll get news of first blossoms and nestlings taking flight. You'll catch the weed seedlings before they set seed and pinch off the aphid-infested leaves before they spread. Besides, a day without gardening is like skipping dinner. You'll go to bed hungry.

--Paul McKenzie is a horticulture extension agent in Durham, North Carolina and manages the Durham County Master Gardener Volunteer Program.

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