PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
PROJECTS AND
PLANTING
The days are getting longer and warmer with ample
amounts of rain (not nearly enough to catch us up from the drought), and as we
all can see, spring is just around the corner. Our lazy, daydreaming days of
winter are over, and it’s time to go to work in our gardens, which we all look
forward to doing.
It
has been 20 months since David Helms announced a deal with the City of
David
Helms was the one person who stayed on top of the negotiations and saw the
process through. He has been very generous with his time, contacts and funds.
We have so many talented people in our organization. Thanks to everyone who has
worked to see this endeavor come to fruition. I've always heard that gardeners
are the best group of friends to have.
The
Extreme Garden Makeover is coming together, as the project is nearly done. Mary
Lockard is so excited every time something new blooms. We will have a viewing
soon for everyone who has not seen it. Carolyn Prator found a very talented
young man to build the deck, just in case anyone is looking for someone to do
work
at home.
The
new class is well under way with 30 new MGs with stars in their eyes, or maybe
they are dazed with so much overload of information at one time. Remember when
we were there? There are five men in this year’s class....strong men who can
dig and lift things.
There
are many garden events to attend in the next few weeks, both MG events and
others. If you are like me, you do not have the time or energy to attend all
you would like to go and see. So mark your calendars for our events: State MG
Conference, April 20-22; Le Tour des Jardins, May 6-7; plant sale, May 13;
Trails & Trellises (
Since
we have not had any really cold weather this winter, there will probably be an
abundance of insects this spring and summer for us to contend with in our
gardens. Get a head start on them NOW so we can keep them under control later
in the season. Put on your sunscreen and big hats to protect your skin every
time you work outside.
Now
is the time for everyone to think about volunteer hours, not the end of June.
With Le Tour and the plant sale coming up, volunteer for one or both of these
events. Now is the time to get your telephone hours in before the new class
graduates because they will be eager to volunteer. Happy gardening!
·
Randa Durham
Deadline for the June-July Seedling is Sunday, April 2. Please
submit items as soon as possible – your ink-stained editor has jury duty about
that time and needs your help.
MAY PLANT
|
START PROPAGATING PLANTS
It’s
time to get serious about producing plants for the spring plant sale in May. Last year’s first time ever stand-alone
Master Gardener Plant Sale was a great success.
Folks were lined up outside the
Pots: Use standard plastic gallon pots and
standard 4” pots. Plants will be priced
by the size. Weird sizes confuse
buyers. There will be some pots
available from our supplies if you don’t have the usual pot yard that most
gardeners accumulate.
Media: A lightweight potting soil will make moving
pots easier for you and the sale workers.
Lowe’s sells a 2 cu. ft. bag of Earth’s Finest Landscape Mix for about
$2.50. It’s a mix of bark and compost
and is working fine for the MG class projects.
Labels: Nearly anything can make a useable label. Old blind slats, cut up bleach bottles, you
name it. Please put a botanical name
along with the common name.
Propagation:
Divisions – Perennials can be divided
now. Groundcovers like artemesia and
colored ajuga are great planted in 4” pots.
Irises and daylilies are good in gallons. Please mark flowering plants with either the
variety name or the flower color if you don’t know the name (mystery plants
don’t sell well). Cannas with colored leaves
sell much better than plain ones. Gingers are a good seller, and so are
unusually colored elephant ears. Please
place clumping plants like obedience, stokesia, rudbeckia and phlox with
several plants per gallon or a single plant per 4” pot. We’re playing “nursery” and want to compete
well with full-looking pots.
Cuttings – Many tropicals can make
good cuttings large enough to sell in May if “taken” now. Angel trumpets, verbena and Confederate roses
will be big enough if propagated now.
Take hardwood cuttings of beautyberry, hydrangea, spiraea, forsythia,
quince, rose, weigela and other deciduous shrubs for NEXT YEAR by cutting
pencil-sized branches and sticking them in the ground in a nursery bed
now. Don’t forget to water this summer.
Plant yellow rain lily seeds, Formosan lily and other bulb seeds now to dig for
next year. If you have pots of figs from
the 2005 MG class, now is the time to pot them up individually for sale this
year. Label them as ‘Celeste.’ Hardwood
cuttings take two years to grow big enough to sell.
Bulbs -- Surprise hits last year
were snowflake (leucojum) bulbs and spider lily bulbs. Please mark them now so you can find them in
May to dig for the sale. Almost any
early spring bloomer will be ready to dig, and the sale will give you a good
excuse to get them divided for your own garden.
The
sooner plants are potted up, the better they will look. Last-minute digs produce sad “wilters” that,
unfortunately, end up in the dumpster at the end of the day. Keep potted sale plants watered and
fertilized with water-soluble plant food (Miracle-Gro). Last year’s sale was great. Let’s try to top it this year!
·
Denyse Cummins
LE TOUR – MAY
6-7
GARDENS
GETTING READY
Five
The
Judy Firmin’s garden at 9324 Castlebrook
is a cottage garden, developed from items she collected through the years and
personal things that came from her family.
She has a milk can, plow and sign – “Figs for
The
garden of Rob and Lisa Broussard,
451 Sandefur, attempts to blend south Louisiana
heritage with the idea that, like a fine meal in a five-star restaurant,
the experience should appeal to the senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and
hearing. Their master plan is to develop
a tropical look, feel and taste with plants like palm, banana, citrus, plum,
apple and pomegranate; and tropical fragrance with sweet olives, gardenias,
lilies, jasmine vines and annuals that change from year to year. Color plays an
equally important role in this sensory experience as different areas are
dedicated to different themes, from college football colors to soft pastels
that provide a sense of calm. Red
dominates the area around the pool. Touching experiences are accomplished with
the ever-present alligator plants that their boys, who go to A.C.Steere (which
uses an alligator as mascot), share with their teachers and classmates. Finally, the effect that sound brings to the
garden creates the balance that ties all the sensory experiences together. Purple martins are brought close so that
their excited communications with each other can combine with wind chimes to
create a feeling of euphoria and peace.
Ardis and Doug Caulkins, 4728 Crescent Drive,
describe their style of gardening as “country.”
They love a mix of color and form.
In early spring they have blooming: quince, daffodils, tulips,
Lynn and Gene Eddy, 4736 Crescent Drive, are
next door to the Caulkins and the gardens can pretty much be described as the
same. Their garden is slightly smaller,
but it is pretty.
MG ACTIVITIES
MAKEOVER GOING
EXTREMELY WELL
One
more planting day will finish Master Gardeners’ responsibilities on the Extreme
Garden Makeover won by Mary Lockard last spring. Randa Durham will soon be
asking for volunteers to install azaleas, flowering cherry and limelight
spiraea, among others.
The
deck, built with materials donated by Home Depot, was completed in early February,
and the first bulbs came a little later.
Unveiling
for Master Gardeners will probably be in March, and then the MG Association
will receive a check for about $15,000 for our part in the project, a
collaboration with Shreveport Green. Carolyn Prator was project director.
Mary Lockard’s new deck
PECAN
COMPETITION
Six
Master Gardeners learned about pecan judging and production in January when
they helped prepare samples for judging at the Pecan Research-Extension Station
south of
Osburn
and Mary Ann Webb – shelled, counted and weighed pecans and had a lot of
fun.
Dr.
John Pyzner, fruit and nut specialist and faculty member at the Pecan Station,
directed their work. On long tables, 76 entries from around the state were
displayed on paper plates. Each plate held 40 nuts, 10 of which had been
selected at random and placed on a smaller plate on top. These 10 were weighed
for each entry so the number of nuts required for a pound could be calculated.
Then the entries went to Dr. Charles Graham, research horticulturist, who
manned the pecan cracker.
Then
the Master Gardeners got the 10 cracked sample nuts from each entry for
shelling. They groaned about the hard-to-shell varieties but learned about the
varieties of pecans, desirable features and damage from insects, disease and
environment.
Then
they weighed the shelled nuts and calculated the pecans per pound and the
percentage of kernel to unshelled pecan. They recorded the data and arranged
the entries according to category, in-shell and shelling. The former are sold
unshelled (such as ‘Schley,’ ‘Stuart,’ ‘Desirable,’ ‘Forkert,’ ‘Elliott’) and
the latter are sold shelled (smaller varieties and native pecans).
Three
judges – Dr. Graham, Rafash Brew, area horti-culture agent, and Charles
Whittington Jr., associate agent for Richland Parish – then chose first, second
and third places from each variety. They compared samples to the norm for the
variety, noting the size, color, texture of the kernel and overall appearance.
The number of nuts required to make a pound ranged from 27.8 for the giant
‘Podsednik’ cultivar to 824.7 for the tiny native, ‘Albritton.’ (The
‘Podsednik’ was developed by the father of MG Jackie Burroughs.)
Especially
important is the percentage of kernel to unshelled nuts. A ‘Schley,’ for
instance, averaged 54 nuts per pound, with 62 percent kernel. The ‘Podsednik’
was 57.8 percent kernel, and the ‘Albritton’ native was 38 percent kernel.
Negative considerations were deflated-looking kernels (called “wafers”), black
spots caused by stinkbug, black kernels, “fuzz” that sticks to kernels under
stress conditions, and any other kernel damage that would affect the salability
of the pecan.
A
sample of the variety ‘Kiowa’ was Best of Show. When judging was done, the
Master Gardeners packaged the entries for display at the agricultural
exposition in
You
can take a virtual tour of the Pecan Research-Extension Station at its website,
www.lsuagcenter.com;
Click
on “research,” then on “research stations”; on the map click on “pecans.”
·
Mary Ann Webb
OUT AND ABOUT
JONQUIL JUBILEE
Let’s
start with a cliché: spring is just around the corner! How do I know? My calendar is filling up with garden-related
events, one of which is the Jonquil Jubilee.
The
Jonquil Jubilee is an annual festival held in Gibsland just about the time all
of the….you guessed it!...jonquils are in bloom. Both local and commercial artists will have a
variety of items for sale in downtown Gibsland.
Gardening experts will be sharing their knowledge with several
presentations. And, of course, there
will be plenty of good food and music. You will want to tour the area
attractions: the Bonnie and
Last
year the Piney Hills Master Gardeners presented demonstrations on gardening at
the Sylvan Retreat (my favorite, by the way).
This is the home of Sally and Lestar Martin, an 1848 Greek Revival
house. The extensive garden layout was
begun in 1926 by Pearl Walker Pumphrey, and Sally and Lestar have worked
tirelessly over the years to develop and maintain the surrounding gardens.
This
year Piney Hills Master Gardeners will be on hand again at the Sylvan Retreat
to guide visitors through the gardens and to answer gardening questions. They will also offer for sale daffodils –
they should be blooming! -- in clay pots
that have been painted green. The
painting of the pots is a whole other story – we had such fun!
So
for a wonderful gardening adventure on a fresh spring day, mark March 4 on your
calendar and plan on traveling to Gibsland.
You may purchase tickets in advance at any location of the Gibsland Bank
and Trust or at the Gibsland Grill. Cost
of the tickets is $10. For more information contact Holly Henley at
318-843-6228 or holly@gibslandbank.com. With your ticket, you will receive a map and
directions to the attractions. Begin at
any location and travel at your own pace.
·
Glenda
Collums
EDUCATION
LEARNING ABOUT
LASAGNA
The
lasagna style of vegetable gardening was the subject of the January Book Study
Club meeting, and 16 Master Gardeners first learned about it and then did it.
They installed a lasagna garden at the
First,
they placed newspapers in an area about 6 feet by 8 feet and covered them with
six bags of leaves. They covered the leaves with cow manure and then compost. A
few garlic cloves were placed in the compost and some cilantro seeds were sown,
and the area was watered.
The
garden had a little green growth at the end of winter, and in spring they will
plant something else. The garden will be in continuous use as demonstration for
school children who tour the center.
·
Virginia Cathey
B&B – THE GREATEST
What
an outstanding job the
The
lively MC, Liz Wilson, set the tone for the excellent presentations. Greg Rhode made a great case for going
organic. Kathy Love, queen of compost,
made decaying stuff fun. Her
presentation was fun, lively and memorable. I didn’t make it through the seed
line, but I was prepared with the packet I made beforehand. I got seed in my ditty bag, so I’m OK.
The
demonstration on making a concrete birdbath held my full attention. Question: I don’t have an
under-gardener. Where do I buy one? Lou Osburn held my attention for 45 minutes
(?!) and that’s a miracle.
I
am no longer a Bud, but maybe I can help a few Blooms along with what I learned
on a cold Saturday in February. BRAVO to
the pros who put together the very best gardening seminar I’ve ever attended.
PS:
I had to RUN by the fabulous spread of refreshments. I’m on a diet.
·
Mary Hamner
[Buds
and Blooms is a selection of
gardening seminars presented annually to the gardening public by the Piney
Hills Louisiana Master Gardeners and the Webster/Claiborne Lawn & Garden
Association. This year’s meeting was Feb. 11; watch for announcements of the
next one.]
KITCHEN SINK
ROSEMARY
ROUNDS
½
cup butter or margarine ½ cup oil
½
cup sugar ½
cup powdered sugar
1
egg ½
tsp. vanilla
½
tsp baking soda ½ tsp
cream of tartar
2
cups flour 1
T. chopped fresh
rosemary
Preheat
oven to 375 degrees. Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. If dough seems
too sticky, add more flour, a tablespoon at a time. Form into small balls and place on ungreased
cookie sheet. Flatten the balls with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar.
Bake for 6 minutes. Turn pan and bake 2 to 4 minutes longer, until cookies are
golden brown and firm. Makes 3 to 4
dozen cookies.
·
Rose Mary Martin
_____________________________________________
MAKE A NOTE – THE NEW MASTER
GARDENERS OFFICE NUMBER IS 698-0010
******************************************************
NW Louisiana
Master Gardeners Officers
President Randa Durham
Vice
President LaJuana Gooden
Secretary
Judy Roemer
Treasurer Lil Appel
Historian
and Dona Anders
NWLA
Master Gardeners
C/O
Burroughs
The Seedling
Newsletter of the Northwest Louisiana Master
Gardeners Association
An Affiliate of LSU Agricultural Center
The Seedling is sent bimonthly to all
members of the Northwest Louisiana Master Gardeners Association. It is available to non-members for $5 a year
(to help defray the costs of postage and printing). If you are a non-member and would like to receive The Seedling, please send your name and mailing address and a check
for $5:
NW Louisiana Master Gardeners Association
C/O Appel
264 Hanging Moss Trail