URI MGP Newsletter, Feb 16: C.E. and a Field Trip to beat the winter blues

Free Seeds

seedsSaturday, February 18, 10am – 2 pm
Hempe House, East Farm

Spring is coming and this snow is adding wonderful moisture to the soil.  Get ready by stopping by Hempe House on Saturday, Feb. 18 between 10 and 2 and picking up free seeds. Take as many as you can carry.  Bring own bags.

Posting Continuing Education Hours

As a reminder, here’s how to post hours for continuing education.  Each year, we ask our certified URI Master Gardeners to complete 10 continuing education hours.  In order for them to show up properly in our records:

  1. When asked “Which assignment did you serve in?” please choose: “Continuing Education”
  2. When entering hours, do so in the spot reading: “How many Continuing Education Hours?”

Your timesheet screen in Volgistics will look like this:

timesheet

Gardening for Water Quality in the Ocean State

waterqualityThis Saturday, February 18, 1pm – 3pm
Pharmacy room 170 (map)

Did last summer’s drought leave your plants crispy?  Have you wondered about rain gardens or received questions about gardening along the water’s edge?  This session is for you!

Elizabeth Herron from URI Extension’s Watershed Watch will discuss how our actions on land affect water quality by delving into the science of watersheds, planting to prevent pollution, and the latest information in the field.

Kate Venturini will discuss the ways that we can improve water quality through our gardening design, plant selection and maintenance practices.  We’ll learn how to manage excess water on your property and how to increase the resiliency of the landscape to drought stress.  She’ll leave you with the tools and resources to bring this information out into the community.

This is a program of URI Master Gardener Program continuing education, that is also open to URI Extension’s water quality partners

Maple Tapping Class

Saturday, February 18, 10 – 12

Join the Southern RI Master Gardeners as they learn the process of maple sugaring at Hewitt Farm, North Stonington CT. The speaker is John Bradshaw. Meet Mary Ann Buckley at the rear of Grace Fellowship Church, Rte 184 North Stonington , CT.

Diagnostics Skill-Building Series - Special Training!

trainingThe “Diagnostics Skill-Building Series” of continuing education workshops is designed to refresh your knowledge of early season pest updates, existing resources, public interaction skills and basic problem ID. Volunteers directly working with the public including speakers, hotline workers and kiosk workers. Later workshops will include hands=on ID skills in the field. As always, bring your questions and examples of how to solve some problems. Look for some new resources from each class to aid your ID skills. If you attend 3 out of the 4 sessions we’ll give you some nice parting gifts to help you identify problems at home or on the job. You must register through Volgistics for this course.

The sessions series layout is:

Part I: Introduction
Thursday February 23rd, 6-8 pm
URI Pharmacy 170

It will be an early season update of some of our most troublesome pests (various caterpillars) presented by Heather Faubert, Plant Clinic Director. Horticulture educator, Rosanne Sherry will give an update of the MG Quick Tip series and the Decision Tree process and resources.

Part 2: Trees, Shrubs Perennials
Tuesday May 9th 6-8 pm.
East Farm Building 75

The focus will be on ornamentals including herbaceous and woody plants. We will work on some common problems that may occur and how to question the client about what may be presented to you in person. Send photos or bring samples of a problem. We’ll have an activity and hands on quiz about the problems we gather.

Part 3: Wildflower ID Walk
Saturday, June 10th 9:00-11:30 am
East Farm

Join Dr. Carl D. Sawyer, a former research associate from the URI Department of Plant Sciences on a stroll at URI East Farm identifying wildflowers and other plants using the Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide.

Part 4: Vegetables
Tuesday, August 8th 5:30-7:30pm
East Farm Field House

We will study in the Demonstration Vegetable Garden. Our walkabout through the garden will highlight common symptoms and organic controls and techniques to share with clients. Because the garden is so well tended we may not find a lot of problems, so bring a photo or sample of a vegetable problem you may be having.

Help Wanted: Garden Symposium

image001The Symposium Committee is once again seeking volunteers for the Gardening Symposium on March 11th, 2017.

Needed are 10 volunteers for Friday, Mar.10th from 3-5pm and 10 volunteers for Saturday, March 11th, from 2:30 -4:30pm. This is for set-up and take down of tables and chairs and bringing things to and from the Outreach Center. You will earn 5hrs of volunteer time “event coordination and support” for each day.

Also needed are volunteers to guide people to the parking lot at the Fine Arts building.  There would be one on Upper College Road and one on Flagg Road and one in the parking lot to help people to either the waiting shuttle or to the walking route over to the CBLS Bldg.  You will also earn 5 hrs. of volunteer time for this as it would be from 7-9 am. This will be on a first come, first served basis.

This volunteer opportunity is open to all URI Master Gardeners and interns. Please check your calendars to make sure you can commit to this opportunity.

We value all our volunteers!

Please reply to: Melanie Racioppi @ mel20002@yahoo.com asap.

Thanks to all in advance!

Nature Meets Art at the Fuller Craft Museum

Alice Cross, URIMG Class of 2011

fullercraftSpring is a promise we hold to our hearts in February. Only a few more weeks and we’ll see witch hazel, hellebore, daffodils, and forsythia burst forth in quick succession. What to do now though, we gardeners who crave more than snow, mud, and the bare branches of trees?

Well, one thing you can do is to visit the lovely, inspiring Bartrams’s Boxes Remix exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton. The idea began in 2010 when a terrible storm felled a number of trees at the John Bartram property in Philadelphia. Bartram—if you’re unfamiliar with him— was a key figure in American botany in the 18th century. He traveled the Eastern seaboard collecting seeds and plants, which he then sent in carefully packed boxes to an Englishman who helped to create a craze for American species, for gardening, in fact, as we know it today. Because of Bartram’s efforts, a number of species were preserved or saved from extinction, including, most famously, the beautiful tree, Franklinia alatamaha, named for his good friend Benjamin Franklin.

So, it seemed only natural that the naturalist’s trees be saved as well, fallen though they may be. The Center for Art and Wood began a collaboration with Bartram’s Garden to create works that commemorated the spirit of this great man. The exhibition features 38 sculptures and installations by 40 artists, including a bench, made of black locust and a prone plaster column that echoes those carved by Bartram for his home, and a BoxTree Tower, made of zigzagging blocks of diseased spalted maple, rainbow poplar and cucumber magnolia.

The Fuller Craft Museum is off Route 24 in Brockton, about 5 minutes from IKEA. It is open Thursdays from 10-9 PM, and all other days but Monday from 10-5 PM. You can learn more about John Bartram by reading The Brother Gardeners by design historian Andrea Wulf.

Back to Our Roots: Being Wild About Wild Plants

March 25th from 2:00 – 3:30
Pharmacy, Room 170

In Celebration of RI Wild Plant Society’s 30th Anniversary, Lisa Lofland Gould, founding member and first president of RIWPS will address the question, Why should anyone care about plants, and especially about that seemingly obscure and often subtle flora we wild folks so enjoy?  She will consider the pivotal role that plants play in our lives, some history of human knowledge of the plant world, and how we seek to understand plants today.  This class is eligible for URI Master Gardener continuing education hours.
Lisa grew up in Winston-Salem, NC in a family of nature lovers. Not surprisingly, she majored in Biology at UNC-G and went on to earn an MS in Zoology (ecology and behavior of birds) at the University of Rhode Island. At URI she met her husband, Mark, who was also an ecologist. Lisa taught biology at URI for many years and was a research associate in the Department of Natural Resources Science. In addition to her legacy at RIWPS, she cofounded and served as first executive director of the RI Natural History Survey, and initiated the RI Invasive Species Council.
Learn More

Continuing Education Reminder

As a reminder, all of our continuing education classes can be found on our website calendar.  Password = seeds

https://web.uri.edu/mastergardener/calendar/

Class recordings:

https://web.uri.edu/mastergardener/continuing-education/
https://web.uri.edu/mastergardener/coretraining/

Hot Topics from the URI Consumer Horticulture Educator

rosanneThe following science-based articles may help you answer questions from the community. Rosanne Sherry, URI Consumer Horticulture Educator, recommends you read them to help sharpen your own gardening and educator skills! Please send comments or suggestions for articles to rsherry@uri.edu.

From NEIPM-Climate

This guy started out not with the intention of collecting data related to climate, but just “getting to be around quiet.” He ended up making a pretty big contribution. Probably some of the first empirical work ever done and continuing still today.

Read about the science of phenological mismatch in this article from The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/billy-barr-climate-change/512198/

From Inside Grower January 20, 2017

More Bee Best Practices

Last edition, I (IG editor) noted new information from the Honeybee Health Coalition. This time, there are new Best Management Practices for Bee Health in the Horticultural Industry from the Horticultural Research Institute (the research arm of AmericanHort).

This is a little different, though. This isn’t for raising healthy bees; it’s for growers to make sure they don’t impact the bee population with their growing practices. HRI developed the best management practices with the help of researchers and beekeepers across North America. The best management practices are for greenhouse and nursery production, woody ornamentals and managed landscapes.

For the full best management practices, visit the GrowWise, Bee Smart website (it will come up as a PDF).

From Eco-RI January 24, 2017

Lyme disease and tick updates

From National Garden Bureau

http://www.gardencentermag.com/article/ngb-2017-pansy-brassica-daffodil-rose/