Coconino Master Gardener Association: March 2021

CMGA General Info

Species tulips planted in fall. These appear in early spring. Olivia White Hospice Garden.
Photo by Loni Shapiro.

Welcome to the Coconino County Master Gardeners Association blog. The mission of the Master Gardener Program is to create a corps of well-informed volunteers, and to deliver quality horticultural education programs adapted to our regional high elevation environment. The purpose of the association is to provide support for those volunteers and Master Gardener graduates, continuing education, and opportunities to participate in community programs that increase the visibility and participation in the Master Gardener Program.

The Coconino Master Gardener Association (2009) began in 2009. This blog contains information on:

-How to become a member

-Volunteer and Education hours reporting

-Calendar of Events

-General gardening information articles

-Master Gardener Association Documents and forms

-References and Resources

-Interesting Websites and Blogs

-Old Gardening Etcetera columns

-Recipes

-Book Reviews

-How to contact Board or Committee Members

Meetings are held monthly on the 2nd Thursday from 600pm - 8;30pm. We meet at the Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church at 1601 N. San Francisco. This includes continuing education and a business meeting.

Reporting Master Gardener Hours

All master gardener trainees and certified master gardeners need to report their hours.
Beginning in 2010 certified master gardeners need to have 6 Education hours and 12 Volunteer hours in order to maintain certification.The on line reporting system allows you to report Education or Volunteer hours. You can sign in to record hours in the right hand column under Recording Volunteer and Education Hours. Just click on the U. of A.
If you have any questions or concerns about the new reporting system, please contact Brenda Smith (A - M) or Sue Madden (N - Z). Their contacts are listed at the bottom of the blog under Contacts.

Ideas for hours------
--Attend monthly meetings
--Work on an association committee
--Work at an informational booth for the Master Gardeners
--Be a speaker about gardening topics at a variety of venues
--Host a garden tour
--Work at a fundraising event (Plant Sale - Garden Tour).
--Work at a MG site (Olivia White Hospice, the Arboretum, Riordan Mansion, or school gardens (many others)). Check out the Assoc. Doc. & Forms under Volunteer Sites.
--Work in the Extension office
--Write an article for the newspaper column -Gardening Etcetera
-Volunteer with the Seed Library
Be creative! There are many ways to fulfill your hours. Just remember for volunteering it needs to be a non-profit endeavor or an approved for profit site.

Monday, March 29, 2021

Calendar for the Arboretum

Milkweed Plant and Seed Sale

When: Saturday, April 10 10:00am-2:00pm

Where: The Community Garden in the Village of Oak Creek

25 W. Saddlehorn, Big Park Community School

(the Garden is on the north field of the school, facing Verde Valley School Road)

What:

Arizona Milkweeds for Monarchs will have over 1,000 milkweeds and over 500 monarch and nectar plants for sale! Bring your 5 gallon bucket and get your plant shopping done in one location in the VOC.

Please bring cash for plant & seed purchases.

Don't forget your mask- we may be outside, but doing our part to stop the spread, means wearing a mask.

Contact Heather Hermen for more information:

928-202-2374, heather@frontburnermedia.com.

Flyer

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Swarm with Patrick Pynes

From NAU Sustainability Dept.

Our friend Patrick Pynes is honoring the new spring season with an upcoming event he calls SWARM. Come learn about bees, honey, sexuality, democracy and more! See his description below for details.

SWARM

Behold!! A SWARM of honeybees in springtime, one of the most powerful and “terrifying” forces of Nature. 5,000 or more bees and their mother (the queen) boil out of their home and go searching for a new one, leaving half of their sisters and a virgin queen behind.

For humans, honeybee SWARMS can provoke biophilia (love for the rest of Nature) and/or biophobia (fear of the rest of Nature), although SWARMS don’t sting.

But what IS a SWARM really? And what can beekeepers do to encourage/discourage SWARMS and to catch or harvest them? Butterflies are free, and so are SWARMS.

SWARMS have everything to do with springtime, with wild sexuality and the sun, multiple partners, and rainbow-colored flowers; and with Democracy, intelligence, and fishing, but not for fish.

In this two hour presentation and workshop, local organic top bar beekeeper Dr. Patrick Pynes of Honeybeeteacher LLC will teach you everything that you’ve wanted to know about SWARMS, but were afraid to ask. Music, photographs, and video included. Local raw honey for sampling and sale.

Audience limited to 10-12 people who will meet outdoors, or in a well-ventilated building, if the weather is too cold or windy.

Date: Saturday, April 10, 2021, ten a.m. to noon.

Place: The Center for Organic Beekeeping (COB) in Slayton Ranch/Doney Park, Arizona, near Flagstaff.

Tuition: 20 dollars suggested donation, more or less, depending upon your circumstances.

To RSVP/Directions: Write to Patrick at this e-mail address: honeybeeteacher@gmail.com, or send a text message to (928) 600-1193.

“First Come, First Served.” Children, young people, and elders welcome

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Vertical Gardening Webinar

Vertical Gardening Webinar

Event Date: March 25, 2021 11:00am to 12:00pm

Online event link: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/82276749484

Payson Community Garden Spring Gardening Class #7

University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Gila County presents: Garden and Country Extension Webinar Series. From February 11 to April 15, 2021, I am proud to be hosting the spring gardening classes for the Payson Community Garden in northern Gila County. You are invited to join us and learn along with Payson’s community gardeners. Classes include soil building and its great benefits, ways to have healthy plants throughout the garden season, how to keep bugs and disease away, and harvesting at the right time. Presenters will be available for Q&A to discuss applying practices to your situation.

Featured Topic: Vertical Gardening Webinar

Featured Speaker: Carol R Noble, Payson Community Gardener: Carol joined the Payson Community Garden in May 2016 with no gardening experience. After years of interacting with other gardeners, using Google as well as trial and error, she is now a “much improved“ gardener. She has been a staff member at PCG for the past four years and a member of the Harvest Team for the past five.

Edible Backyard Summit - Urban Farm

I am excited about the lineup for the March 2021 Edible Backyard Summit.

Curious to know what you'll learn?

Here are some of the topics our presenters will be covering during the Summit March 23-25:

How to grow almost anything in a container on your patio
The simplest way to get started growing food with minimal labor
3 simple steps to set you on a path to urban farmerhood
4 regenerative methods of composting even if all you ahve to work with is kitchen scraps
A fun technique for growing veggies indoors and outdoors, year round
Which plants ROCK in an edible landscape and techniques every urban grower should know to make the most of their yard throug edible landscaping
Whatever topic you are struggling with the most RIGHT now during the live Q&As

Farmstand from Julie McDonald

From: Julie McDonald Sent: Monday, March 15, 2021, 01:22:16 PM MST

Subject: Farmstand! This Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning ! 5 Different Perennials, EGGS! Seeds, and the Garage Sale continues! Hello Farmstand Friends! This Wednesday, March 17 from 1-4pm, and Saturday morning, March 20, from 9-11am, the Farmstand begins in earnest here at my home, 3191 Cooper in Cheshire! The Farmstand is going to be GREAT this year! I will be offering a variety of perennials dug from my yard, ready to go into your yard! A couple of weeks ago, on one of our nice days, I dug a large number of plants, potted them and put them in the greenhouse. I have a good number ready to go. See what they are further down on the email. I also have on order lots of great things that will be arriving the end of March. Bouquets begin soon as well. Today, through Saint Patrick's Day, my eBook, the True Story of Saint Patrick of Ireland is FREE on Amazon! It is in my top 5 favorite stories I have done:) I have lots of new customers, so here are guidelines to make sure your visit is more enjoyable:

1) If I don't say your name in 5 seconds, please tell me your name.

2) I start promptly at the time on the email. I don't want to cause hard feelings among customers, so I don't open, or sell early.

3) Occasionally, I have to limit items so that everyone can get some. I will have these items marked.

4) My math skills are poor. I really DO EXPECT that you will add up your purchases for a total. I trust your math, much more than my own! There is a change can on the cart in the garage. You can make your own change from the can. Sometimes the right change is depleted, or, if you are not comfortable with making your own, I will be happy to get your change. If you forget the price of the plant, I can help with that as well, as long as there is NO MATH involved, I will be extremely happy!

5) I like to get all the pots, quart size and smaller, even the Styrofoam cups, when it is convenient for you to bring them back. I also like to get the frappuccino jars returned which I use for vases. This is how I can keep my prices so low, I continually recycle these, over and over again, and do not have to purchase them. I can take decorative pots, or other garden items that I sell or give away. I can't take any plastic pot, 1 gallon or larger. For now, I have lots of plastic bags.

AZ Native Plant Society Meeting - Flagstaff

Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 7 PM MST – 8 PM MST

Price: Free · Duration: 1 hr

Public · Anyone on or off Facebook or by Zoom

Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85166153444?pwd=aitUSHI5dDd4MGlkSzN4a2V1YVUzUT09 Meeting ID: 851 6615 3444

Passcode: 789827

Speaker - Kirstin Olmon Phillips

After recently completing a project to process the herbarium backlog at the Museum of Northern Arizona, Botany Collections Manager Kirstin Olmon Phillips will discuss some of the interesting findings. Learn about several new county records, historical ethnobotanical collections from the 1920s, and some fun plant biographies.

Arizona Native Plant Society talks are free and open to the public.

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Pollinator-Friendly Plants for Restoration

March 10 10:00 - 11:00 MST

Presented by Justin Runyon, Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), Research Entomologist

Pollinators are essential to the survival and health of natural ecosystems but are declining worldwide. Because of this, there is urgent need to restore pollinators and the services they provide. One way to address this need is to use pollinator-friendly plants in revegetation projects (roadsides, fire rehabilitation, etc.), but land managers lack information about which plants are best for pollinators. RMRS and partners at Montana State University are assessing the pollinator-friendliness of native plant species that are available for revegetation in Montana to produce a guide identifying the best species mixes to support the greatest number of species and abundance of pollinators. We found that plant species vary widely in the abundance, diversity, and community of pollinator species that each attract. However, several plant species are superstars that are visited by most pollinator species across a diversity of habitats. These focal-plant species can form a backbone in seed mixes to successfully restore diverse and stable plant and pollinator communities.

Remembering Beverly 1928-2016

On Monday, Aug. 8, 2016, Beverly Jean MacAllister passed away fully lucid and comfortably in Santa Cruz, CA, at home and in the presence of her daughters, just three days after her 88th birthday. For many months she sought a way out of or around a severe lung infection. She was a Master Gardener and tended 12 vegetable and flower beds at her home in Timberline. She supported the master gardener program in many ways - providing consult to a local fire department to grow vegetables for food, assisting with regional conferences, and helping each year with the Coconino County Fair in the agriculture building. In addition for several years she worked as a Senior Companion with 5 clients that she helped with aging issues. A celebration of Bev’s life will be held at 11 am on Saturday, Sept. 17, at Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 510 N. Leroux St. Memorial gifts in her name may be made to Poore Medical Clinic, 120 W. Fine Ave., Flagstaff, AZ 86001; or Bonny Doon Fire Safe Council, 150 McGivern Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060.
I will personally miss her guidance on aging well. The photo above is from a Christmas card I received from her. On the back it says "Kindness is a language we can all understand. The blind can see it and the deaf can hear it. Thank someone who has touched your life today. Thank you for being part of my life. Bev." Loni Shapiro

Dana Prom Smith 1927-2015

On Sunday, Jun 28th, Dana Prom Smith passed away from a
heart attack at the age of 88. Dana was a long time supporter of the Master Gardener program and association . He was certified as a master gardener in 2007. He worked on his own garden at home, and since then has shared his wealth of knowledge and creative writing skills to write and edit weekly columns for the AZ Daily Sun -Gardening Etcetera. We will miss learning more about life and gardening and the humor with which he presented it.

On August 24th, a Blaze Maple was planted at Olivia White Hospice Garden by his gardening friends in rememberance.

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

Coconino Master Gardener Association