Fall Celebration. What s Inside. December. Steering Committee Meeting Extension Office December 6 6:30 pm

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1 Vol. 26, No. 11 Editors: Julie Stark/Lisa Slattery December 2016 Fall Celebration MASTER GARDENER EVENTS Steering Committee Meeting Extension Office December 6 6:30 pm Winter Gardening Fair Previews Extension Office December 3, 10, & 17 January 7 (Times Listed Inside) Plant a Hypertufa Container Part 2 Lowe Park Greenhouse December 15 6:30 pm Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. Pietro Aretino, Italian author & friend of Titian The Fall Celebration was a very nice evening (the weather not so much) with attendance around 50 individuals. Thank you so much to all that came and the wonderful food and conversation that you shared with everyone. We only had a handful of the graduating class. Of the 12 we had Renae Moody, Leah Striegel, Julie Clemens, Jing Chen, Charlie Dudak and Linda Miller to congratulate. We also recognized the class of The new Master Gardeners from that class are: Teresa and Randy Dusil, Anita Strouf, Holly Ritter, Holly Foster, Gail Denny, Ann Halverson, Continued on Page 2 What s Inside MG Fall Celebration Pages 1-2 Winter Gardening Fair Previews Page Fruit & Vegetable Field Day Page 3 Coordinator Comments Page 4 Hypertufa Workshop-Part 1 Page 4 Welcome the Class of 2016 Pages 5-6 Eagle Scout Service Project at Lowe Park Greenhouse Page 6 Volunteer Spotlight Page 7 Steering Committee/Project Reports Pages 8-10 December

2 Continued from Page 1 Ann Tiedt, Barb Neal, Carrie Nilsson, Kayleen Schultze, Kim Becicka, Larry Edwards, Lelia Garner, Marcy Walker, Paula Wilson, Susan Fletcher and Tina Patterson. Congratulations to you all!!! Becki Lynch was also presented a certificate for her recognition from the Blank Park Zoo for her garden being an approved pollinator habitat (photo right). Class of Class of Beula Dvorak presents Becki Lynch with Blank Park Zoo recognition certificate. Winter Gardening Fair Previews Scheduled Winter Garden Fair Previews are about to begin! Below is the current schedule, with more to be added within the next week or so. All MG are invited to attend, give feedback to the presenters and earn education hours. All presentations are guaranteed to be interesting and informative, so we hope to have an audience for each session. Be sure to watch your for updates. Saturday, December 3 8:00 Barb Wing 9:00 Mike Anderson - shrubs 11:00 Rose Milden - Water in Your Garden 1:30 Deb Walser - Raised Beds 2:30 Judy Stevens - Growing and Arranging Your Own Bouquets 3:30 Judy Stevens - Container Vegetables Saturday, December 10 1:30 Deb Walser - Roses 2:30 Mike Anderson - Color 3:30 Jane Schildroth - Theme Gardens Saturday, December 17 8:00 Devon Dietz - Green with Envy 9:00 Devon Dietz - Critter Control 10:00 Doug Smith - Prairie Gardens 11:00 Diane Wiesenfeld - Beginning Vegetable Gardening Saturday, January 7 12:30 Carol Elliott TBA 1:30 Karla McGrail/Fran Potratz - Edible Weeds 2:30 Karla McGrail - Rain Gardens 2 Germinator

3 2016 Fruit and Vegetable Field Day By Phil Pfister I had an opportunity to attend the 2016 Fruit and Vegetable Field Day at the ISU Horticulture Farm, located north of Ames, Iowa. I ve attended this event often, and always find it to be an informative and educational experience. Following is a short summary of the day. Unfortunately, I don t have any pictures as my memory card failed before I got home, and so far, we have not been able restore it. Our first stop was at an implement display by the Decorah Windridge Implement dealership of a potato planter and digger and a seed planter. These are designed to help automate the process for vegetable growers. We then moved to a table where Liz Colby from Practical Farmers of Iowa, discussed opportunities for Farmer to Farmer knowledge sharing. Dr. Laura Jesse and Dr. Lina Rodriguez Salamania discussed the Plant Diagnostic Lab and how to submit samples. Dr. Donald Lewis discussed insects as pollinators, and some that are pests, Joe Hannan discussed his new position with Extension Food Safety, and Eric Franzenberg, president of the Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, talked about the organization. From there we moved to the high tunnel pepper trials, and various growing techniques, and then on to another high tunnel where research is being conducted on grafted tomato production. We also stopped at the apple root stock trials, and the Hops research. The hops research was new last year, so it was very interesting to see how it was coming along. We also had a hop processing demonstration. The hops weren t quite ripe, but they were still able to demonstrate the process. There continues to be research on food safety with muskmelon. This research is looking at the impact of bacteria when melons are grown on various mulches, to see if it might reduce the bacteria on the melon. One of the problems is that the bacteria survives the winter. We also looked at research that is in process studying bacterial wilt; studying spraying versus row covers, as a way to reduce bacterial wilt. Our last stop was a plot that is run by a horticulture student, where the student learns how to operate a real farm. This is the first year this opportunity has been offered, and sounds like it is off to a very successful start. The day culminates with a dinner, and some social time with the various researchers, field extension specialists, professors, and attendees. Did I mention the food is really good? In my opinion, this is a very worthwhile event. It is generally attended by commercial fruit and vegetable growers, Master Gardeners, students, faculty and others interested in learning what research and trial activity is taking place at ISU. Dr. Ajay Nair, Assistant Professor, Horticulture, and Nick Howell, Horticulture Research Station Superintendent organize this great event. December 3

4 Coordinator Comments By: Shelly O'Neal Happy Holidays to you all! The year of 2016 is going to be ending soon. In looking back on the year, it has been quite successful for the Linn County Master Gardeners. The Year of the Pollinator brought a lot of activity to the community and education on the importance of the Monarch Butterflies and preserving their habitat. The Community Gardens projects were also very busy this year. There were five additional gardens added to the program. They received three mini-grants in the amount of $1,000 each to assist in educating the community in food insecurity, along with providing the produce from those gardens to food insecure neighborhood food pantries. The Winter Garden Fair is in full preparation stage, and returning to Kirkwood Community College for This year, there will be 2 keynotes, 40 plus classes which are going to be taught mainly by Linn County Master Gardeners, and a hot lunch! Check out the Fair Preview list below. I celebrated my first year as the Master Gardener Coordinator and have been really enjoying myself. You are a wonderful group of people and you are doing such important work for the community. Thank you so much for all you do! Cheers, Shelly Hypertufa Workshop Part 1 By Karla McGrail About a dozen LCMGs and friends spent some time Saturday morning, October 22 making a hypertufa pot, led by Shelby Foley and Karla McGrail. We got just messy enough to have a good time! Hypertufa pots are lightweight weatherproof planting pots, excellent for rock garden plants and dwarf conifers. Hypertufa is so named because it's a synthetic version of a naturally-occurring porous rock called tuff or tufa. It is made of mixture of portland cement, peat moss, perlite and water. Workshop participants shaped this mixture thickly over a plastic bowl form. Some people decorated their creations with bits of stone, shells or glass. When the hypertufa sets up, the bowl forms are removed and the pot cures until the part 2 session scheduled for December 15: PLANTING! 4 Germinator

5 Please Welcome the Class of 2016! Jing Chen is currently employed at Rockwell Collins. She was very excited to be in the program and is looking forward to the volunteer opportunities of being a Master Gardener. Julie Clemens retired from AEGON in July! She is very passionate about gardening and working in the dirt. Chelsea DeLarm is employed by the Catherine McAuley Center. She is dedicated to her community and loves to garden thanks to the LCMG who worked with her at the Center garden. Charlie Dudak is an employee of Alliant Energy. He loves designing gardens and seeing the results of putting the different variety of plants together. Karla Goettel is a professional singer and voice teacher. She loves to garden and is always looking to learn more about flowers. Donna McCabe is a former educator. She works at the Hy-Vee garden center April-June. She is looking to improve her cultivation skills and choosing flowers for the right locations. Continued Page 6 Susan McKinnon is working in Health Services for the CR School District. She is a home gardening enthusiast and has over 200 hostas and 150 daylilies in her yard. She also recently planted a butterfly garden. Paula MacNider works at Rockwell Collins. She love, love, loves gardens and wants to learn more, and share that knowledge with others along with spending time with individuals who have the same passion. Maeghan MacDougall is a domestic engineer (9 children) and co-op director. She was a MG in 1995 in Connecticut. She currently home school teaches grades She is looking forward to being back in the program and gardening with others. December 5

6 Continued From Page 5 Linda Miller is retired from Rockwell Collins. She is looking forward to share and help others enjoy the green. She is not afraid to get dirty, sweat or break a nail! Renae Moody is employed at Option of Linn County. She wants to become a Master Gardener to be able to teach others the benefits of having a garden. Leah Striegel is employed at Outdoor Creations. She will lways remember listening to the Master Gardeners on WMT with her Grandmother. She wants to become a Master Gardener to share knowledge with others on gardening. Eagle Scout Service Project at Lowe Park Greenhouse By Phil Pfister On Saturday, October 29, Brendan Klostermann and his team of six parents and ten Boy Scouts, worked at the Lowe Park Greenhouse to complete work towards Brendan s Eagle Scout badge. The project included: building a mixing tumbler that we will use to mix our potting mix, rather than mixing it in the wheelbarrow, constructing a deck on the west end of the greenhouse for the tumbler to sit, adding casters and reinforcing three of the greenhouse benches, reinforcing two additional benches and building three raised beds which will be placed on the south side of the greenhouse after we move plants next spring. The mixing tumbler will allow us to mix larger batches of potting mix in less time with less exposure to dust. The raised beds will provide a more favorable growing area where, depending on the year, the ground can be quite wet, and the mobility of the benches will provide more flexibility as we shift things around for workshops and classes, and growing activities. The project was well organized, and effectively run. We have a lot of plants growing for upcoming classes and events, and they all had to be moved in order for the work to be done on the benches. All this was done with great care and efficiency and all completed in about 4 hours. Our thanks to Brendan for picking the Lowe Park Greenhouse for his Eagle Scout Service Project, and to all the scouts and parents for the great work and attention to detail, including cleaning up at the completion of the project. 6 Germinator

7 Volunteer Spotlight Pauline Polly Draker By Linda Skvor Meet Polly Draker! Polly admits she s a farm girl at heart and grew up just south of Iowa City. A graduate of the University of Iowa with degrees in psychology and nursing, Polly works full time for a home health agency in the Cedar Rapids area. She decided to pursue the Master Gardener program in the fall of 2013 after her oldest child left home for college. She thought, at that time, that the classes and volunteering would help keep her busy and adjust to her daughter being away from home it worked! Her daughter, Nicole, is now a senior at Drake University in the pharmacy program and son, John, is a junior at Xavier. Husband, Dave, is a graduate of Iowa State in the agronomy field, so she lives in a house divided. No doubt their dog, Maggie, a sweet sheltie, enjoys their small acreage in Robins, which as Polly said provides that little extra space for outside projects and breathing room. When we bought the property I inherited a large perennial bed, a fair amount of shrubbery, many large oak trees and lots of hungry deer. I can often be found on weekend mornings tending to our yard. I love to roam through the greenhouses during the spring and summer months and experiment with "a little of this and a little of that'. Perennials are my favorites and I especially like peonies. I love the nostalgic feeling that is associated with many perennials. Polly found her niche volunteering at Lowe Park, starting with the New Year. She loves working with the young transplants, repotting and preparing for the spring plant sale. All of the recent pollinator talk got Polly interested in honey bees, so this past winter she enrolled in a beekeeping series at Wicki-up Hill. The classes have given me instruction throughout the year in establishing and maintaining two bee hives. It has been a year of learning to say the least. A few stings and a few frustrations later, I am happy to say that both hives are going strong as we go into the fall and winter months. I am planning to spend some of the winter down time reading and learning more. No honey this year as the hives are newly established, but am hoping for sweet success next fall. Polly said she considers herself a learning gardener rather than a Master gardener. My ongoing goal in being part of the program is to experience as many different learning opportunities as possible. If it has to do with a plant, I'm interested. Someday when I am retired and have a more leisurely schedule, I'm hoping to be well versed in a great hobby and better equipped to educate others. For now, I am enjoying my time spent around the "Masters" quietly listening and learning :) December 7

8 November 2016 Steering Committee Minutes DRAFT (Abridged for Germinator) Present: Steve Bartlett, Jackie Baumhauer, Beula Dvorak, Cindy Fagan, Darrell Hennessey, Sylvia Kelley, Sam Krumbholz, Jean Wilson, and Diane Wiesenfeld. Absent: Larry Dawson, Linda Hinzman, Jackie MacLaren, Kay McWhinney, Jane Schildroth, Linda Shepard. Guest: Shelly O Neal, Karla McGrail. Quorum established. Minutes of November 1, 2016: Approved. Announcements: Karla McGrail updated Planting for Pollinators and asked for continuing support for the Pollinator Project. They are expanding the educational component. Becki Lynch, Karla McGrail and Linda Hinzman are the chairs for this project. Support was approved unanimously. MGs may count volunteer hours if they are related to horticulture Financial Report: We have $5, as of June 30th. Mid November, a portion of the amount will be sent to the State Extension Office. MG Coordinator Report: Shelly will send out a MG hours report update to us. November 11 mid- December is the timeline to look for a new director. Shelly will attend a Non Profit Leadership Academy that consists of 80 hours of class time. Fall Celebration is November 18 from 6-8 at Lowe Park in Marion. Lime green shirts can still be worn, but new ones will be red and $48. There will be a sign up on the conference room door for anyone wishing to use it. The large conference room will have new information listed on how it should be left after use. Holliday Arrangements Class: December 1 from 6:30-8 at Lowe Greenhouse. New Business: The nominating committee is submitting three new members to serve on the Steering Committee. They are: Peggy Green, Glen Babinat and Cathy Carew. They will be invited to the December meeting as guests. We will elect officers next month. Next Meeting is December 6 at 6:30pm. Project and Committee Reports November, 2016 Charlene Woeste Plant Sale: Gallon and larger pots are available for plant sale donations this fall in the compost bin by the Lowe Park Greenhouse. If containers are needed, please take what you need. Creative Gardening Series: All three CGS speakers are confirmed. April 11 will be Kelly Norris presenting "Plants with Style." April 18 will be David Morton (head gardener at Brucemore) presenting on the history of the Brucemore gardens and the plants grown there. April 25 will be Susan Appleget Hurst presenting "40 Fast and Fabulous Ideas for Outdoor Decor." All speakers are at 6pm at the Cedar Rapids Public Library (Whipple Auditorium). Community Outreach Gardens: All the community gardens are being put to rest for the winter season, and soon planning for next season will begin. Impressive amounts of produce from the raised beds in downtown 8 Germinator

9 Marion have been donated to the Marion Food Pantry: 32#spinach and lettuce; 14 -stalks celery; 43-radishes (not many this year); 3#-peas; 11#- beets; 20#green beans; 8#carrots; 11#zucchini; 25#cucumbers; 126#tomatoes; 4.5#peppers. Demo Gardens: Lowe Park - Thanks to a grant from the Linn County Witwer Trust Grant, we were able to order 12 more trees and 2 small fruits for the orchard as Lowe Park. We ordered Paw Paws, chestnuts, hickory, pecan, persimmon, and Aronia Berries, which will be delivered in April. This doubles the number of trees in the orchard, and provides a nice variety. Noelridge - Over 800 people attended the 5th Annual Eastern Iowa Orchid Show at Noelridge over the weekend of Oct A large orange Vanda orchid from the Noelridge Greenhouse orchid collection received 2 awards. The plant is probably 40 years old with over 50 flowers. This is the 5th national award for Noelridge in the last 2 years. For the second year, the All American Selections Garden at Noelridge has won first place in the AAS Landscape Design Contest in their classification. The theme this year was Pollinator Education, and with the participation of the Linn County Master Gardeners and Friends of Noelridge, the summer included numerous opportunities for educating the public on pollinators. This is the 3rd award for the AAS gardens at Noelridge in 3 years. Volunteering inside the greenhouse continues for the next few weeks. Volunteer hours at Noelridge for the month of September were hours with 29 of those MG hours. Year to date total hours (July thru Sept) are Expert Education: The Expert Ed Committee will have a planning meeting on Thursday, November 3 at 6:30 at the Collin Rd Hy-Vee. Fall Celebration: Fall Celebration is scheduled for Friday, November 18 at Lowe Park at 6:30 p.m. Further details will be forth coming. From the Ground Up: From the Ground Up is finishing up at Viola Gibson School. We are seeing 78 fourth graders there. Garden Walk: Three gardens have been secured to be included on the 2017 Garden Walk. We are still looking for 2 more. Green House: Our Make a Hypertufa Planter Workshop on Saturday, 22 October 2016 resulted in 14 containers that are now curing before being planted during the workshop on December 15. Karla McGrail and Shelby Foley led the workshop. They were assisted by Sandy Fiegen, Tina Patterson, and Doug Smith. There will be a nice selection of succulents available for planting in the containers. We held a maintenance work session at the greenhouse on Thursday, October 20, Tasks completed include, repairing the leak in the roof, replacing the fan belt on the west fan, replacing the supply hoses to the utility sink and cleaning the faucet, adjusting the heat curtain, and cleaning out the area where the drain daylights in the rain garden. December 9

10 Fall events at the Lowe Park Greenhouse: December 15, 2016: Part 2 of the Make and Plant a Hypertufa Container: 6:30 p.m. 8:00 p.m. Workshop #2, Plant your hypertufa container December 1, 2016: Holiday Arrangements: 6:30 8:00 p.m.; Material fee is $20.00; class size is limited to 20. Hortline: September s client report is listed below. We are on winter hours now: Guests 152; Questions 225; Compost 2; Insect 17; Pesticide 27; Prune 23; Pubs 5; Mulch 2; HHPN 4; Walk In 2 Committee met on October 26. The Hortline hours were discussed: Is 9:00-12:00 and 1:00-4:00 too many hours to be open for the number of calls we have. Many people use the internet now for garden research. Wil is researching the last two years of log sheets to determine busiest hours. Committee will meet again once data is examined and make recommendations to the Steering Committee. The log, pending and summary sheets were updated. New Intern Training was also discussed. A notice will be sent out as to training times which might be in January. DVD/CD check out system will be updated and clarified. Library books will be inventoried and the list updated. No library books can be checked out. Publications will be updated if necessary. Client s were also discussed. Janice will order 500 magnets with Hortline phone number and address so they can be given out at the WGF and at library and other presentations. That will get the word out that Hortline volunteers are available to give them help with their gardening questions. Thanks to the committee members for all the input. Planting for Pollinators: The committee, represented by Karla McGrail, is presenting a request for approval for 2017 at the November Steering Committee meeting. Winter Gardening Fair: The Winter Gardening Fair is moving along well and on schedule. The program is formalized and has been submitted to Kirkwood for inclusion in the catalog. The brochures are complete and ready for distribution. Registration will open in November this year. Respectfully submitted, Sam Krumbholz, Secretary Linn County Extension Master Gardeners 383 Collins Road NE, Suite 201 Cedar Rapids, IA ph (319) Hortline (319) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Many materials can be made available in alternative formats for ADA clients. To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 14th and Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC or call Germinator