June 2016 Newsletter June 20, 7 pm Program: Tour, Ada Hayden Heritage Park Hospitality: None NOTE: Please wear your nametags to the meetings.

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1 June 2016 Newsletter June 20, 7 pm Program: Tour, Ada Hayden Heritage Park Hospitality: None NOTE: Please wear your nametags to the meetings. The President s Row Master Gardeners are an intrepid lot. Many of you made it to the meeting last month even with a last minute change of venue. Meeting at City Hall gave us an opportunity to see the courtyard that our Association landscaped several years ago. If you get a chance, check out the downtown Gardens, Cynthia Duffy and Tom Evans. Lisa Hein and her committee have them looking nice. We gave a donation to the Iowa Arboretum to help with hiring an intern. Their efforts to hire one were unsuccessful. The board approved the arboretum request to use the money to hire a person to weed and perform maintenance. If you need volunteer hours, they could use the help. This month s meeting is at Ada Hayden at 7:00. Wear appropriate clothing. Tom Jordan 2016 SCMGA President SCMGA Meeting May 16, 2016 Minutes for May SCMGA meeting (5/16/16) Held at Ames City Council Chambers, City Hall (due to kitchen electrical fire at Reiman) At 7:00, while we waited for late arrivals to new location, we toured the Courtyard Garden designed and planted by SCMGA beginning in Beginning at 7:17, a 1 hour talk and slide show by Lisa Harmison: Trees: Choosing, Planting and Care in the Urban Landscape Business meeting called to order by President Tom Jordan at 8:35 after snacks 1. No corrections to April minutes; approved as ed in May Newsletter Page 1 of 5

2 2. Treasurer s report (Brenda Kruse): 7,087.44$ in account. A $200 donation by the Severson family was given to the SCMGA Plant Sale in Dennis memory. The 2016 Plant Sale Extravaganza grossed 11,594$ for SCMGA, up 123% from 9,694$ in DMF comprised 32% of our sales in 2016 vs ~50% of our sales in 2015 likely due to poor quality of plants shipped. 3. Jane Tomesch brought a bucket of canna lily bulbs (6-7 ft red) to share thank you! 4. Bronwyn Frame read a note (via Anita Campbell) about Will Ries Iowa Water Scapes pond tour scheduled for June 5, 2-6 PM (will@iowawaterscapes.com). 5. BF also read Anita Campbell s note asking for more than the 8 SCMGA volunteers that signed up at our last meeting to help CIWGA run their Ames and vicinity pond tour on July 16 th. Her contact information for those interested in signing up is: anicam2000@aol.com or or Lisa Hein (VP) announced that June 20 meeting will be at Ada Hayden meet at north (main) shelter at 7PM. July s meeting is substituted by the CIWGA pond tour. 7. Kristi Evans announced that the 2016 Iowa Regional Lily Society Show is June 25 at Reiman Gardens in Ames 8. Discussion about favorite catalogues/distributors and nurseries for plant and tree purchases: Mike Bevins (Woodward) for Iowa native trees and shrubs; Stark Bros. mail-order trees comment made that try to buy trees from outlet in same zone as yours; Gilbert H Wild and Son; Pam Mauer at Evergreen Gardens (and a Master Gardener) in Ames for conifers; Alliant Energy Releaf (note spelling) Program is a good source of trees; Lisa H. ordered a specific tree she wanted from Lowe s she had to wait a season, but it came; 2 people voiced that they were unhappy with plants from Nature Hill. 9. Marty recounted the story of trying to save the very old and huge white oak partly on Wheatsfield s property not a happy ending. Meeting adjourned at 9PM Respectfully submitted (on behalf of Andrea Dorn) Bronwyn Frame Announcements SCMGA Dues are due. Please send $10 to Brenda Kruse, P.O. Box 164, Ames, IA or bring to the next meeting Dear fellow Master Gardeners and Master Gardener Interns, A brief post-sale update to May 30th. Have a great summer everyone! Weather for sale set-up on Thursday, May 5 was perfect, and continued throughout the weekend aside from the occasional light shower on Saturday. However, graduation being held at the Stadium on Saturday did dampen our mid-late afternoon Saturday salesj Member-plant drop-off and sale setup went very well thanks to Ann Wilbur s leadership and our professional pricing team (Don Draper, Jackie Runyan, Dee Draper). Our member-provided plants were plentiful and in great condition this year beautifully labeled too. Thanks for sharing your gardens and thanks to Ann Wilbur and Michelle Boswell for making labels and centralizing their availability on the new facebook page. We sold all but ~120 of our member plants and gave some remaining plants to Evergreen Lane, Nevada and to a MG project at ACCESS, Ames. Page 2 of 5

3 Overall, SCMGA grossed 11,594$ - up 123% from Net profit numbers will be communicated this fall once costs for tent and table have been shared proportionately with the other groups and we have paid DMF. This was the first time that SCMGA sold member-plants on Friday night and given that our member-plant sales/hour on Friday were $659 compared to $446 and $214 on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, it was well worth it. DMF sales comprised 50% of our sales in 2015 and 32% of sales in 2016 attributable, in part, to the poor quality of plants DMF sent us this year. It is also possible that sale of member plants on Friday night substituted for DMF sales last year we only sold DMF on Friday, no member plants. Thanks to Candy Bostrom, Jane Tomesch, Jaclyn Hill and Kristi Evans for all their work on DMF. Note that this year, SCMGA members were also invited to shop at Friday s RG-members-only sale. In addition to Reiman staff, and Hort undergrad and grad organizers who worked the sale (which was open for business for 16 hours over 3 days), we had 45 enthusiastic volunteers sign up as general sales-days volunteers through SCMGA (this is in addition to the 23 MG and wonderful MG interns who worked Thursday s set up). Most sale volunteers were MG or MG interns great to meet and work with so many MG-interns volunteers this year but we also had 4 Hort graduate students and 3 Reiman Garden volunteers sign up as general volunteers a huge thank you to all the set up and sale volunteers. It was a long but rewarding weekend - it was an added joy to see Mark Eimers at the sale! The holding table was the scene of considerable action this year, with many (but not all) customers taking price tags instead of plants to the cash register and returning (by car) with their receipt to the holding table to pick up their plants. This served to ease traffic at the registers as planned (although we did keep tag-pullers at the registers after all as many folks carried their own plants), but enough well-designed space had not been allotted at the holding table. This will need more thought for next year. Thanks to Sharon Wilson and Kathy Clark and the holding table crew for all their patience and on-the-spot problem solving on that busy end. And to Brenda Kruse, Michelle Boswell, Robin Sassman and Carole Bunde for running the cash registers at the other busy end. Thanks to Joan Peterson and Jackie Runyan for donating the majority of shared pots and to Diana Adkins who coordinated the pot-sharing and the digging and to everyone who dug. It was a tour de force! We could have used even more pots this year, so please folks, save all your pots from your summer plantings so we will not be short for next year s sale. Finally, from all of us on the SCMGA 2016 Plant Sale Planning Committee, a big thank you to everyone for all the time, expertise, leadership, and enthusiasm you invested in this year s sale. For digging, pot-sharing, plant-donating, advertising, pricing, sign-holder making, inventorying, foodproviding, cart-sharing, label making, communicating, table-hauling, banner-hanging, plant watering, tent opening, tent closing, and up-cleaning. What a team! The 2016 Plant Sale Planning Committee Ann Wilbur, Andrea Dorn, Brenda Kruse, Candy Bostrom, Dee Draper, Don Draper, Diana Adkins, Jackie Runyan, Jaclyn Hill, Jane Tomesch, Michelle Boswell, Robin Sassman, Sharon Wilson, Bronwyn Frame ******* Garden Produce Collection Begins Monday, June 20 Page 3 of 5

4 Plant a Row for the Hungry is collecting locally-grown fruits and vegetables for ACCESS, Bethesda Community Food Pantry, MICA Food Pantry, Salvation Army food pantry, and Food at First. Gardeners may take donations of fruits and vegetables to the maintenance shed at Reiman Gardens, 1407 University Boulevard, on Mondays from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. Volunteers will accept produce June 20 through October 17 except no collection on July 4 and Labor Day September 5. Reiman Gardens staff will have a cart for gardeners to drop off produce in the lobby area 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the Saturdays and Sundays of collection weeks. Plant a Row for the Hungry is an international effort that helps gardeners make a difference in their communities by sharing excess produce with those in need. Follow the progress on Facebook at PARStoryCounty, on the web at and the progress board on the southeast corner of Lincoln Way and University Boulevard in Ames. This year s collection goal is 8,000 pounds of produce. Lynette Spicer Ames, Iowa Publicity (Please let me know if you or any other SCMGA ers are mentioned in the media so we can inform the rest of the association. It s always good to know when the public learns about the great work our members do - Andrea) Opportunities for Service and Education Service Volunteer to give a presentation at the SCMGA meetings Help out at Evergreen Lane in Nevada. This is a Victorian garden maintained by MG volunteers and other groups. Contact Andrea Dorn at adorn@iowatelecom.net to find out more. My name is Patty Yoder and I am the Exec. Director/Coordinator of Food At First here in Ames. We have a garden that was started by the Sustainable Ag students which then provided vegetables for distribution at our pantry (we call Free Market) and also for cooks to use for meal preparation. We are wondering if there might be some gardeners that may be interested in helping with such a project. It is for a very worthwhile cause and it is quite a nice garden with an irrigation system, rain barrels etc. If anyone would like to learn more about this opportunity, please give them my contact info and we can go from there. My cell number is Page 4 of 5

5 Education SCMGA 2015 Program Calendar June 20 th 7pm Program: Garden tour, Ada Hayden Heritage Park June 25 th Flower Show: Iowa Regional Lily Society Show at Reiman Gardens July 16 th 9am 4pm; Garden Tour Central Iowa Water Garden Association Water Garden Tour August 15 th 7pm Program: Garden tour; Red Granite Farm, th St., Boone If you have any announcements you would like included in the SCMGA Newsletter, please the announcements to at least 3 weeks prior to the monthly meeting date. Sincerely, Andrea Dorn 2015 SCMGA Secretary SCMGA_Newsletter@hotmail.com Please contact your 2014 SCMGA Board of Directors, if you have questions or concerns: President Tom Jordan tjdljordan@yahoo.com Vice President Lisa Hein ldsage@msn.com Secretary Andrea Dorn SCMGA_Newsletter@hotmail.com Treasurer Brenda Kruse bkruse@mcfarlandclinic.com Directors at Large Michelle Boswell shell688@aol.com Ann Wilbur abwilbur54@gmail.com Jackie Runyan jackierunyan.ames@gmail.com Page 5 of 5