Georgia Eacker, MG Coordinator, WSA Liaison, ,

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1 LOOSELEAF A Publication of the University of Maryland Extension Howard County Master Gardeners 3300 NORTH RIDGE ROAD, SUITE 240 ELLICOTT CITY, MD (410) FAX (410) NOVEMBER 2016 INSIDE 2 Native vs Invasive & MPEA news 3 Oella Pilgrimage Tour 4 Calendar Highlights 4 Seed Swap & Rake 'n Take 5 Continuing Education & Ground Hog 6 Latin for Gardeners: American Holly 7 Patuxent Research Refuge SYH 8 Landscape Lessons UPDATE FROM GEORGIA The weather on Saturday, October 8, was rainy and cool, which was not good for the outdoor event held at the Central MD Research and Education Center on Folly Quarter Road. In spite of the uninviting weather, MGs were there! Thank you to Ann Coren, Richard Freas and Sharon Smith who staffed the Bay-Wise exhibit. In addition, Greg Jones, Clare Openshaw, Barbara Smith and Lenore Studt provided information to visitors at the Ask a Master Gardener (AAMG) table. Hats off to these folks who volunteered their time on a rainy day. The AAMG group will be meeting Friday, October 28, to review the 2016 season and make plans for next year as they continue helping Howard County residents. A note of acknowledgement to Tina Grot who offered to explore the issue of diversity in relation to our MG programs. She and I met to discuss some ideas that she will be exploring. Tina welcomes support and help! Please share your ideas with her at tinagrot@gmail.com Preparations are being made for next year s interns! The 2017 Master Gardener Training begins January 23 and concludes on March 29. Please consider helping by providing morning snacks and/or assisting with classes by setting up the laptop and distributing materials. Remember that you are welcome to attend classes on topics of interest to you. Your attendance may be counted toward your requirement of ten hours of continuing education for Before the end of the year, take time to evaluate your 2016 garden. And enjoy the holidays! Georgia Eacker, MG Coordinator, WSA Liaison, , geacker@umd.edu The University of Maryland Extension programs are open to any person and will not discriminate against anyone because of race, age, sex, color, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry, national origin, marital status, genetic information, political affiliation, and gender identity or expression.

2 NATIVE VS INVASIVE AT THE MPEA A determined crew of Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, MPEA employees and civilians is trying to help the native red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) resist being overcome by the very aggressive autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) by planting new cedars and rescuing existing cedars in the Middle Patuxent Environmental area (MPEA). The red cedar is the most widely distributed eastern conifer and can survive for more than 450 years. While fairly hardy, its growth is often limited by lack of available sunlight, since young trees do not tolerate shade. Also, it usually takes two years for the seed cones to germinate. That time is reduced if seeds pass through the digestive system of various birds and mammals. The threat to this native sometimes comes from autumn olive, an East Asian import that was introduced in 1830 as an ornamental, for windbreaks, to restore degraded lands, and for wildlife habitat. The USDA Soil Conservation Service actually developed and distributed several cultivars of this plant, which has some value because it can grow on bare mineral substrates and is useful for restoring degraded land. Unfortunately, it displaces and out-competes our native plants, creates dense shade A summer s growth of mile-a-minute obscures a cedar planted last year. (not good for cedars), interrupts the natural plant succession, and interferes with nutrient cycling. Within three years of germination, it can produce as many as 66,000 seeds (which are also dispersed by birds and mammals) and will re-sprout vigorously when burned, cut, or mowed. Although both plants have benefits, only red cedar really belongs here and is ultimately more beneficial because it does not harm native plants or dominate the landscape. This is why MGs and others have decided to get involved in the struggle on the side of this native conifer. Aylene Gard, MG1998, kgmerger@verizon.net Red cedar planting crew survey the site and test the soil.!! Last Call Join us at the MPEA for Conservation Stewardship November 22 (Tuesday, 9-11:30a) will be the day of our Autumn Olive Annihilation #2 at the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area (MPEA). We have been fighting invasive olive since the park opened. This Tuesday morning we will continue our efforts to rid the MPEA of this woody pest. We ll be in the same area as our October effort. Visible progress at this particular site means that we should be able to plant natives in place of the unwanted olives next year! Wear long sleeves and a hat. Bring water and your favorite gloves. We ll have tools. Park on the street near the South Wind Circle trailhead. Aylene Gard, MG1998, kgmerger@verizon.net Consulting on appropriate hole depth. LooseLeaf November 2016 page 2

3 OELLA PILGRIMAGE TOUR This former Howard County BayWise garden will be open during the Oella Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage in May. The stone walls of a former horse stable frame the garden. Photo credit: Geoffrey Baker Photography Former Howard County BayWise Garden Needs Help One of the stops along the Oella Pilgrimage Tour is a former Howard County BayWise garden, intriguingly set within the confines of stone wall ruins of the horse stable that once served the Oella mill. The garden was lovingly designed and maintained by former Howard County MG Lisa Baum, who opened her beautiful garden for an annual Howard County BayWise Tour. New owners purchased the property a handful of years ago, and while they fully appreciate the amazing riverside setting of the delightful modern home, they admit they aren t gardeners at heart. The ravages of deer, weather, and time have taken their toll on the garden. The Oella tour committee is seeking MG assistance this fall/winter to revive this garden in time for the May tour. MGs willing to help guide the owners in selecting sitespecific, hopefully readily available, deer-resistant, low maintenance, primarily native plants should contact MG liaison Lisa Wingate at wingatelj@aol.com. It s a very specific project that in turn will benefit the greater community, as proceeds from the Oella MHGP tour will be reinvested in enhancing the Ellicott City/Oella Entrance Garden, the Trolley Trail and the Oella Cemetery. The first Oella MHGP in 2008 provided the initial funding for creation of the Entrance Garden. Along with community and local government assistance, MG expertise and labor continue to maintain The Entrance Garden adjacent to the Ellicott City bridge. Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage (MHGP) Tour Returns to Oella in May The MHGP has opened homes, churches, museums, and gardens to the public annually since On May 13, 2017, the Pilgrimage tour returns to Oella, the historic community across the Patapsco River from Ellicott City s Main Street. An eclectic mix of historic and modern structures are nestled into the steep and rocky river banks, creating a unique community full of charm and surprises. Please mark your calendar to volunteer for, or participate in, the Oella Pilgrimage tour. The Ellicott City/Oella Entrance Garden was The Ellicott City/Oella Entrance Garden significantly damaged by the July 30th flood. After MGs and other community volunteers removed multiple wheelbarrows full of silt and planted replacement native plants, Lauren's Garden Service renewed the grassy areas. This garden was created initially with proceeds from the 2008 Oella Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage, and it will be a stop on the 2017 Pilgrimage as well. LooseLeaf November 2016 page 3

4 MARK YOUR CALENDAR! View the MG electronic calendar in your preferred format: Month, Week or Agenda. Click here for the calendar. You will find times, locations, and contact info for these events in November. HIGHLIGHTS FOR NOVEMBER: 7 Bay-Wise Meeting 8 Continuing Education - MG Training Programs 15 Compost Committee Meeting 20 LooseLeaf Deadline! 22 Conservation Stewardship at MPEA COMPOST COMMITTEE MEETING TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15 Planning for 2017 will be the main topic of discussion during our Compost Committee meeting. We ll also review the 2016 activities and accomplishments. We welcome new members who would like to help us help Howard County residents with backyard composting and vermicomposting. During the coming year we will schedule compost demonstrations, compost bin giveaways, and school visits. The meeting will start at 10:00 am on Tuesday, November 15. Location is the large conference room at the UME office. We look forward to seeing you. Darcy Bellido de Luna, MG2013, darcybell@me.com and Janine Grossman, MG2012, janinegrossman@gmail.com GET YOUR NEIGHBORS TO RAKE & TAKE! Tell your friends and neighbors that we have an alternative to sending leaves to the Howard County Landfill. MG Pat Hooker coordinates our long-standing effort to match rakers with takers. Here s how the program works: rakers and takers register annually and indicate how many bags of leaves they have (to get rid of) or how many bags they would like to receive. Pat maintains a database to match the two groups. Leaves are great for backyard composting and some MGs chop leaves for mulching their gardens. Rakers need to bag the leaves. Bags should not exceed 20 pounds, and should not contain leaves with herbicides or other chemical residue. Pat connects rakers with takers via telephone or . Please contact MG Pat Hooker for more information: or phooker9440@gmail.com COMMUNITY SEED SWAP AT MILLER LIBRARY Enjoy a community of gardeners, get gardening tips and SWAP SEEDS. Seed swaps are an act of sharing that promote biodiversity and recycle precious resources. If you have seeds, please package them in individual bags, label them with the name of the flower, vegetable or herb, required growing conditions and date of harvest. You may bring unused commercial seeds in original packages no more than one year old. Non-hybridized seeds preferred. If you do not have seeds to share come anyway! Extra seeds available. MILLER LIBRARY ( ) Saturday, January 28 th, 1-3pm (Extended time) In partnership with Howard County Master Gardeners Registration preferred Ann Hackeling, MG2013, ann.hackeling@hclibrary.org Enchanted Garden Coordinator and Research Specialist, Howard County Library LooseLeaf November 2016 page 4

5 A REMINDER > Any mention of specific products or businesses in LooseLeaf does not imply or constitute endorsement by UME. > You ll want to earn 10 continuing education hours during 2016 to remain certified. Ideas: Go to an MG presentation at the library, attend a UME workshop, read a book on your favorite gardening topic, or go to the Continuing Education sessions. > On presentation slides, fliers, posters, brochures, signs, news releases, etc., always use our full name: University of Maryland Extension Howard County Master Gardeners. This request comes from the University to support branding efforts of the MG program CONTINUING EDUCATION SPEAKER SERIES MGs, Watershed Stewards, Master Naturalists and their guests are welcome to attend. All sessions are held at the UME office, unless noted otherwise. Please check the MG electronic calendar for updates. Please submit your ideas for 2017 Continuing Education speakers, field trips, and/or workshops to either Karin or Joanna during the month of November. Also, if you have any interest in helping the Continuing Education Speaker committee for 2017, please contact us. You are welcome to assist with arranging speakers and/or set-up/clean-up for monthly presentations. Thank you to everyone who attended one or more speaker sessions this year! As always, we appreciate not only your attendance, but your ideas and suggestions. Contact info: Karin DeLaitsch kdlaitsch@gmail.com, or Joanna Cumbie rladywalking@msn.com NOVEMBER 8 9:30-11:00 am Upcoming Advanced MG Training, plus Overview of Other State MG Programs, Activities, & Training Alicia Bembeneck, University of Maryland Extension State Training Coordinator THE GROUND HOG early spring! The groundhog (woodchuck) is looking for a winter place to dig a burrow for hibernation. Their common predators are fox, wolves, coyotes, bobcats and bears. Groundhogs are inches long and can weigh as much as 14 pounds. They are mostly herbivorous: eating wild grasses, vegetation, berries, and agricultural crops. Clover, dandelions and alfalfa are their preferred foods. They also eat grubs, grass-hoppers, snails, but are not omnivorous. Groundhogs are most active during the day and can eat 1 to 1½ pounds of food a day. In Punxsutawney, PA (halfway between the Allegheny and Susquehanna rivers), a groundhog famously named Phil resides in a climate-controlled home at the library. His weather report on February 1 predicts six more weeks of winter, or an JanMarie Wms-Nguyen, MG2006, vcn999@aol.com LooseLeaf November 2016 page 5

6 LATIN FOR GARDENERS November's Native Maryland Plant: Ilex opaca (EYE-leks oh-pak-ah) Ilex opaca Aiton* American Holly, the state tree of Delaware, is a fabulous native plant to consider, whether you are talking turkey for Thanksgiving or thinking of decking the halls for Christmas. Ilex opaca s red drupes are consumed by many birds; most notably cedar waxwing but also wild turkey. The spine-tipped evergreen foliage provides year-round cover for wildlife and is often used to decorate homes during the holidays. This tree can reach great heights but is often planted as an understory tree due to its strong tolerance of shade. Ilex opaca are dioecious, plants are either male or female. The female trees have drupes which is a positive way to identify a female tree. The best way to identify a male tree is to look at the spring flowers. Males have staminate flowers and females have pistillate flowers. In researching the history of the genus Ilex I found it has somewhat of a circular meaning. Ilex is named for Quercus ilex, the holm oak, which looks like holly and Quercus ilex is named for Ilex because the holm oak looks like holly. What s important to note is the genus Ilex includes a large number of trees and shrubs in the family Aquifoliaceae, including hollies, that have small flowers and berries. The specific epithet, opaca means opaque or dull, in reference to the non-lustrous leaves. *William Aiton ( February 1793) was a Scottish botanist. He traveled to London in 1754, and in 1759 he was appointed director of the newly established botanical garden at Kew, where he remained until his death. Alison Milligan, MG 2013, ali_milligan@yahoo.com LooseLeaf November 2016 page 6

7 PATUXENT RESEARCH REFUGE SCHOOLYARD HABITAT We did it! We turned a cable trench into a piece of paradise! Last winter a new roof and solar panels were installed on the National Wildlife Visitor Center. The SYH lies between the parking lot and the building, so machinery driven across the SYH left behind a swath of naked land, square feet, which we needed to rehabilitate. We embraced this as an opportunity to engage lots of people in the process of Conservation (Bay Wise) landscaping. Among the many celebrations with this project, one was our partnership between Howard and Prince Georges Counties Master Gardeners: four from Howard County: Ann Coren, Anne Cottle, Cathy Kuehne, and Sue Priftis; three from Prince Georges County: Melina Meshako, Lucy Duff, and Amy Taylor. We were delighted to receive a Maryland 2016 Day to Serve minigrant from the Maryland Governor's Commission on Service and Volunteerism for our event, Planting for Pollinators. The mini-grant helped us entice new volunteers to the experience of planting a native plant garden by providing the money for the plants and deer repellent. Friends of Patuxent funded tools, edging and supplies. This summer we designed the garden and rehabilitated the compacted clay by slicing in compost. In August we laid out the garden design, installed edging and a drip watering system. Start-to-finish, the project took six months, engaging 70 volunteers who logged 736 hours of work. That s not counting all the amazing sweat equity from everyone on the Refuge staff including Refuge Manager, Brad Knudsen. In spite of extreme heat on September 10 and 11, 56 intrepid volunteers attended four sessions over the two days. Participants, who ranged in age from 2½ years old to senior citizens, were divided into smaller groups led by Master Gardeners who supervised and instructed. Volunteers included a church group, Boy Scout, Girl Scouts, college sorority, homeschoolers, families and individuals. Besides planting, each session had a workshop on How To Do Conservation Landscaping in their own yards. We planted 3,154 plants. Ann Coren, MG 2013, anncoren@hotmail.com LooseLeaf November 2016 page 7

8 Low Maintenance in the Garden, Part Three: Flowering Plant Recommendations Before we discuss the final subject in this series, let me address a concern raised by one of our readers (Judy Fulton) regarding invasiveness and Rose of Sharon (ROS) shrubs. Judy's question reminds me I should have mentioned that ROS throw down seedlings that can be controlled in the yard by a heavier than average mulch layer. The seeds can be blown by the wind, however, into neighboring yards but are not normally spread by animals. The ROS does not currently appear on the Maryland DNR or National Park Service lists of invasive species for our area. Nevertheless, readers who would rather avoid any whiff of invasiveness can choose a different recommended shrub or a sterile cultivar of this plant (developed by the National Arboretum). Judy suggested another alternative with which I am not personally familiar, but I will mention here in case you wish to consider it: blackhaw (Viburnum prunifolium). LANDSCAPE LESSONS Another thing I should clarify before we continue is that an important factor in the "easy maintenance" plants I recommend is ready availability. Local nurseries and big box stores will normally carry them in their spring and fall inventories. The final discussion then, in this series, concerns flowering plants. It is not unusual for clients who want low or easy maintenance to tell me they want "color" and "interest" in their gardens. This usually elicits another wince from me because plants offering abundant color or interest generally fall into the higher maintenance categories. And I've learned not to mention annuals to low maintenance clients as the regimen of buying, planting, deadheading, and watering annuals makes their eyes glaze over. So what are the choices for me to recommend? The results will not surprise you. I will simply list them: coneflowers (purple, white, black-eyed), bee balm, tiger lilies, autumn joy sedum, heuchera, Blue Hill salvia, coreopsis, hosta, variegated liriope, Japanese anemone. For the owner willing to do one-time planting of bulbs: daffodils, crocus, and hyacinth. The last three should be high quality and planted deep for longer lasting effect. There are other plants that are fairly easy to maintain once established, but can be tricky to get started, so I generally avoid recommending those. I hope you have found this series on low maintenance gardening useful and interesting. I welcome and encourage your suggestions. Roy Heath, MG 2011, therents2001@yahoo.com Photo above is Japenese anemone; Photos below, left to right, autumn joy sedum, bee balm flower, bee balm. LooseLeaf November 2016 page 8