www.txmg.org/wichita Volume IX, No 5, May, 2017 Hello group, just wanted to announce a change and time for our May meeting. Steve Smith will be bringing our program. We will be meeting at his business, which is Smith's Garden's on Seymour Hwy. We will meet at 6:00 pm NOT 5:30. Hope everyone gets this email. Please pass along this message to others to make sure everyone knows the change. This should be very interesting. JoAnn Local Events May 2, 6:00pm: The Wichita County Master Gardener Association meets at Smith s Gardentown, 4940 Seymour Hwy, Wichita Falls. May 18, 5:30pm: The Burkburnett Garden Club meets at First Bank, in their Community Room. Ben Walker will present a program May 27-29: Lawn & Garden Water Smart Tax Holiday (see back page for more information). Bluebonnet Power! Gardening is so rewarding! We have a stand of Bluebonnets in front of our house and a lady who drives our neighbor s kid to school knocked on our door and asked if she could take pictures of her baby girl with our bluebonnets. Of course I said sure! She was going to come back at the end of the week when she d be off work and I reminded her of storms in the forecast for that time frame, so she decided to come back later that afternoon. Photo by Hunley. About 6pm she arrived with her baby girl, husband, two sons and their puppy! What fun watching her pose the baby, and change her outfits for a new series of photos! Hunley and I visited with her husband about plants, grass and gardening in general. Hunley showed off our backyard to the husband and talked more about gardening and water conservation. Hunley ended up taking a photo of the whole family in our Bluebonnets! We made new friends and had a fun evening! Gail Enter your volunteer (15) & Training (6) hours in the MG volunteer management system https://texas.volunteersystem.org/ Association Contacts: JoAnn Plaxco, President, 692-8742; Anne Dohrer, Vice-president, 692-9022; Ann Keen, Secretary, 544-2279; Ernie Putthoff, Treasurer, 592-5463. State Directors: Barbara Mannen and Mary Barry; alternates: vacancy and Bonnie Jones. Educational programs of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service are open to all people without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information or veteran status. The Texas A&M University System, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the County Commissioners Courts of Texas Cooperating.
Interns Corner Here are some pictures from the Wichita County Health Fair where we assisted David Graf. We had a raised bed example, native plants, herbs, seed information and tomato plants. We had examples of compost and soil samples along with my backyard chickens. One of the pictures is Ted doing chair Zumba. Comments & Photos by Jill Miller. To the left is a picture of an iris my grandfather developed over 40 years ago. He never registered it because it was not a typical iris. They now have a new classification for iris-novelty Iriswhich allows such iris to be registered. The iris will be introduced this year, 38 years after my grandfather's death. Below, a cottontail and some of my other iris. Comments & Photos by Mary Rhoads.
Top left: Carol Crow and I as we are managing Home Depot and Lowes MG Education stations. Top right: Blue Bonnet pictures from RBNC!! Pic of my daughter Renee and grand daughter Alexa. Comments & Photos by Linda Jarvis. The Sheppard AFB s Madrigal Youth Center is reviving a 4-H gardening program for their youth on Wednesdays that will closely mirror the Junior Master Gardener program. In time, the program may in fact become a Junior MG program once applicable steps have been taken. The focus of this gardening program is to educate on-base elementary up to high school age children on horticulture activities; an understanding of the many different types of plants, soil, water, pests and diseases; and ownership in crafting one s own garden space with the raised beds at the youth center. Current rising Master Gardeners Benjamin Walker and Terry Ratcliff are spearheading this effort, hopefully adding Michelle Howard, and perhaps others, to the Madrigal Youth Center 4-H team in the near future. Some of the first events this spring for the children are to gather a personal notebook, learn the soil structure and composition in their freshly-groomed raised beds, sprout/germinate seeds from home, and lastly, get some plants in those raised beds before spring is over! For this coming week s after-school class, the focus is on bringing their notebook as well as seeds from fruits and vegetables gathered from home. Article & photos by Ben Walker.
Left: This appeared on my straw bale garden. The following is from Dr. Kevin Ong. "Slime molds belong in the phylum Myxomycota in the kingdom Protista. They are not a true fungus. These organisms exist in nature as a blob (plasmodium), similar to a amoeba. And they engulf their food, mostly bacteria. The slime mold that typically appear on mulches are from the genus, Fuligo. " I sprayed the blob with the water hose and it disappeared. I have since had two more blobs appear. My favorite Drift Rose. This is it's second year and it is producing beautiful small blooms. Comments & Photos by Becky Trammell. Bottom left: Tangerine Beauty Crossvine Right: Peggy Martin Rose. This is the rose that survived Hurricane Katrina. It was under 20' water for quite a long time. The next spring it came back. Dr. William Welch of A&M knew the owner of the property, Peggy Martin. He helped to bring this rose to the commercial market. It was a rose whose name had been lost to history. (Rose Historians have some ideas of the rose's real name.) Comments & Photos by Anne Dohrer.