A Newsletter of the Okaloosa County Master Gardener Association

April 2008

The Compost Pile

…for discerning weeders

The Meristem

Bob Bayer

March winds did blow but we did not have snow. We had some really cold days and it was a pleasure to be working in my greenhouse. The plants all seemed to be echoing my thoughts; will this winter weather ever be over? While most of them have responded well to the TLC they have received during the bleakness of winter, they all yearn for the warmth of the sun. We have had a few days, when it appeared that Spring had finally arrived, only to be disappointed that night when the temperature dipped back below freezing.

Here we are, it’s the middle of March and our Annual Plant Sale is only six weeks away. My small greenhouse is bulging with plants waiting to come outside for their final push. Last week, when I was at the nursery, the situation was the same there. We had a great work force, potting incoming plants and upgrading existing ones. Some of the plants can survive without a need for frost protection but some of the more tender ones must be under the protection of frost cloth. In both cases, finding places to store them was at a premium. A big Thank You to the people who stepped up as babysitters for these homeless plants and a bigger Thanks to the Frost Teams for the care they have constantly given to the ones residing in the nursery.

Speaking of the Plant Sale…when and if you read this article, we will be just days away from it. This is our major fundraiser and your help is important and necessary.

We are all volunteers and nobody can demand your help but I ask; Please be a part of the organization and come and support it. DO WHATEVER YOU CAN. If you feel, you are not physically capable of helping, fine, come and let us use your brains.

We have lost some people over the last year who were valuable assets to making our sale a success. Without them, the work they performed will be passed on to those that remain. We will always have the few that take on any burden, no matter how large or small and never complain. If everyone gave just a little extra effort, it would keep us from over burdening those few. The time for talking about it is just about over. Now is the time for you to act. Yes, I Mean YOU.

One of our fellow Master Gardeners recently asked me; “Why does everything seem to be about money lately? I wish there was a quick easy answer to this question but there is not. We could stop trying to raise funds but what would the result be? Look over the budget and see where the money goes. Do we want to give up those programs? As the population increases, will the demand for our services also increase? With the budget crunch, always getting worse, will the Extension Service be able to meet this demand?

Will Okaloosa County Master Gardeners continue to be leaders in the State by showing other counties how it can be done? If so, it may require using our funds, rather than what Extension will be able to provide. Our new bylaws require that we not raise funds without a purpose. What better purpose can there be than fulfilling the obligation of our existence, to provide the residents of Okaloosa County with an improved quality of life. Let us all give it some thought.

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Bring your Volunteer Hours sheets and

Contact Reports to the meeting

Help Save the Starving Butterflies

Mary Peterzen from Santa Rosa County writes:

Every year, the Butterfly House seems to run out of milkweed, parsley, dill and fennel in mid to late summer. The Butterfly Farm from which we order sends a great number of Monarchs, Queens and Eastern Black Swallowtails.

Our butterflies eat their way through the herbs we can grow and we wipe out the supply of the nearby garden centers.

I know you are furiously planting and repotting for our plant sale. If you have a few minutes, would you set aside some pots to start some herbs for the Panhandle Butterfly House.

Mary has asked for our help. If you have time and space, please consider a few pots to help them out. You can reach Mary at MEPeterzen@aol.com.

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A book review by Kathy Gresko

Continuous Bloom

A Month-By-Month Guide to Nonstop Color in the Perennial Garden

Written & photographed by Pam Duthie

Landscape designer and garden expert Pam Duthie has arranged 272 perennials according to bloom time so you can mix and match them to suit your garden. She is a Chicago-area gardener (zone 5), so many of the plants incorporated into this book are suitable for zones 3-9.

The book is arranged by season and then subdivided into separate months. Duthie presents 272 durable perennials organized by their month and length of bloom. She does note that the month of bloom can vary from two to four weeks from north to south in the United States, so it is necessary to use the month of bloom as a general guideline rather than as an absolute.

Each plant receives a full page of well-organized and beautifully photographed information, always in the same order: botanical name, common name, plant type, zone, description of flower, foliage color and habit, bloom length, light, soil, care, propagation, problems, and insider’s tips. Quite helpful is the final item: “Combines with:” which suggests companion plants.

One particularly nice feature of the book (which also makes it rather costly to purchase) is that each page is laminated so that you can take it with you to your garden and not worry about getting it wet or dirty.

Duthie’s final chapter, “Nitty-Gritty Tips for Good Garden Care”, and her several appendices are also quite useful. Hostas, astilbes & daylilies by color, perennials least affected by deer and rabbits, a nice listing of mail-order catalogs, and a long list of plant societies are just some of these informative pages. It is a well-designed and easy to use gardening book, of use to both novice and experienced gardeners.

Additional information can always be acquired through contact with our Okaloosa County Extension Office located at 5479 Old Bethel Road, Crestview, FL 32536-5512, telephone 689-5850. Master Gardeners are available to answer your gardening questions at that phone number, at no charge to you, or at http://ocmga.org. The Master Gardener program is associated with the University of Florida Institute of Food & Agriculture Sciences (IFAS whose website is edis.ifas.ufl.edu) and the Okaloosa County Horticulture Extension Agent. This book is part of the extensive collection of gardening books that are housed in the Valparaiso Community Library and have been donated by the Valparaiso Garden Club from plant sale efforts. The library is located at 459 Valparaiso Parkway and can be reached at 729-5406. All of these organizations provide excellent resources to our fellow gardeners.

March 2008

Kathy Gresko, Okaloosa County Master Gardener

And Valparaiso Garden Club

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GARDENING
(BY Phil, of course)

What’s In Your Backyard?

Pyracantha koidzumii ‘Santa Cruz’

(Formosa Firethorn ‘Santa Cruz’)

Sun: Requires full sun

Water Requirements:
Moderate to dry conditions

Climate/Hardiness Zones:
Zone 7 to Zone 10 

Growth:
Dirr says “Prostrate form grows 2 ½ to 3’ h x 5 to 10’ w.”

Flowers: White – Season - Spring

Foliage: Broadleaf evergreen

Fruit: Small red, Fall

Landscape value: Foundation planting, grouping

Other: Resistant to drought, heat tolerant

NOTE:  In searching for this plant (prostrate form) in Florida, there were only two counties in South Florida where they are growing.  Now, they have been growing in Shalimar for three years.  (ed. Google doesn’t know everything!!) They are being used as a low mass planting/ground cover.  This spring, the flowering is massive and hopefully the red berries will be also.

Yes, it has thorns but Pyracantha ‘Santa Cruz’ is a must for this county. 

Respectfully submitted,
Phyl Phylmingo
Advisor Emeritus

Information from Virtual PLANT TAGS

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Phyl and I both hope this is NOT growing in your backyard…

Kudzu, the Southern vine that makes Chia Pets of trees and telephone poles, may have yet another unwelcome characteristic: air pollution.

Researchers believe kudzu is releasing ground-level ozone, contributing to smog, breathing difficulties and global climate change.

"If we're right, then it'll be one more big reason to dislike kudzu," University of Virginia researcher Manuel Lerdau said of his preliminary findings.

The fast-growing plant covers an estimated 11,580 square miles in the United States, primarily in the Southeast. Annually, the vine adds 200 square miles to its domain.

Lerdau and fellow researcher Jonathan Hickman of the State University of New York at Stony Brook said they do not have enough data to state with certainty that kudzu warrants a major effort to curtail its growth. They are hopeful of presenting more definitive findings next year.

Kudzu produces two key ingredients of ozone: Its leaves emit a volatile organic compound called isoprene into the air, and its roots convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium, some of which can leak into the soil where it is converted by bacteria into nitric oxide.

In the presence of sunlight, isoprene and nitric oxide mix together to make ozone.

While many plants contribute to ozone pollution, it appears that kudzu works faster and produces larger quantities.

The native of Japan and China was introduced in the United States in 1876 as an ornamental plant at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. It was widely touted as a way to control soil erosion, and during the 1930s and 1940s the Civilian Conservation Corps planted vast amounts of the vine.

By 1953, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recognized that kudzu was spreading too rapidly and removed the vine from its list of recommended cover plants.

If the researchers' suspicions prove true, the science could have implications for public policy and the government might want to start attempting to halt the vine's unchecked growth, Lerdau said.

Sent by Shari…Reported by CBS News

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Last Word

Guilt!!! Every time I put something in the microwave now, I feel as if I am sealing our doom! Plastic covers in the microwave will leech terrible things into your food!! Plastic in the microwave is terrible in any form!!

OK. What does the FDA say about it…

Yes, there are plastic products that should not be used in the microwave…for instance, butter tubs. Guess we have all been guilty of that one. They were so hard to throw away. I’ll just put the last of the spaghetti in it and reheat it tomorrow. DON’T, says the FDA.

“…carryout containers from restaurants and margarine tubs should not be used in the microwave, according to the American Plastics Council. Inappropriate containers may melt or warp, which can increase the likelihood of spills and burns. Also, discard containers that hold prepared microwavable meals after you use them because they are meant for one-time use.

Microwave-safe plastic wrap should be placed loosely over food so that steam can escape, and should not directly touch your food. "Some plastic wraps have labels indicating that there should be a one-inch or greater space between the plastic and the food during microwave heating.” http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/features/2002/602_plastic.html

Even Urban Legends says reports of dire consequences are exaggerated but to follow the instructions and don’t use a plastic if it isn’t rated for the microwave.

In short…if it doesn’t say microwave safe, don’t use it to heat your food. And there is nothing wrong with a good microwave safe ceramic or china plate or bowl.

I know…this has nothing to do with MGs and horticulture but I was wondering about all the stories I had heard.

Speaking of MGs, please, please let Andy know what kinds of plants and how many and what size pots you will be bringing to the plant sale. She really needs this information for the inventory and then she will send the list to me to make labels. We hope we can avoid the bottleneck that not having labels on plants always causes.

Sandie O. reports that she shopped at a plant sale recently and decided that we do a lot of things very right at ours. After nearly 10 years of plant sales we have made a lot of mistakes and improved our operation based on the good ideas and the mistakes.

Thank you all for your hard work and dedication.

See you Wednesday. ––Lynn

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The Compost Pile is a publication of the

Okaloosa County Master Gardeners Association.

A volunteer organization of the University of Florida IFAS and

Okaloosa County Extension Service

Lynn Fabian, Editor

Andy Donatelli, Web Site Manager