If you love gardening and helping others, here’s a program for you.
Launch Gallery
by Ruth LivelyFebruary 1999from issue # 19
Call your county telephone extension office . How many time have you hear or translate that advice ? For years it ’s been the standard bromide in the horticulture public press when infinite is too short for a full account , or when solution depend on local term . What ’s a county extension office ? And how can it help ?
The cooperative extension service has a comportment in every state . The name ’s a mouthful , but it take in horse sense . The organisation is a cooperative crusade between the U.S. Department of Agriculture , land grant universities , and local county governments . The cooperative extension armed service ’s part is teaching residents about university research in the fields of agriculture , horticulture , youth , rude resources , food rubber and nourishment , and what we used to call home plate economic science ( now “ managed family resource ” ) .
But when you do make that call to ask about what ’s bugging your beans , or which Lycopersicon esculentum does well in your area , or when to have a bun in the oven the first fall icing , who answer your questions ? Chances are it ’s not a county or university employee , but a consecrate gardener — a trained volunteer called a Master Gardener .
The Master Gardener computer program was launched in Washington State in the early 1970s . Home gardening was roaring , and cooperative extension programs everywhere were stretched to the terminus ad quem . There simply were n’t enough extension horticulturists ( also called propagation agents ) to answer all the question . Dr. David Gibby , then an extension agent in the Seattle – Tacoma area , had been experimenting with make the public through aggregated media , but his attempts had only increase demand . “ My trouble , ” he says , “ was how to get information to a mass of people on a very low budget . ”
Then he came up with the idea of training interested gardeners in exchange for help in providing answers to the public . After a year of planning , the first Master Gardener course , 120 strong , was civilize in 1973 . In that first class , Master Gardeners help an estimated 7,000 Washington gardener with trouble . The programme was an contiguous success , and speedily spread to other county and states . A one-fourth of a 100 later , Washington ’s 3,378 active Master Gardeners log 147,700 hours in 1997 serve up nearly 348,000 citizens . At a economic value of nearly $ 13.73 an hour ( base on The Independent Sector ’s suggested economic value for volunteer time ) , this divine service was worth more than $ 2 million to the state of Washington . “ I knew it had the potential to become something really large , but I had no idea it would grow this much , ” Gibby says .
Master Gardeners are now the front telephone line of the accommodative extension service , with training offer in all 50 states ( clickherefor links to state Master Gardener web site ) , the District of Columbia , and four Canadian provinces . The phone pressure on the extension service is amazing ( 75,000 calls were answer in 1996 by Master Gardeners in Texas alone ) . Typically , the telephone is the most effective agency to answer questions , but sometimes a sound call does n’t do it . Some people show up in person , plant or insect samples in hand . In some country , Master Gardeners even make house calls to assess a job .
Gardeners in trainingTraining varies from state to land and even from county to county , but ordinarily range from 40 to 60 hour . A few course of study pop the question as little as 30 hours of preparation , while New York State ’s program is a whopping 120 time of day . There are sessions on soil and works alimentation , propagation , louse , diseases , yield , vegetables , weeds , indoor flora , trees , shrubs and herbaceous ornamental , landscape painting design and direction , lawns , irrigation , and more . Every program wrap up up with limited training in dispense with the public .
Courses are learn by specialists , usually extension horticulturists or faculty educators . The training typically consists of lecture , often with some hands - on education for things like pruning . At the end , there ’s an open - book exam , since the pointedness is not how much you ’ve memorise but how well you may access information . Some states also have a practical exam , identifying plants , insect , or diseases . participant receive a certificate only after successfully nail the class and satisfy the required Tennessean hour .
Over its 26 - year life , the program has see plenty of changes . In the past times , there was a stronger emphasis on pesticide usance , mostly because lengthiness agents had a primarily agricultural orientation . One midwestern volunteer , who garden organically , said the only hard part of the programme is suffer to sometimes dispense information about pesticide use . A university extension horticulturist I speak with , who took the trend in 1982 , hark back , “ With no disrespect to my teacher , the attitude then was ‘ What ’s the trouble ? What do we spray on it ? ’ ”
These day , the course teach desegregate pest management ( IPM ) methods , focusing on how to have good for you plants , rather than how to extinguish pests . Van Bobbitt , Washington land coordinator , credits the Master Gardener syllabus with pushing the extension service to offer more non - chemic alternatives . military volunteer hash out a kind of control method , and in fact , cannotgive advice on pesticide function over the speech sound , although they can send out info sheet .
The education itself is presuppose to be liberal , but most states excite a fee to recuperate the cost of the materials , which is usually a manual and legion entropy flat solid . fee unravel $ 50 to $ 75 , although some are much higher ( Connecticut ’s is $ 200 ) . In Washington State , the program still be the participants nothing . Finding mass who love to shareThe force of the Master Gardener concept lies in find hoi polloi with a passion of gardening and a desire to share . Founding begetter David Gibby again : “ Some of these folks already have a lot of knowledge ; they may be expert on roses , or oleanders , or a especial kind of fruit who have access to libraries and information that lengthiness agents do n’t have . In such cases you’re able to rule specialists who then become resources to the denotation employees , who must be generalists . ”
There ’s another side to the coin , however . “ You ’re dealing with volunteers , who may have their own agendas , ” Gibby points out . Sometimes those agendas differ from the one of the someone who ’s on the public payroll . “ Then you have to reach a compromise . You want multitude who are giving in their nature . ”
There are always more applicants than there are infinite in the schoolroom , which cultivate to the program ’s advantage . Administrators everywhere have had to become more selective . Van Bobbitt says this is in no way elitist . “ There was a clock time when the theme was , lease ’s see how many people we can get signed up for the program . But this only created another universe for cooperative prolongation to wait after . Now , the phone number one criterion is not gardening stake or knowledge , but previous volunteer experience , something that displays a volunteer ethic . We can direct hoi polloi in gardening , but we ca n’t transfuse that ethic in them . ”
Sylvia Gatzy signed on after moving to North Carolina from New England . She was already a good nurseryman , but she demand to learn how to garden in the Piedmont . Later she answered phones in the denotation office . “ I was scared at first . ” she hark back . “ But as meter went on , I learned an frightening lot from the people asking the dubiousness . It ’s a two - agency street . ”
In Texas , Manuel Santos became a Master Gardener to assist him in his line . The unforeseen solvent was a career change for Santos ( see below ) . What Santos has to say about the experience sums up what I hear again and again from all parts of the country . “ You ’re ceaselessly learning . Besides the education sweetening , the affiliation with the university system is a large welfare . ”
Beyond the call of dutyMany participant go beyond the requirements . “ We have some who put in 100 of supererogatory hr , ” tell Doug Welsh , coordinator for Texas “ What they get out of the program go far beyond the gardening benefit to themselves . For them , giving meets a personal need . ” That ’s the sort of Master Gardener the telephone extension service have intercourse to incur .
Training is almost always on weekdays , which at first may seem odd , but weekdays are when there ’s the not bad need for help . People who are available to take the training on weekdays will presumably also be available to offer then . That cause it concentrated for people who work full time to enter the computer program . There are exceptions , however . Doug Welsh says , “ We ’ve actually had people who take their vacation to do the education and then again to do their Robert William Service . That kind of commitment is awing . ”
The Master Gardener political platform was intend as a instrument for aim information to the public . Nobody expected all the public service undertaking : garden with kid , particularly those at risk of contract into difficulty , gardening with the older , with prisoners , with the disabled . All of these programs have tremendous economic value .
Still , David Gibby thinks the cooperative wing service has n’t really used the Master Gardener program as full as it could . He say a bit wistfully , “ I ’ve always thought public television could be married with the program to reach a circumstances more people . ” PBS , are you listening ?
In a Master Gardener-sponsored program, school kids plant trees on Arbor Day.Photo/Illustration: courtesy of Manuel Santos
Bigger and better in Texas“San Antonio has the good Master Gardener program in the United States . ” So Doug Welsh , state Master Gardener coordinator for Texas , tell me . I wondered how objective his appraisal was . Welsh had once been extension plantsman for San Antonio , but something recite me this was n’t just Lone Star antifeminism .
Bexar ( pronounced “ bear ” ) County , which is home to San Antonio , initiate its Master Gardener program only 10 geezerhood ago . It has graduate over 1,000 people , and nearly one-half of them remain fighting . That ’s telling when you consider Texas requires 50 hour of volunteer service each year to stay participating . San Antonio graduates not one , but three , division a twelvemonth . Two class are offered to the general public , and a third to the employees of the San Antonio Water Systems ( SAWS ) .
The connection between SAWS and the Master Gardeners started with the utility ’s Water Saver Rebate curriculum . Because of the dry climate , water use is a big issue , and SAWS , one of two H2O utilities in the urban center , has an extensive preservation program . Most of the body of water used during the growing time of year fit to assert landscapes . Residential customers who maintain xeriscape plantings can characterize for a rebate . SAWS ca n’t give the manpower to review applications and scrutinise the 600 to 800 landscapes that dispose each yr , so they contract this out to Master Gardeners . The utility pay a token fee ( $ 20 ) to the Master Gardener program , and the volunteers who do the work log service hours . ( By compare , the city of Austin , which has a similar program but uses employees to do the inspections , spend about $ 100 per landscape painting . )
Once SAWS recognized that Master Gardeners were more inclined to be savvy about water use , the service program strike an agreement with the cooperative university extension service to pop the question Master Gardener classes to SAWS landscaping crews . before long other employees got concerned . For the past few years , SAWS has arranged for training on - web site . Two - hour classes are held weekly at lunchtime . Even though it take half a class to get through the 60 hour of training , the class is always full . “ masses are begging for it , ” say Dana Nichols of the SAWS conservation department . “ We benefit by have employees who are better develop about water utilization , so we ’ll do it as long as there ’s a requirement . ”
SAWS is n’t the only water company in town with a Master Gardener story . Manuel Santos , formerly a gaffer with Bexar Metropolitan Water District , became a Master Gardener to fill a professional motive . During his tenure at the water supply service program , Santos inherited oversight of the production department , which included grounds and landscape gardening doer . All of a sudden , Santos demand to learn about gardening . He did the Master Gardener training in 1989 , the first class it was offered in Bexar County . For his volunteer serve , he worked with juvenile offender , landscape gardening ballpark . He evidently enjoy the work , and was so good that he was offer a problem at the Bexar County Juvenile Probation Department .
He ’s been there eight class . Meanwhile , his Master Gardener involvement has n’t slack .
“ There ’s something here in San Antonio called in - school intermission , where student offenders do service like work on landscaping crews instead of being sent home , ” Santos say recently . “ The kids like it so much they start to ask , ‘ Why ca n’t we do this without being bad ? ’ ” One outgrowth of this is San Antonio ’s Green Brigade plan , in which the Bexar County Master Gardeners play a leading use . kid show up on Saturdays to puzzle out on landscaping task around the city . The platform has received a major grant from the Department of the Interior , and legion local and home awards for its body of work with youth at risk .
accord to Calvin Finch , Bexar County ’s file name extension horticulturist , there are more than a hundred projects in the county that the Master Gardeners flow . Most projects have other partners — schooling , neighborhood associations , nurseries , the parks department — but the Master Gardeners are the lead partner .
This year San Antonio will host its second outside Master Gardener conference with members from the U.S. and Canada , and visitors from Mexico , which has a standardized , though unrelated , program .
As for Doug Welsh ’s financial statement , I ’m inclined to conceive it .
Fine Gardening commend ware
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