October 2007 Unit Reports
AMHERST, CAMPBELL and city of LYNCHBURG (Hill City MGs) Deborah Straw	Our School Programs in five of Lynchburg’s City’s Schools have started back up for the fall. Programs that will be conducted with the 3^rd and 4^th graders in these schools include Bees and their Benefits, Composting, and The Life Cycle of Bulbs. The children will be instructed on the equipment and procedure for Bee Keeping and will be able to taste different flavors of honey. They will build compost bins at their respective schools and learn of composts benefits to the garden and environment. They will also plant tulips and pansies in their school gardens for enjoyment through out the winter and spring. Mid October will be the end of staffing the phone in the Extension office as well as staffing a booth at the Community Market on Saturday mornings. Our own Dave Close will be visiting our December Meeting which will be followed by our Annual Pot Luck Christmas Lunch and Party. Website – www.hcmga.com
ARLINGTON, ALEXANDRIA (MGs of Northern Virginia) Vivian Ballard	We have had seventeen new Master Gardeners this year so far, and fifteen of those were interns just this spring.  Our new training class will start in mid January 2008, but we will be hosting an Open House for the students on 13 November so the current Master Gardeners and prospective students can get to know each other. This year we are providing a class in Environmentally Friendly Gardening for the Arlington Learning in Retirement Program.  The class is given in eight hour and a half sessions to a dozen or so residents fifty and over.  Our library Plant clinic continues through October.  The other Plant Clinics finished up in September.  They had a new feature this year of having tree stewards and/or composting demonstrations at the clinics.  The additional presentations were well received and resulted in many valuable contacts.  We plan to continue the program next year.. We have a new Extension Agent, Kirsten Buhls, and Joanne Hutton continues as the Master Gardener Representative at the Extension Office.  Website: www.mgnv.org
CARROLL, GRAYSON and city of GALAX (MGs of the Blue Ridge) Charlie Whittle	October education/meeting held at Beagle Ridge Herb Farm near Wytheville. Blue Ridge Music Center trails were dedicated.
CHESTERFIELD Lynn Foote	The Chesterfield County Master Gardeners continue to answer phones on a daily basis, but the calls tend to slow down in October. The pilot program Gardening for New Residents accepted 49 applications and all have been completed. The Mug's who participated in the program met on 10/23/07 to review the process and make any changes to improve the program. The general consensus was all enjoyed the program and it should continue on a limited basis as it is very time consuming. The Grass Roots program for 2008 has 75 applications already and will continue to put people on a waiting list. Chesterfield County MG day at the State Fair was 10/6 and every day of the county fair had MGs there to answer questions. All the interviews for the class of 2008 have been completed and 20 have replied with volunteer applications and payment. The Extension Leadership Council met on October 16 and one of the items on the agenda was to pick a new chairperson as Don Locke passed away in June. The MGs had a pot luck lunch and plant exchange on October 5, there was good food and good plants. There have been advanced training seminars in Fungi, Grass I.D., and Tree health assessment. The September and October Grass Roots newsletter has gone out to all grass roots clients. Susan Edwards will schedule training on an urban tree specialist program for all interested Master Gardeners to begin this winter. The graduation for the class of 2007 will be November 8, 2007 and at this time 15 interns have completed their hours. www.chesterfield.gov/extension
FAIRFAX George Graine	Building on the success of previously reported (June 2007) gardening classes at senior centers, new classes are planned for 2008. Herbs, container gardening and others will be scheduled. A detailed report (electronic format) on the 2007 program can be requested by e-mail, susan.renna@fairfaxcounty.gov. Survey forms are in the development stage in order to elicit information from the membership on how to improve our program. By-laws have been updated to reflect “local discretion” and to be consistent with VMGA by-laws as appropriate. Unique service awards were created for MG volunteers. These awards were given for each five years of service starting at 5 and going to 30 years. www.fairfaxmastergardeners.org
FAIRFAX - Green Spring Unit Joan Richards	GS MG are mid-way through teaching the Fall Basic Gardening Series teaching “It’s Fall: Am I Supposed to be Gardening?” Classes include “Creating Fall and Winter Interest in the Garden” and “The Basics of Garden Design”. Two of the classes are being taught in Spanish for the first time. A number of GS MG will be attending the 13^th Annual Volunteer Appreciation Day on October 11 at Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens. This event, hosted by The Horticultural Consortium of the Greater Washington Area, has been organized to thank the many volunteers who have shared their time and talent in support of the programs of their members. Green Spring Gardens is a member of the Consortium. Area garden clubs are gearing up for fall and winter programs and Eco-Savvy gardening seems to be the most common requested subject on which MG will be speaking. The MG speakers bureau will be busy meeting all requests for October and November. www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/gsgp/
FLUVANNA Jo Anne Henry	Fluvanna Master Gardeners and Interns participated in the Heritage Harvest Festival, at the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants at Tufton Farm on September 8, 2007. The Fluvanna group presented a display on Virginia birds. The interactive display board provided an opportunity to link bird names and pictures. The Fluvanna MG table was very active all day and 100 bird feeders were distributed. Preparing a bird feeder was fun for all and the children (and adults) really enjoyed having a feeder to take home. Master Gardens continue the help desk at the County Office Complex and at the Farmers Market at Pleasant Grove. The Demonstration Garden has been prepared for fall and winter and the school projects are gearing up for a new year. www.fluvannamg.org
HENRICO Beverly Cochrane	Our summer programs included a great presentation on ergonomic gardening from one of our master gardeners, as well as an informative talk on attracting birds to your garden. In September, we toured two local private gardens. Our October meeting will be at Strange’s Nursery and will be on containers for late summer and fall. Our Helpline has been very active over the summer and our 2007 interns are busy getting in their hours and looking forward to graduation in December. We have decided to hold a Fall Festival in 2008 and have established a large committee to plan this event. The tentative date for the festival is October 18, 2008 and it will be held at Henrico County’s newest park, Armour House. We are currently having a contest to pick a name for this new event. Website—www.henricomga.org
ISLE OF WIGHT, SOUTHAMPTON, and SURRY (Western Tidewater MGA) Betty Jo Hendrix	The VMGA has had a busy summer despite the drought. We put on plant clinics weekly at the Smithfield Curbside Market and periodically at the Windsor Farmers Market. The themes for the plant clinics with give-aways, like seeds and rooting containers has been a real success. Isle of Wight did not have a county fair this year but put on an AG Expo. We participated by decorating, helping setup and having both a plant clinic and a honey bee exhibit complete with an observation hive showing live bees. One of the most popular exhibits was the honey bee exhibit put on by our own Chuck Spann who did a marvelous presentation. That gave us a great opportunity to talk to children and adults about the importance of pollination. We have 15 new applicants for classes to start in January. That is the maximum we can take due to space limitations. Each year our new interns seem to be more energetic and involved than those from the previous years We wish Surry County and Glen Slade, their agent success in starting their own unit and have offered any assistance that we can provide. We welcomed our new agent, Nathan O’Berry, and look forward to a really great relationship with him. We sadly bid goodbye to Glen Rountree, our previous agent, when he resigned to go to work for a private agriculture enterprise.
JAMES CITY COUNTY/ WILLIAMSBURG Anne Odle	Turf Love held its 6th Annual Super Turf in August with over 50 attendees with session topics incl. weeds, bugs, pathogens with Tech and turf industry experts. In preparation for our '08 plant sale, 4 workshops will be held.  Topics- propagation, Hypertufa, starting seeds, and dried flowers and foliage using grape vines from the Williamsburg winery. Building team work and ownership.  Items made during workshops will be sold at the plant sale. Promoting '08 MG college early with '07 attendees giving a college PowerPoint at our Oct. membership meeting.  Enthusiasm from MG audience was obvious. Growing Solutions workshop for conservation landscape was held in September with MGs Water Smart, Turf Love, Colonial Soil and Water Conservation District, PRIDE.  Sessions incl. local Chesapeake Bay ordinances with JCC and York County Perspectives, rain gardens, BMPs, native plant buffers. Leanne DuBois, JCC/W/New Kent agent has been appointed to the James City Economic Development Authority.   website - www.jccwmg.org.
LOUDOUN Dave Hellums	The Demonstration Garden Team recently received an environmental award from the Town of Leesburg.  The award is given to one outstanding group to recognize their work that benefits the town of Leesburg's environment.  Loudoun County Master Gardeners also won first place in the America's Anniversary Garden in the category of marketing.  We will participate in the Loudoun County Fall Color Tour which will be held October 20th and 21st.  Loudoun County Master Gardeners donated over 1,000 pounds of food to Interfaith Relief to feed the needy this past summer. Website - www.loudouncountymastergardeners.org
NORFOLK Don Snipes	Our Horticulture Therapy project has been expanded with the purchase of another therapy cart for MGV to use in local Norfolk hospitals. Recent Water Steward graduates will be working on a new project to abate run-off to the Chesapeake Bay and beautify the area at the same time. Several NMGV have completed training and will add to those already involved in plant evaluation for the Beautiful Garden project at Norfolk Botanical Garden. website - www.nmgv.org
NORTHUMBERLAND, LANCASTER, RICHMOND, WESTMORELAND and ESSEX (Northern Neck) Ted Munns	The drought has adversely affected agricultural production and has stressed homeowner's gardens, newly planted lawns, trees, and shrubs.  This drought provided a good test for the sustainability of native plants at our Demonstration Teaching Garden at the Fishermen's Museum in Reedville.  Although some cultivars "browned-out", the success rate of native grasses, flowers, and shrubs was quite good and provided the public with the importance of encouraging natives.  Elementary school students were introduced to a new year of gardening under our SUMS Program, an outreach by NNMG in Lancaster County.  We continue to provide support at the George Washington Birthplace gardens, maintaining some gardens at a local retirement community, and planting a demonstration herb garden at the Extension Office. The NNMGs made an informational and educational trip to the Hampton Roads Agricultural Research Extension Center (AREC) and the Norfolk Botanic Gardens on October 17.  The final touches have been made to our Gardening in the Northern Neck which should be ready for sale early next year.  This book has original articles and art-work by our Master Gardeners and is designed to introduce newcomers to gardening techniques in an area of Virginia highly influenced by the Chesapeake Bay.  website - www.nnmg.org
PRINCE WILLIAM Pat Reilly	The Teaching Garden is getting more exposure - a lawn field day and a follow up session which attracted 67 people and MGPW held a picnic there. A new water quality tech has been hired to help with the homeowner lawn program which has been in suspension since July 2006. website - mgpw.org
ROANOKE, BOTETOURT, CRAIG and city of ROANOKE Kathryn Debnar	The Roanoke Master Gardeners held a Fall Workshop, their second event in what we hope will be an annual program.  Our speakers presented on turf and herbs. We had very few locals request MG certification this year, so we did not hold classes.  We request other units to send their suggestions for attracting new recruits, to bleach@vt.edu. We will be participating in the annual Holiday House event put on by the Roanoke Council of Garden Clubs.  This is one of our three fund raisers for the year.  All local clubs will have tables or booths at which they will have items for sale or auction on Saturday November 3rd, at the Council building on Colonial Avenue, in Roanoke.  The hours will be 9AM to 1PM.Lunch items will be available. Our major areas of activity are the building of a Rain Garden at the Council, and attempting to organize a horticultural program with youths at risk.
ROCKBRIDGE, BATH (Rockbridge Area MGs) Ted Jenks	On October 11 we held the 'grand' re-opening of the Master Gardener's Norrington's Nook 4-H garden located at Natural Bridge Elementary School in Natural Bridge, VA. A recent school addition and renovation paved over the original garden (and all that GREAT friable dirt). Chuck Norrington was able to start the rebuilding process last fall with the help of many volunteers but sadly; lung cancer won the last battle. The garden is named in honor of Chuck & Caroline Norrington.
VIRGINIA BEACH Paul Campbell	A new Master Gardener class is currently in session; 30 energetic and interested trainees. Graduation will be in early November and still time to get in some volunteer hours for the year in this geographical area. The 8^th Annual Community Gardening Festival was held at the Hampton Roads Agriculture Research and Extension Center (HRAREC) with exceptional speakers, silent auction, plant and bake sale and displays. Norfolk and Chesapeake Master Gardeners participated in this endeavor. Following the installation of the Rain Garden at the HRAREC, Virginia Beach Master Gardens assumed responsibility for the Rain Garden and the Buffer Zone installed at the retention pond. These will be continuing projects for our new Water Stewards. website - www.vbmg.org
YORK Jackie Lohr	On September 27 we enjoyed opening day at the State Fair by working at the Master Gardener display. On October 6 we put on our annual Fall Landscape Extravaganza. We have planned a picnic on October 20 when we’ll discuss what we’ve done during the past year, what worked, what didn’t work, what we can improve upon and perhaps what new programs we may want to try next year. In addition to those activities, we continue our Learning Garden work - fall clean up, division of plants for the spring plant sale – involvement with the Junior Master Gardeners, Hort therapy and lawn maintenance seminars. Towards the end of November we’ll welcome the new class of Master Gardeners.