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Impact Report

For plan Plant Management Systems: Urban Horticulture (Bernalillo County)
Date October 14, 2008, 3:36 pm
For Objective Short-term Show short-term objectives
Impact Report Urban horticulture is an extremely broad topic, which in some ways could also cover the work done by this agent under other Plans of Work. It is this agent’s most active POW field, encompassing all home-owner interactions, most commercial operation interactions, most site visits and phone calls, most committee and conference work. Topics covered under this broad heading include home vegetable gardening, urban tree care, lawn and landscape care, xeriscape issues, insect identifications, and related subjects. The Master Gardener program assists the agent considerably in this area, though not without some cost of agent’s time. We have about 200 active Master Gardeners in the county. Due to the large size of the program, and the many and varied other duties of the agent, this group has developed its own governance structure and momentum. Agent acts as Faculty Advisor, and reigns in the wild ideas as needed, but much of the credit for the success of the program is due directly to the wonderful volunteers we have. Many put in way more than the 40 hours of volunteer time we require. They enjoy the learning, the educating of others, and the camaraderie of the corps. While acknowledging the very positive feedback the members give me, I feel that the program would benefit from a bit more active involvement on my part. In a typical year, our Master Gardeners report about 10,000 hours of volunteer time in service to our County office. I do not have final numbers for 2008 yet, but those numbers will be comparable. Many of those hours are logged on the Hotline, every call of which is one that I don’t have to take (though a good number get referred on to me for further elucidation). Other volunteer activities include staffing tables at various libraries on certain weekends, 4-H Seeds Program, ARCA group home garden projects, Organic Demo Garden, and various others. In 2008, we enrolled 60 new students in our county Master Gardener classes. Of these, 10 paid extra to take the classes without becoming volunteers. Over the 13 weeks of the class, we lost 5 students. A simple evaluation tool administered on the last day of classes yielded the following information: 47 people responded. Of these, 100% indicated they learned new information and/or skills; 100% indicated they would use this new information/skill set; 25.5% felt the new information would be "quite" useful to them, while 74.5% indicated the information would be "very" useful to them. 100% indicated they would recommend the program and the presenters to other people. I also asked for commentary on my direct role as one of the instructors (I teach approximately 25% of the classes in this county). Comments received tended to sound like the following direct quotes: "One of our better speakers, most interesting"; "Has always been available and extremely helpful. Very approachable. Excellent interpersonal skills."; "He is very knowledgeable, entertaining and makes lectures more interesting - he should present more often."; "Joran is as good as it gets - an excellent presenter, enormous knowledge in the field, personable and entertaining as well as informative - a true expert whose enthusiasm shows - inspirational! 5 stars"; "Very practical, down to earth information and relaxed knowledgeable presentation style." 2008 was a good year for urban tree care in Bernalillo County. This agent is currently the only International Society of Arborists (ISA) certified arborist working in Cooperative Extension in New Mexico. Over 50% of calls, walk-ins and site visits are tree-care related. Information requested by the public ranges from selection and planting, through pest/disease identification and old-tree-health/hazard assessment. Given the large amount of mis-information available to the general public, agent feels he makes a huge difference not only to the trees’ owners, but for the trees’ health as well. Agent arranged and led two tree pruning workshops early in the year. One focused on young fruit trees, and was attended by about 8 Master Gardeners, as well as two people who worked with the hosting institution, the Center for Action and Contemplation. No formal evaluation was done; however, the participants all reported having learned new information. The second workshop was hosted by the National Hispanic Cultural Center. For this workshop, I enlisted the aid of a number of local arborists, including: Bryan Suhr (UNM Physical Plant), Nick Kuhn (City of Albuquerque), George Duda (recently retired from State Forestry), and Lance Davisson (Duda’s replacement as State Urban Forester). We had about 40 people in attendance, including Master Gardeners, employees of some landscape care companies, grounds crew from the NHCC, and interested area residents. The workshop was publicized with the help of University Communications. The workshop format was instructional/hands-on: the first part of the day was spent with the various experts discussing pruning practices (why prune, where to prune, etc.) and addressing specific trees on site; the latter part of the workshop involved having the participants actually pruning the trees. These were all small trees that did not require safety rigging, and all pruning was done with hand tools. No formal evaluation was done, but several people remarked how much they appreciated the experience, and the NHCC has contacted me recently to set up another such workshop next year. The agent also presented a lecture on urban arboriculture to both the Albuquerque Area Extension Master Gardeners (AAEMG), as part of their regular training schedule, and to some Santa Fe County Master Gardeners, as a special presentation followed by a hands-on pruning demonstration. Of that latter group, 12 filled out evaluation forms. 100% stated they had learned new information; 58% felt the new information would be “quite a bit” useful to them, while 42% felt it would be “very much” useful to them. Some of the written observations included: “Very specific, down to earth presentation. The speaker is very clear.”; “Very dynamic speaker. New info presented that he just got from a professional conference. Also older info presented in a new light.”; “Joran Viers is an excellent speaker – enjoyed his pruning session as well.”. Eleven AAEMG members and two non-members also attended a day-long Tree Tour, organized in conjunction with Ms. Judy Nickel (ISA certified arborist, member of Think Trees, and an AAEMG member). This driving tour of notable Albuquerque trees is something we try to do once or twice a year, and provides a hands-on venue to learn tree identification, cultural issues, and pest problems. All participants expressed having learned valuable new information. The agent has recently been appointed to the New Mexico Forest Re-Leaf Tree Planting Advisory Committee, operating under the State Forestry Division of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. This committee reviews grant requests made by NM cities, towns and other public entities, and awards funds for tree planting projects on public lands with a strong community benefit factor. Much of the work I do is with area greens industry members, whether that is in identifying insect and disease problems brought to me, or meeting with industry professionals on-site to diagnose problems. This industry is in great need of good information and accurate identification of issues that may, or may not, be problems. I’ve not introduced a way for them to formally evaluate these interactions, but based on the large number that keep coming back for assistance, they must be benefiting. Agent is also a member of the Xeriscape Council, which puts on a top-notch water-conservation conference every year, a conference of national and international stature. The main conference aims mostly at the design professional, which is appropriate in that many landscape problems are due to a lack of understanding by the designer about the horticultural constraints at play in a given site. There is also a series of free workshops (known as the expo) that immediately follow the conference, and these are aimed at the homeowner who wants more hands-on information on a variety of topics. In my role with the Xeriscape Council, I help set the agendas for the conference and expo, and do presentations at one or both each year. Given the tremendous water issues facing us today in the Southwest, this work with xeriscaping is very important. I do find, however, that out in community, many of the ideas are poorly, or only partially, employed. Often I advise homeowners and landscape care professionals on the pros and cons of different irrigation and mulching schemes, as those two aspects are often inappropriate. This year I submitted grant proposals to the Rio Grande Basin Initiative, for the purposes of helping establish three school gardens. The funds were used exclusively for drip irrigation systems, but my involvement went far beyond designing and installing these relatively simple systems. One school is a charter Montessori elementary school; one a middle school program working with behaviorally challenged students, and the last a post-high school transition program for behaviorally/developmentally challenged young adults. As part of the process at all these schools, the students were involved in putting the irrigation systems in place. I asked the teachers to provide some evaluation, by way of having the students make comments. Only one teacher really followed through, at the elementary school. Some of the kids comments were, “Awesome, I like doing this work.”; “I think it will grow. This was really fun. This will give our plants a way to drink water.”; “I was so disappointed that I had to leave before we finished. I really enjoyed learning about a drip system. Now I really understand how one works.” With the young adults group, I also took them on three field trips to see local gardens/small farms. This was both entertaining and challenging, but thankfully their teachers were there to respond to the challenges. Robert Burnett, the lead teacher for this program, writes, “Dear Joran, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for all your assistance over the past few months. With your help we have been able to achieve our objectives of planting a community garden, improving our growing skills, and learning about the agriculture industry. We have enjoyed working with you and truly appreciate your flexibility and special attention. Our Garden is doing well thanks to the drip irrigation system you supplied and helped us install. Plus, the field trips we took with you this summer provided great examples of what we can do if we put in the time and effort. I look forward to working with you more in the future as we continue to pursue our gardening goals.” Approximately 75% of agent’s phone calls, office visits, and site visits are with private citizens. Topics they need information on vary widely, from home vegetable gardening and fruit growing to plant identification and care advice. The following quote from a homeowner is illustrative of typical responses from contacts: “…He spent over an hour with me, discussing the problems with my tree…solving problems that I have had with other plants…He is obviously intelligent and knowledgeable. He listened to me carefully and answered my questions with great patience, kindness and completeness. Moreover, he took pains to make certain that I understood his explanations…Those who consult him will painlessly learn much, improve their skills, and thereby improve the Albuquerque landscape.” Agent also provides presentations to groups of private citizens, such as garden clubs and homeowners’ associations. Over the almost-five years that agent has been in this position, approximately 90 presentations have been made to a wide variety of groups, from home-school children to senior citizen groups, and on a wide variety of topics. Some of these have been lecture style, some have been hands-on. I have been weak on doing formal evaluations, but the online evaluation system that the IT people are helping me set up should make that process much easier, both for clients and me.