Plant Management Systems: Urban Horticulture

Horticulture in Dona Ana County continues to increase with the population. According to census figures from Dona Ana County (2008), the population for the county now resides at over 201,000. New residents arriving to the area are often puzzled as to what they can grow in this desert climate. Local residents as well are not familiar with adaptable plant species. The agent is developing programs to meet the needs of decreased water availability and water restrictions. The agent is investigating new drought hardy plant materials that may be adapted to the agent’s clientele. One of the prime areas of investigation is the Tucson area. Arizona has been dealing with water restrictions for many years now, and the University of Arizona along with local growers have demonstrated selected plant materials that are drought resistant. The agent of Dona Ana County is looking at whether many of these species of plants may be adaptable to our colder winters. The agent has been providing outreach programming through venues such as; the Las Cruces Home and Garden Show, Public Library Lecture, and the Master Gardener Program. Each year a Master Gardener Class is offered to the public to educate volunteers in Horticulture. The people who participate in this class go on to disperse this knowledge to the public through; helping at events, working on a ‘Hot Line’ (informative answers given over the phone), conducting gardening seminars, and education in the schools. Without the MG volunteers the agent would be limited in his job capacity. MG’s allow the agent to expand programming, and utilize volunteer talents to create new methods of information delivery. Through this last year the agent was able to answer his clienteles questions with a 99.9% success. The agent was also able to help improve the MG Newsletter by adding educational components to it's content.

Due to the County Agents having other prior work commitments during the month of March, 2 Master Gardeners were asked by the Agent to speak to the Rancho Viejo Neighborhood Association about the Principles of Xeriscape and also to a new garden club called Design and Grow about Coldframes and Their Uses. The reason that these requests came to the Extension Office was due to the fact that the Agent had advised some members of this particular neighborhood association last year on the management of their landscape, and the request from garden club chair came as a result of her familiarity with Cooperative Extension Service in the state that she moved from as being a reputable source of information. Seventeen people were in attendance at the neighborhood association meeting while only 10 attended the the garden club meeting.

During the month June the Agent made a one-hour presentation to the an all ladies group of the LDS Church in Santa Fe. The group was interested in Container Gardening. This request came as a result of people taking a renewed interest in growing some of their own food. Aside from the presentation, the group present asked many other questions relative to vegetable, fruit and flower gardening. The discussion were very interactive with the 14 ladies present.

Educational presentations on horticultural topics were made at the April and May monthly meetings of the Rainbow Makers Homemaker Club. The club of 14 women were interested in care and management of flowering bulbs, and about soils and fertility. The presentations and discussions that followed were very interactive with several expressing that the presentations explained why they were having problems with some of their gardening practices.

At the request of the chair of the Santa Fe Herb Society, a 30 minute slide presentation was made during the month of March to the 14 member of the society about the the Santa Fe Master Gardener Program. The discussion was held following the presentation. Upon completion of the program, the society chair presented a $50 check to the Agent for the Master Gardeners to use to continue some more of their good work.

Two different sections of the Master Gardener course were offered during the spring months of 2009 in Santa Fe and Eldorado. The 16 week course prepared a total of 48 citizens from Santa Fe County with research-based knowledge on proper gardening techniques of the Santa Fe area. The information which was gained will assist the course participant not only with their own gardening experiences, but also to assist the County Agent in disseminating sound home horticultural advice to other gardeners who have inquiries or wanting to know how to correct their own horticultural problems. Of the 48 students who enrolled in the classes, 39 completed the course successfully. Furthermore, of those students submitting their course evaluation forms, 70% rated the course as "highly satisfactory" in terms of meeting their expectations, with the other 30% of the participants rating it as "satisfactory".

In order to facilitate travel cost savings for the specialists, the Agent took on the responsible for contacting speakers, developing the course syllabus, ordering manuals for the Taos and Los Alamos County Master Gardener Programs as well.

On one August afternoon many of these prospective students were invited to attend a social gathering at the Audobohn Center (which is one of the sites in which the Master Gardeners do some volunteer work) so that they could interact with Certified Master Gardeners and ask questions about the program. Through this event, it becomes more apparent to many of the prospective students that this is a volunteer organization.

Many calls were received throughout the 2009 year from individuals wanting to get on a list to receive information and an application for the 2009 Master Gardener course. As of the end of September 92 people are on the list.

As Master Gardener interns and Certified Master Gardeners, this group of volunteers continues to provide a great amount of service to the greater Santa Fe area in the form of education, outreach and community service. Over 3200 hours of volunteer service valued at minimum of $51,200 was provided by the Master Gardeners from the Fall season of 2008 to the late summer of 2009. Some of the ways in which the Master Gardeners provide volunteer hours to the County Extension Office are as follows:

The fifth annual Gardening Fair was organized and facilitated which included 8 different presentations made by Master Gardeners, Extension Specialists, and other gardening experts from the Santa Fe area. Once again the master gardeners also developed a directory of landscape and gardening related businesses and organizations along with several pages of water conservation tips which were distributed at this one day event and other public outreach venues. The cost of printing the directory was underwritten by the County Extension Office. Also inclusive of the Gardening Fair once again this year was the trade-fair in which 32 organizations and businesses were invited to have an information table. While trying to determine the exact number of fair attendees is a cumbersome task, it is estimated that over 1800 people attend the event. This is an increase of over 600 more attendees than last year. One of the factors that we can attribute this to is the renewed interest in people wanting to grow their own food. A plant sale was held once again in conjunction with the annual Garden Fair with the proceeds being used to cover the cost of projects that the Master Gardeners have been working on or are in the process of developing. Some of the plants that were sold were plants which the Master Gardeners themselves propagated in the hoophouse. The planning of the Gardening Fair was an eight month process.

The Master Gardener Home Gardening Hotline continues to be staffed 2 mornings every week from early May to the end of October. Typically 3 volunteers are available to staff and answer questions at each session. A dedicated phone line provided by the County Extension Office was established in 2002 which includes an answering machine that is checked mid-week by a volunteer. The Master Gardeners answered an average of 15 calls per week on the hotline.

Through the information table the master gardeners provided literature, answered questions, promoted the hotline and promoted the Master Gardener course. Approximately 1200 contacts were made through the course of the market season with the vast majority of the contact being related to gardening questions or problems.

Several demonstration gardens continue to be managed and cared for by the Master Gardeners. 1) The management of the Herb/Drip Irrigation Demonstration Garden continues to be managed by the County Agent and the master gardeners. This demonstration garden is a Rio Grande Basin Initiative project which demonstrates the efficiency of drip irrigation in backyard gardens while demonstrating varieties of culinary herbs suitable to grow in the Santa Fe area. This year the master gardeners reconfigured the planting and installed stepping stones to make the Herb Demonstration Garden more attractive. 2) The Xeric Demonstration Garden in front of the County Extension Office continues to be maintained to demonstrate low water use ornamental landscape plant material. It also serves as an outdoor classroom to teach the interns how to maintain these types of plant material. 3) The Randall Davey Audobohn Center Native Plant Demonstration Plot is a small garden which was planted and has been maintained since 2003. The purpose of the plot is to demonstrate native plants that can make for an attractive landscape and yet attract small wildlife into the landscape.

The Santa Fe Master Gardener Association once again worked with Habitat for Humanity by assisting with the planting of new plant material around newly built homes for the fifth consecutive year. This year 4 new homes received the assistance from the master gardeners and provided home owners with garden care and maintenance information.

The nurseries recognize that Master Gardener volunteers are well trained in the subject of horticulture and can provided unbiased and sound information to the public. Two nurseries in Santa Fe asked the Master Gardener Association to staff information tables at their respective locations. One location had an information table staffed on Thursday mornings from May thru July and the other location had an information table staffed on Sunday afternoons.

Once the class spaces for the Master Gardener filled up the requests continued to come in to the Extension Office for making concessions to allow individuals to enroll in the course. Due to limited space this was not an option. Therefore the Agent began to develop a six week gardening series for those individuals who did not get in to the Master Gardener Course. A large amount of these requests were coming from the Eldorado Area where members of the community were exploring the idea of developing a community garden. Once some master gardeners learned of the idea of the gardening series, they asked the Agent if they could help run the series and work with these people on the development of the community garden. The Agent agreed to let them run the series, but the Agent arranged for the presenters and also presented the lectures Season Extensions, Composting and Simple Irrigation Systems. The development of the community garden turned out to be a success. Many work days were had with different styles of gardening being incorporated into the overall garden with over 65 people participating. The community garden flourished with enough produce that later in the fall the Agent received a request for a program on food preservation. It is estimated that at least $2000 worth of produce was grown in the community garden.

An average of 15 calls are received on a daily basis beginning in March on good gardening practices including pest identification and their control, vertebrate pest management, soil fertility, watering practices, pruning, and the use of mulches. These types of call continue on through mid-October when Santa Fe has experienced a hard killing frost. This does not take into account the office walk-in traffic which would average out to 2 persons per day.

Composting in the School

The agent along with the specialist organized a composting workshop for the Maxwell School fourth and fifth graders. The agent was responsible for assisting the Maxwell School fifth grade teacher in locating some composting tumblers, scheduling the specialist, and for recording the results of the workshop. There were 19 students that participated in the two workshops that were half days each. As a result 6 students are currently practicing back yard composting at their respective houses.

Tree and Lawn Care Workshop

The agent presented a tree health and lawn care workshop to the Rotary Club of Raton. There were 13 members in attendance who were very interested in the topic. As a result four of the members had the agent go to their houses and make specific recommendations for each of their situations. The agent did a follow up visit two months after to view the results and the clients were satisfied and were successful with growing their lawns.