Plant Management Systems: Urban Horticulture

Master Gardener have served the community through phone calls, visitation, orchard sampling, soil sampling, emails, workshop, event booth setup in community events, and Master Gardener website questions and answers posed to them. Master Gardeners have raised the awareness of water usage by citizens of Otero County in watering their plants and the species of plants that are planted here and what type of plants species they should consider planting that is drought tolerant for this zone region.

Home Owners were educated on the availablity of Agriculture Agent to make home visits, which has not been done in recent past. Home owners learned BMP's for yard managment with recomendations ranging from disease and insect identificaton to plant nutrient and water recomendations. Over 60 individual home visits were completed and 350+ Office and phone calls. NMSU and other land grant university Extension Publications were distributed on a regular basis.

Ag Agent was available at 4 Farmers Market to answer questions cnserning yard and garden managment. Over 300 grant county residents were contacted this way.

George (Pete) Walden has signed on to support Plant Management Systems: Urban Horticulture within Grant County.

Recent newspaper reports claim that one-third of New Mexico’s population lives in Bernalillo County. Of these, the vast majority are urban dwellers, and many of these people engage in some sort of horticultural activity. This activity ranges from simply trying to keep the lawn green and mowed and the trees healthy, to large home gardens producing lots of food, to carefully planned xeriscapes with different native plants coming into bloom all season. As the Horticulture Agent in Bernalillo County, it is my pleasure and duty to provide assistance, training and information to county residents on all kinds of horticulture fronts.

It is often difficult to find ways to horticulturally help the less-affluent segments of our community. I was fortunate to receive a phone call from a volunteer working with Habitat for Humanity, who was looking for a project to initiate that would involve youth in gardening. After some initial discussions with the Habitat folks, we developed a project involving some families that had just moved into Habitat-provided homes in the South Valley. All of these families had teenage children, and this project was targeted to those young people. After an initial meeting to gauge interest, we (myself, and staff and volunteers with Habitat for Humanity) helped the youth put in double-dug garden beds, using compost donated at my request by Barela’s Landscaping, and seeds donated by our office. We planted an early spring garden in each of three backyards, using the youth as the main labor (besides myself), and having them work on each other’s gardens as well as their own. This began building some camaraderie among those kids, who did not know each other prior to moving to these homes. I took the kids to visit Master Gardener Ron Jobe, himself a South Valley resident; in addition to giving them a tour of his garden, he donated many chile and tomato seedlings, as well as landscape plants from his backyard nursery. We came back in later in the spring to check on the gardens, help plant warm-season crops, and to do a tree planting, using the stock donated by Mr. Jobe, as well as many more trees donated by Tree New Mexico. These latter trees I selected and brought up from Trees That Please. I demonstrated proper tree planting techniques with two of the trees, explaining about root systems and appropriate watering. The youth were very excited with this part of the project, and soon had all the trees planted in all the yards (five trees each in four yards, one more yard than we did garden beds in). Through this project (which started in January and went into May, with a total of eight on-site work days), the youth learned basic gardening skills and tree planting skills, and developed relationships among each other. To this date, the gardens are ongoing (though frost over the last two nights may have ended some of that!).

I receive more requests for arboriculture assistance than for any other topic. Through my ongoing involvement with Think Trees New Mexico, a non-profit industry group that puts on an annual arboriculture conference, I had the opportunity to become a Certified Arborist. As such, I am used as a resource by very many professionals in the county, who mostly come to me for diagnostic services related to trees in trouble. In addition to the commercial side, at least half the phone calls and site visits I do with private parties relate to tree issues. I hastily convened a pruning demonstration at the Church of Latter Day Saints Temple, which drew three Master Gardeners, who were able to learn by demonstration some structural pruning points. I have been able to teach dozens of people proper tree planting techniques, through one-on-one conversations and site visits. I’ve also been able to help many clients with tree irrigation techniques, which alone will result in a much healthier urban forest canopy. Most people have incorrect ideas about tree root systems and best irrigation practices; after interacting with me, they understand enough to provide much better care to their trees. I’ve also been able to steer many people into making better choices for landscape trees – it’s amazing how many nurseries carry plant material that is not well suited to our climate and soils. I prepared a talk on Urban Forestry for a recently-held Environmental Studies “school”, put on with support from the National Gardening Association, which was attended by about twenty persons on a Saturday in September. This presentation, which I will expand on for future Master Gardener trainings, focused on the special circumstances of urban trees, with special attention to conditions in the southwest.

I am also active with the Xeriscape Council of New Mexico, another non-profit group created to put on an annual conference. Like the Think Trees conference, the Xeriscape conference is a regional event, drawing attendees from across the state and the southwest. Through this conference, which is attended by about three-hundred paying customers and several thousand visitors to the free Saturday workshops, we are able to get good information out to homeowners about the advantages and pitfalls of low-water landscaping. As a consequence of attending the conference and/or workshops, people come away with a deeper understanding of water conservation issues and appropriate horticultural responses to those needs. It is a special challenge to me to help people understand the integration of the urban forest into a xeric environment. In November of 2006, I taught a class to the Xeric Garden Club on soil types and the effect of soil on xeric plantings. Students learned how to recognize the basic soil texture type they have, how much and how so that can be changed or worked with, and plant selections for different soil types.

In spite of efforts to push xeric alternatives, many homes in Bernalillo County still sport lawns. While turf questions are not among the more common calls I get, a fair number of people still need assistance with this topic. Typically, it’s a caller who is concerned that their turf has a fungal problem. While this is often the case, I always start with the water. Usually, the client learns that how they have been watering the turf is not appropriate, and in fact one of the leading causes of the fungal problem. Given the difficulty in visually diagnosing turf fungus, I send many samples to the lab for analysis. In May, I assisted my colleague Bob Pate by speaking at a pesticide CEU workshop he runs annually. I spoke on an IPM-approach to turf management. I’ve also worked with Dr. Leinauer on a few problematic lawns which needed greater insight than I alone could provide.

Home vegetable gardening is an area of strong interest, both on the part of the broad community and of myself. I have assisted the Master Gardeners with their Organic Gardening Demonstration Plot at the community garden on Los Poblanos Open Space, providing insight and diagnostic services. I field quite a few calls on vegetable gardening topics, ranging from the very basic (“I’m new to New Mexico, and have never gardened before…how do I start?”) to helping clients who are themselves accomplished gardeners but have problems they can not solve. I’ve consulted at the start-up of two community gardens, one of which entered produce in the State Fair and won a ribbon. I’ve also helped a couple of schools plan and start school gardens. I did a presentation at the Director’s Choice Regional Early Care and Education Conference in June, on the topic of Gardening with Kids. Attendees learned how to incorporate garden activities into daycare settings, and the topic received strong reviews. I worked with the Albuquerque Home Schoolers, doing a seed planting workshop for very young kids, which was a hands-on event involving dirty hands. The kids loved it.

Master Gardeners remain both a strong asset and a large client group, where urban horticulture is concerned. This year, they logged nearly 10,000 hours of volunteer time, in activities ranging from answering phone call questions on gardening, to working with ARCA group homes on gardens, to assisting at the Xeriscape conference. As with any large volunteer group, results are mixed, but generally good. In general, the 2007 Master Gardener trainees had an increase in knowledge, as measured by pre- and post-course surveys, that brought their scores up from an average of 64% correct to 81% correct. We continue to work on issues of recruitment and retention of the most qualified individuals we can find.

Though Bernalillo County has two Agriculture agents, in addition to one Horticulture agent, I do spend some time working with specialty crops. Given that this county has lost most of it’s production agriculture, what we do have tends to be small specialty operations. Many of these are organic, if not by certification then at least by practice. Having a strong background in organic production, I’ve been able to assist a number of these growers with soil fertility, crop rotations, and pest control. I was an active member of the community group that worked with Dr. Rossana Alvarez to develop some guiding principles and documents regarding the ongoing effort to preserve agriculture and open space in the South Valley. We all came away from those meetings feeling hopeful about our efforts, but aware of the challenges ahead.

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE - MASTER GARDENERS
For the past ten years, Sandoval County has trained Master Gardener volunteers. An average of 25 students take the classes and about 18 is the average retention as some take classes for business purposes or belong to city, county or state government.
We have approximately 100 volunteers on average at the end of the season.
MASTER GARDENER - IMPACT
In 2006-2007, 100 Sandoval County Master Gardeners contributed over 6000 hours of volunteer time in Sandoval County educating residents on plant science, demo gardens, farmers markets, etc. This is equivalent of 3 full time employees. They have logged over 8000 contacts of which 3000 were children at Water Festivals, Heritage Days, Harvest Festivals and school demonstration gardens.
DEMONSTRATION GARDENS
Sandoval County Master Gardeners assist or help design and maintain four gardens in the county. Why three or four? We have 3 different soil types, altitudes and water tables all within a 20 mile radius.
Our smallest garden is at a church and these plants are all high altitude with a small number of master gardeners assisting. Funding for plants comes from the church.
The other garden is at the Village of Corrales with Master Gardeners designing the garden and upkeep with pruning and weeding only. Intel provided volunteer workers and funding of $5,000 to the Village. Village employees provide labor and materials as needed. The soil in the Village is great with lots of water available. Our completed project was designed by 3 Master Gardeners at a middle school two years ago. Over 300 students learned about plants as talks on xeriscape were provided to each class and students assisted in planting. The school received beautification grants and removed over 4000 square foot of sod which saved them a sizeable amount of water and noise. Workers would mow when the school was in session causing a disruption to the learning process.
The largest and most active project is in the desert setting in Rio Rancho. The "Water Wise" Garden is located on city property. In reality, there are several gardens in one: Mediterreanean Garden, Rock and Tree Garden, Xeric Garden, DWI Memorial Garden and Veterans Memorial Garden. A total of 2370 volunteer hours were donated this year alone. Sandoval County Master Gardeners contributed 1050 hours, aqua volunteers 640 hours and Rio Rancho employees 680 hours. Funding sources were Intel, Rio Grande Basin Initiative, Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful, Sandoval County, and the City of Rio Rancho - with total funding of $21,320.
The Water Wise garden hosted seven tours to senior citizens, extension specialists, legislators, garden clubs, etc.
The city, in gratitude hosted a garden party for aqua ambassadors, Master Gardeners and the Sandoval County Extension Director/Agent. Certificates were handed out. The Water Wise Garden pictures were printed in the 2007 year calender by the City of Rio Rancho featuring different seasons. The City also has a van that is painted with pictures of the Water Wise garden. The Garden has been featured twice in the New Mexico Magazine.
There are an average of 20 Master Gardeners that volunteer in the garden doing general upkeep and answering questions from the public. Plants are identified with markers so the public can take a self guided tour and write down what they like.
THE FARMERS MARKETS
On average, we have 5 Master Gardeners at two Farmers Markets. They pass out an average of 100 bulletins plus answer an average of 20 questions on trees, insects, watering and plant selection for both ornamental and vegetable clients. This is a great service as they are recognized by market managers as a great resource and keep the NMSU Sandoval County Extension in the public arena as many residents go to the markets.
This was evidenced at the College of Agriculture Town Hall Meeting in Albuquerque when the Corrales Market Manager and also the Village Counsilor mentioned that it was great to have Master Gardeners there but wished we could get 4-H and Nutrition educators there as well.
Due to the popularity of the Sandoval County Master Gardener program, there is currently a waiting list for the 2007-2008 garden season.