The Prez Sez:

As our 2019 gardening year comes to a close, we have experienced the driest September on record. Hopefully, our gardens will survive this drought and they will flourish in the spring.

The Kentucky State MG Conference was held in Louisville on September 18-19. Two of the main topics discussed were Care and Management of Urban Parks and Gardens and Bomb Proof Plants for Urban Challenges. We enjoyed visiting the Moss Gibbs Woodland Garden in Broad Run Park and observed the Sinkhole Spiral, the Kentucky Coffee Tree Rondel, and other features of the park. Many Master Gardeners from throughout the state also toured the beautiful gardens of Jefferson County master gardeners.

I would like to thank the Demonstration Herb Committee for their three creative and informative Toolbox classes: The Spring Herb Garden, Harvesting and Storing Herbs, and Holiday Gift Ideas from Your Herb Garden.

Please mark your calendars for the Annual Meeting on January 12, 2020, and the inclement weather date of February 9, 2020. It will be fun to catch up with friends that you haven’t seen since the summer months and enjoy a wonderful meal. Master Gardeners are not only great gardeners, but also great cooks!

I would like to thank all the Master Gardeners, Carrie and Jamie, and the Extension Office Staff for the help and guidance throughout this year. It has been a great honor to serve you as your president.

My Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday season and a Happy New Year.

Nancy Davis

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” Cicero 1st Century A.D.

Newsletter Winter 2019

Fayette County Master Gardener Association

Newsletter Committee

Susan Miller, Chair Mary Miller, Co-Chair Sarah Lee Barbara Kemp Susan Umberger Debbie Johnson Ronald Kayser Graham Rowles Donna Jackson

“A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning

how to grow in rows.”

Doug Larson

2019 Association Dues

Dues for next year will be due February 29, 2020. You may

pay your $20 dues at the Annual Meeting

on January 12th.

HOLIDAY GIFT IDEAS FROM YOUR HERB GARDEN

By Debbie Johnson

On November 21st the Herb Garden Committee hosted a Toolbox class on creating holiday gifts from your herb garden. Demonstrations included making Cinnamon Bears, Cinnamon Ginger Men, a Sock Family, Herbal Butter, Herbal Salts, Clay Ornaments,

Herbal Bath Bombs and Hand Scrubs.

These clever gifts were raffled off at the end of the class and attendees received delicious lavender cookies (recipe on the next page). It was a perfect end to a festive evening to kick off the holiday season!

DO YOU KNOW? What is the world's most popular potted flowering plant?

(Answer is on the last page of the newsletter)

Holiday Gifts from Your Herb Garden

Lavender Cookies Recipe from Nancy Davis

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

½ tsp vanilla

1 tsp dried lavender blossoms finely chopped

1 ½ cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350°

Cream the butter and sugar.

Beat the eggs, vanilla and lavender very well and then add to the butter and sugar mixture.

In separate bowl, whisk the flour and baking powder and add to the mixture.

Drop by teaspoon size onto an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes until lightly browned around the edges.

Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet 2 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack for cooling.

Store in an airtight container.

Pollinator Novice by Mary Miller

This article won’t tell you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about pollinator gardens. The books and websites listed at the end will give you far more information because I’m still a pollinator novice. Instead, I’ll relate a journey through the process of trial and error that is so familiar to all gardeners.

I was seduced by the delights of pollinator plants when living and gardening in North Carolina. My two huge oval garden spots were surrounded by floral walls with less compelling vegetables at the center. Zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, Mexican sunflowers – all were easily grown from a couple of dozen packages of seed. Pollinators weren’t my focus, but they loved my selections as much as I did. One magical summer my garden hosted a butterfly population explosion with dozens of monarchs and other species hovering over the mosaic of reds, yellows, oranges, pinks and purples visible from my back deck.

When I moved to Kentucky in 2016 and began gardening in a much smaller yard, I read about monarch waystations and the decline of honeybees and decided to try planting a few milkweed plants. The first year, my garden hosted some Monarch visitors and 3 or 4 caterpillars and even two chrysalises, but alas, for unknown reasons, these shriveled up, dashing my hope of adding to the declining Monarch population.

Even this minor success stimulated my desire to learn more and to expand beyond my own small backyard. A plot had been set aside for vegetable gardening behind my church and then abandoned, easily forgotten in the rear of the building. The weeds had flourished, after several years becoming a tangle that seemed impossible to tame. Was the space hopeless? Could it be rehabilitated? A few regular grounds volunteers optimistically decided to create a pollinator garden. On a grounds cleanup day, we set about clearing the jungle, digging deep to eradicate as many roots as possible. We then covered the space with cardboard and a layer of mulch to smother the weeds that we expected to start popping up as quickly as we finished.

Other church members are far more knowledgeable than I am about native plants and pollinators. They strongly recommended native plants as being the best to attract and nourish a wide variety of pollinators, including native bees. Our team managed to acquire a fair number of perennial native plants –black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, a mountain mint, a couple of milkweeds, and a cat mint. Funds were limited, so we decided the best bang for our buck would be adding zinnias; a pack of seeds resulting in dozens of plants was much cheaper than a single milkweed from a nursery. In gardening and sometimes in life, you go with what’s possible instead of what’s perfect. So, our scanty collection of natives was planted in the middle of the plot with a row of zinnias on each side. I miscalculated how huge and overpowering zinnias can be – a couple of packs of seeds turned into a border two feet wide and over four feet tall, but almost all the native plants survived in the shade of the larger, gaudier nonnatives. While I was internally criticizing my judgement, our minister Brian was telling me that we had created a fairyland and that he visited often to observe the bees and butterflies and the riot of color.

I’ve learned a lot from the native plant experts who have worked to create this paradise, and I have been transforming my own garden, adding coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, New England asters, and ironweed. I let my oregano plants flower instead of cutting them back and was rewarded with dozens of bees. I became a bumblebee fan – viewing the plump, lazy insects resting on my coneflowers with almost as much delight as yet another butterfly. I began reading up on the importance of native bees as well as native plants.

This fall we added more native plants to the church garden, and next year will plant the zinnias further away to give our natives more space and light. It won’t be perfect. Some of the new plants won’t make it through the winter. Next summer, the weeds will become overwhelming, struggling up from under the rotting layer of cardboard and quickly challenging our cherished natives. As the pollinator garden grows, I learn from my errors, and from my reading, and from my friends at the church. This past summer, I would walk around the corner of the building and immediately see the butterflies flittering, and then I would draw closer and spy bees and wasps by the dozens. Perfection may not be possible, for either gardens or people, but creating a feast for the eyes, as well as for butterflies and bees, feeds my mind and my spirit.

For more information see:

Flower Power: Establishing Pollinator Habitat by Tammy Horn Potter (Kentucky State Apiarist), 2019. 100 Plants to Feed the Bees: Provide a Healthy Habitat to Help Pollinators Thrive by The Xerces Society, 2016. Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them by Paige Embry, 2018. Attracting Native Pollinators: Protecting North America’s Bees and Butterflies by The Xerces Society, 2011. Kentucky Pollinator Plan (2016) https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/KY/KPH5a.pdf Pollinator Basics https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/pollinator-basics Selecting Plants for Pollinators https://oldham.ca.uky.edu/files/selecting_plants_for_pollinators.pdf

Our current MG President Nancy Davis has a lovely, restful garden in her backyard with lots of annuals and

perennials. When a couple of the photos were taken it was during the summer drought on one of those 90

degree plus days, but her garden still had plenty of color from her nice choice of plants.

Last of the Zinnias with Loofah Cozy spot for morning coffee Vine in Background

Butterfly Garden

Nancy's Favorite Caladium Shade-Loving Window Box

Pass Along Plants

by Susan Umberger

My pass along plants include my mother's pink phlox and lily of the valley, and my grandmother's Christmas cactus. More than 50 years ago, I remember this pink phlox that grew at my parent's house, popping up here and there in a border against our old garage. As children, my brothers and I would pull off individual florets and suck on the ends, where you could get a faint taste of honey sweetness. Today it grows in my front border, and is the only tall phlox I grow that is disease free all summer. And yes, it still tastes sweet. The lily of the valley grew in a corner beside the outside basement door to the old coal furnace. It occupied a whole corner of shady damp area, as it does at my house today, and the sweet little bells remind me of home.

My grandmother didn't grow many houseplants--the occasional violet or so, but the one plant she treasured and handed down to me was a Christmas cactus. It's not the hardy husky variety we see in stores now-in fact it's kind of lanky and the blooms are maybe not that gorgeous. But it has been in my family for more than 90 years, so that makes it an heirloom if there ever was one! I guard it carefully and have started many plants from it for other people who want a true pass along plant.

The Christmas cactus stays in the greenhouse along with 80 or 90 orchids, numerous ferns, a pencil cactus and String of Pearls, and some tropical plants including Firecracker Fern. Like my grandmother, I don't grow houseplants, but I do enjoy looking at the plants in the greenhouse through the winter and early spring. All of them get shoved aside when it's time to start seeds, though, so it can get a little tight in there.

ANSWER to the question on page 3: The poinsettia, despite being

sold just six to eight weeks a year!