Turnip News Master Gardeners Prince William

November 2016

Editors: Rebecca Arvin-Colón Maria Stewart

Upcoming Events and MGPW Meetings - At a Glance

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Holydays - Holidays Sale 2016 5

Highlights from the Social Committee’s VA State Arboretum and Picnic

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Tree Nursery - Tips for Raising Trees 7-9 Latest Teaching Garden Posts 9

Farm Field Days 11

Prince William Recycles Day 12

Ginger & Turmeric Field Day 13

Upcoming Events and MGPW Meetings

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18th Annual VABF Winter Conference 14 The Basics of Gardening 15

Get to Know a Critter 16 PUZZLER 17

Little Known Local Gem 10

Inside this issue: MG President’s Message

SCHOOL GARDENS

D uring the past two months, Master Gardeners of Prince William (MGPW) provided two Prince William County area schools with $1,000 checks to develop new school

garden projects.

Under Nancy Berlin’s leadership and hard work, the school garden project began several months ago when all Prince William County area schools were requested to submit proposals for possible MGPW funding for a garden. A MGPW Committee, which included several experienced teachers, reviewed the six submitted proposals . The winners were Grace E. Metz Middle School in the City of Manassas, and Victory Elementary School in Bristow.

Nancy met with the winning school principals, teachers, staffs, students, and others to coordinate the details for each garden. Sites were selected and planning began.

One to two MGPW volunteer mentors were assigned to each of the schools. The mentors will provide advice to the school on preparing and maintaining the garden and will also be available to assist with teaching horticulture related classes to students.

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We know from experience and reviewing national lessons learned that some school gardens are successful for a long while and others less so. There are many important factors for success, but at the top is leadership: enthusiastic staff as well as supportive principals and superinten-dents. Too often the original highly motivated teachers and principals are reassigned to another school and the garden may be eclipsed by other prior-ities from the new leaders. In our case, we have commit-ments from all stakeholders, including superintendents, that the gardens will remain a

high priority over the years and with succeeding leadership. We thank them for their support.

Ceremonies were held to present a large symbolic check to each school to finance the initial opera-tion. School officials made comments that they will cast a wide net for additional support. For example, PTO’s and other charitable organizations may be asked to contribute additional funds, older scouts may be asked to help break ground, and public affairs officers will publicize the event to the greater community.

Digging in at Victory Elementary School; photo by Al Alborn

(back l to r) Sally Peterson, Jan Rice, Nancy Berlin, and Larry Lehowicz with the future gardeners of Victory Elementary School; photo by Al Alborn

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Metz Middle School, City of Manassas

Victory Elementary School, Bristow

Type Garden Pollinator Pollinator/sensory

MGPW / VCE Lead Nancy Berlin Nancy Berlin

MGPW Mentor Teresa Blecksmith Sally Peterson, Janice Rice

Superintendent Catherine Magouyrk Steven Walts

Principal Kimberly Buckheit Chris Wray

Lead Teachers or Staff

Teachers: Frances Garcia, Kerry Coffman, Bradley Jacobs, Amanda Gumtow, Constance Cardwell-Burnell

School Social Worker Christina Devers, School Counselor Cristina Cuesta-Hammad

MGPW Photographer Al Alborn Al Alborn

The MGPW School Garden Team

At Metz Middle School, after the presenta-tion ceremony, all students were requested to attend a school-wide assembly where photos of various native plants were shown on the auditorium screen. Students voted for which plants should be selected for purchase and planting.

At Victory Elementary School, the school staff mentioned that the students were excit-ed about growing seeds in their classrooms over the winter for spring-time planting in the garden. The school staff were excited that the garden would demonstrate the meld-ing of students’ need to learn and nature’s need to survive.

The level of commitment and excitement for each garden was profound. We are making a differ-ence as we implement our MGPW Vision Statement: to develop a culture of environmental stew-ardship within the Prince William County area through education, outreach, and volunteering.

Thank you for all you do to make our vision possible now and into the future as we, in part, develop school gardens to educate our students about positively interacting with nature.

-Larry Lehowicz, President, MGPW, president@mgpw.org

Greeting Victory Elementary School Staff; photo by Al Alborn

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Upcoming Events and MGPW Meetings - At A Glance

December TUESDAY 13

MGPW Board Meeting 2017

January

MONDAY 9 18th Annual VABF

Winter Conference TUESDAY 10

18th Annual VABF Winter Conference

WEDNESDAY 11 18th Annual VABF

Winter Conference February

SATURDAY 11 Basics of

Gardening SATURDAY 18

Basics of Gardening

SATURDAY 25 Basics of

Gardening March

SATURDAY 11 SNOW DATE:

Basics of Gardening

November TUESDAY 8

MGPW Board Meeting THURSDAY 10

Ginger & Turmeric Field Day FRIDAY 18

Holydays - Holidays Sale SUNDAY 20

Holydays - Holidays Sale

SATURDAY 19 Holydays - Holidays Sale

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Help Support the Monastery and Attend this Wonderful Event! It’s a great way to show your support and say “Thank You!”

to the Benedictine Sisters who let us use their land for our Teaching Garden.

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Highlights from the Social Committee’s Virginia State Arboretum and Picnic

by Eileen Murphy, photos by Eileen Murphy

T hirty Prince William County Master Gardeners and I had a gorgeous, sunny, fall morning on October 21st touring the beautiful groves of the Virginia State Arboretum in Boyce,

Virginia with Blandy’s Program Director Steve Carroll. After the tour, we enjoyed our brown bag lunch while socializing in the Arboretum’s dining room. It was a fun time! Hope you can join us for the next Master Gardener social event!!

Steve Carroll, Director of Programs, Virginia State Arboretum

Gingko Arbor at the Virginia State Arboretum

Guided tour by Steve Carroll

Lunch time in the dining hall at the Virginia State Arboretum

Visit the State Arboretum of Virginia at

Blandy Experimental Farm, http://blandy.virginia.edu/

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Tree Nursery - Tips for Raising Trees by Abbie Panettiere and Vincent Panettiere

W hen my mother retired to northern Michigan back in the 1970s, the state was asking people who had

property they were not going to farm to plant it with trees. This allowed for the reforestation of areas that had been logged, farmed, and then abandoned or otherwise left in a bare condition. Leaving this land in a bare condition would have allowed for erosion and the growth of unwanted, invasive species.

My mom and dad had a cornfield they decided to rescue. Michigan State offered trees for sale at quite reasonable prices for those who were will-ing to turn their abandoned fields into forests, and my mom soon had tiny seedlings in great number to plant.

I remember the two of them pulling the garden cart filled with gallon bottles of assorted types - milk, detergent, apple cider, whatever they could find - filled with water, so they could sup-ply the trees during the dry seasons. However, when you’ve got a space larger than a football field to care for, the trees were mostly targets for various kinds of misfortune. The deer and other critters, dry weather, snow and ice storms in the winter all did their damage, and Mom and Dad had to buy replacement trees every year to replace those that had died for one reason or an-other.

Their problem in great part was trying to pro-tect fragile young trees over a large area. For most of us, our spaces are smaller, and we care for more manageable numbers of trees, either bought or raised from seed or seedling. For those

involved, tree care becomes a very important part of the gardening routine, particularly in preparation for the coming winter. To protect trees, consider:

Cold - Trees may suffer damage from winter weather, particularly sudden changes in weath-er that may occur in early spring or late fall. If a tree is marginally hardy in this climate, it is particularly important to find or create a micro-climate for the tree. A sunny place shaded from winds is helpful, or planting the tree at the top of a rise, so that the sunlight will strike it first and stay with it longer, can also help.

Winds - Winds may do as much damage, if not more than the cold by desiccating trees during a storm. For a tree or bush that is particularly valuable or valued, you can drive four stakes in the ground in a square around the tree or bush, then wind burlap around the stakes to provide a barrier for the tree. The burlap should not touch the tree or bush branches. Put chopped leaves in around the tree, inside the burlap barrier, filling the space as densely as you can to protect it from cold and wind. My husband’s father used to protect a valued fig tree given to him by a rela-tive in Italy by covering it in an old overcoat well stuffed with leaves and tied with heavy rope each fall.

Mulch - Mulch is particularly useful to trees. A ring of mulch around the tree (but not piled up to the trunk) will insulate and protect the tree roots from freezing temperatures. The ad-vantage of mulch is that it lasts on into the next growing season, keeps weeds down, and helps to

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keep moisture at the tree’s root zone during dry weather. Also, if it has been dry in the fall, moist soil will hold heat better than dry soil.

Sunscald - It is particularly important to protect trees from sunscald, which happens in the win-ter when trees are exposed to strong sunlight, generally on the south or southwestern sides, then more or less suddenly lose that warmth when the trees go into the shade, say, when late afternoon shadows form. In the sun, the tree may become warm enough that it breaks dormancy and begins cellular activity. When the light is suddenly blocked from the tree, such as in late af-ternoon, the temperature drops quickly and the tissue that has be-come active is killed or injured, leaving the dead bark sunken, dried, or cracked. To lessen the in-jury to the trunk of the tree, it can be wrapped in light colored tree wrap or plastic guards, ei-ther of which should be removed in the spring.

Water - It is important to send trees into the winter months in as healthy a state as possible, and water is very important for this. Watering should be cut back somewhat in September to allow trees to begin shutting down for winter, but then thorough watering should continue un-

til the first freeze, so that the trees will be helped in putting down roots and settling in. Trees will continue to put down roots as long as soil temperatures are above 40 degrees, so until freezing weather occurs, water deeply once a week, so that the water reaches down about a foot.

Critter damage - Deer, rabbits, chipmunks, and squirrels all need to eat, and when food sources start to disappear in late fall, they will take

nourishment wherever they can find it. There are deer and critter re-pellents of many sorts, which are more or less effective for a while, but if the weather is particularly bad and food is very difficult to find, they will eat almost any-thing. The best

protection, for young seedling trees particularly, is a good high fence that they cannot penetrate.

Early on, when I’d followed my parents ap-proach of planting trees where I wanted them to have a permanent home, I discovered that they were neglected in most of the categories I’ve listed, and I often noticed fatal problems much too late. The last few years, instead of the sink or swim approach, for my youngest and most valued trees and bushes, the best protection I can give them is to use one of the raised beds in our vegetable garden (which my husband has

photo by Jason Alexander

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Tree Nursery Information: http://goo.gl/iQBcBv University of Minnesota Extension Protecting trees and shrubs against winter damage Bert T. Swanson and Richard Rideout http://goo.gl/lhkquE National Gardening Association Protecting Fruiting Trees and Shrubs

http://dof.virginia.gov/nursery/index.htm Virginia Department of Forestry Trees and Seedlings - Nurseries http://goo.gl/UBXxSp The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center Abandoned Farmland Often is Troubled Land in Need of Restoration Joe Gelt August 1993

protected with a high deer fence) as a tree nursery for the winter. This allows me to do all the preparations for winter described above in a relatively safe place to serve as a nursery for the infant plants. Seedling trees, small bushes, and bushes I am trying to bring back from injury or other (often my own) mishandling are potted up, and the pots buried in the soil up to the rim. The dirt around the pots helps protect the roots from freezing in the cold. I then cover the area in mulch and leaves, covering the smallest trees

and bushes almost completely.

In spring, I check their progress, not digging them up until they show good signs of life. If all’s well, it’s a matter of finding a spot to plant them in, continuing seasonal care, and hoping that they will continue to grow on their own. Finding empty spots for them to settle down and spread permanent roots, my husband will be sure to mention, is not a small problem because trees do love a lot of real estate.

See the Latest Teaching Garden Posts from Bev Veness and Jan Gubrud!

Click below or here: https://teachinggardenpwc.wordpress.com/

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Little Known Local Gem Thank You to MG Clare Brooks for uncovering this wonderful opportunity!

*Dates for fall and spring tours are posted to the website close in time. Can’t make the fall tour? Check back with Arlington National Cemetery,

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Visit/Events-and-Ceremonies#/

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Farm Field Days photos by Nancy Berlin

On October 12th and 13th, VCE Prince William Master

Gardener Volunteers joined Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District for Farm Field Days. “Hosted each fall for more than a quarter of a century, Farm Field Days con-

nects students to their agricultural heritage and begins plant-ing the seeds of stewardship.” The event hosts 1,600 students at “this annual field trip at no cost to the schools, representing 14+/- schools from Prince William County and the City of Ma-nassas. The two-day event involves the coordination of more than 100 volunteers and 50 Ecology Club student volunteers from Stonewall Jackson High School.” (PW Soil and Water

Conservation District, http://www.pwswcd.org/educators.html)

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Prince William Recycles Day photos by Nancy Berlin

Master Gardener Volunteers Rob, Tony, and Lynn

representing VCE Prince William Master Gardeners at Prince William Recycles Day

at the County Landfill on October 15th.

Prince William Recycles Day “is a free, family fun event with games, activities, prizes, food, landfill tours, music, educational

displays and more.” (PWC Trash & Recycling, http://goo.gl/yRiNrd)

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November 8th, Tuesday, MGPW Board of Directors Meeting: 5:30 p.m., at Sudley North Government Building, CSB, first room on the left as you enter Ashton Avenue entrance to the Extension office (7987 Ashton Avenue, Manassas) All Master Gardeners and Master Gardener Interns are welcome and encouraged to attend! December 13th, Tuesday, MGPW Board of Directors Meeting: 5:30 p.m., at Sudley North Government Building, CSB, first room on the left as you enter Ashton Avenue entrance to the Extension office (7987 Ashton Avenue, Manassas) As always, all Master Gardeners and Master Gardener Interns are welcome and encouraged to attend!

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Upcoming Events and MGPW Meetings

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Get to Know a Critter: Wood Frog

(Lithobates sylvaticus)

Did you know?

♦ Wood frogs have a distinctive dark “mask” around the eyes. The color of their bodies varies from nearly pink to browns to almost black. Females are usually more brightly colored and larger than males.

♦ Wood frogs are native to Virginia and their range extends farther north than any other North America amphibian or reptile.

♦ Woods frogs are adapted to the cold. They hiber-nate under leaves or logs in wooded ravines.

♦ In Virginia, wood frogs are found in or near moist woods frequently far from open water.

♦ Wood frogs are described as explosive breeders since they lay all their eggs over the course of a few days, in Febru-ary or March. Wood frogs choose ponds, slow portions of streams, and ditches for breeding.

Source: Virginia Herpetological Society, http://goo.gl/5BNK69

photos by Jason Alexander

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PUZZLER

Do you know what this is?

See next month’s

Turnip News for the

answer!

Last Month’s Answer:

Living Stones (Lithops hallii)

Living Stones: “They [lithrops] were discovered by William John Burchell, a botanist and artist, who first thought he had found an odd-shaped stone. Lithops are a succulent that form their own genus within the ice plant family.” / “Their native lands are Namibia and South Africa. Lithops are supremely adapted to dry habitats being able to survive long droughts up to 20 months long.” / “Over time the fissure between the leaves gets larger and a flower is produced in October and November. The flowers are dramatically large, somewhat daisy-like and yellow or white, maybe more like a cross between a daisy and a cactus. Most specie’s flowers have a spicy-sweet aroma.” Source: U of Arizona, Yavapai County Cooperative Extension; http://goo.gl/HNJ2nM

photo by Jamie Nick