Santa Fe Master Gardener Newsletter

10th Annual Spring Garden FairPresented by the Santa Fe Master Gardener Association

Saturday May 3, 2014 from 10:00 am – 4:00 pmSanta Fe County Fairgrounds • 3229 Rodeo Rd., Santa Fe NM

Free Admission and Parking

Join the fun and festivities as we start off the gardening season! • Listen to our speakers as they share their expertise on a variety of gardening topics. • Watch expert demonstrations of fun and educational gardening projects• Visit with our vendors to learn more about their products and services• Participate in the best plant sale in Santa Fe!

Speakers:• Tracy Neal - Horticulturist, Landscape Designer and Certified Arborist will guide participants toward optimal choices as he presents information on “Plant Selection for Climate Change.”

• Michael Meléndrez - Co-Founder and Principal Owner of Soil Secrets LLC, in Los Lunas, NM will help raise awareness as he provides insight on “Unraveling the Secret to Building a Healthy Soil.”

Santa Fe Master Gardener Newsletter

NMSU Cooperative Extension Service • Santa Fe County Extension Office College of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences

3229 Rodeo Road • Santa Fe, NM 87507 • Phone: 505.471.4711 • Fax: 505.471.6076 • www.sfmga.org

April 2014 Vol. 4 No. 4

cont. on page 2

In This Issue10th Annual Spring Fair 1

In Memory of Amy Hetager 3

Clean and Sharpen Your Pruning Tools 4

Spring Is Here! 5

What Are Those Grubs in Your Soil? 6

Consider the Natives 7

Chitting Potatoes 8

Forsythia: Golden Beauty 9

From the Membership Coordinator 10

Membership Sign - Ups 11

Gardening 101 12

Botanical Nomenclature 14

New SCAT members 15

Gem From the Web 16

Calendar 16

2S A N T A F E M A S T E R G A R D E N E R N E W S L E T T E R

Editor-Laurie McGrathArt Director-Jannine Cabossel

10th Annual Spring Garden Fair—cont. from page 1

• Bob Ross - Landscape Architect, Garden Consultant, host of the weekly radio show, Gardens, Food, and Santa Fe and owner of Gardens in the Santa Fe Farmers Market Building will share timely tips and exciting ideas about “Beautiful, Bountiful and Easy Con-tainer Gardening.”

Plant Sale:This year’s plant sale will offer a great selection of hardy perenni-als, herbs, grasses, vegetables, and shrubs. Plus, we’re hoping to add cactus and agave plants. All sales start at 10:00 am. Bring boxes, if you have them, for carrying your plants. We’ll have a holding area for you to store your purchased plants while attend-ing other events at the Fair.

Exhibits & Vendors:The Fair would not be complete without a large and popular se-lection of Exhibit Vendors. Drop by to chat and to get information, advice, and products that will interest novice and experienced gar-deners alike. As always, food vendors will tempt us with irresistible aromas from some of our favorite foods.

Other Attractions:• Drop by the Garden Shop where new and gently used gardening

supplies are offered for sale.

• Watch Doug Pushard, founder of Harvest H2o.com, give a highly informative demonstration on “How to Build a Rain Barrel.”

• Be inspired to action as you observe Master Gardeners demon-strate the fascinating world of composting and herb gardening.

• Learn how to transform your yard into a water-wise native meadow.

• Bring the kids to the Junior Gardener Corner to take part in exciting activities, including a special Garden Quest that guides them to Fair exhibits about honeybees, compost and soil, worms, bugs, seeds, flowers, and much more.


In Memory of Amy Hetager

Amy Hetager, Master Gardener and organizer of Home Grown New Mexico, passed away March 27 after a 5-year battle with cancer. She died peacefully with her family around her. She was 40 years old.

Amy was involved with many organizations in the Santa Fe community. In addition to serving on the board of the Santa Fe Master Gardener Association, she was an active member and gardener at Milagro Community Garden and Frenchy’s Field Community Garden where she shared her joy in gardening and her passion for sustainable agriculture. She also worked with Beneficial Farm’s Community Supported Agriculture program, as a garden coordinator for EarthCare, and partnered with the Farmers Market Institute and Kitchen Angels to present the Organic Meals on a Budget series of cooking classes.

Amy was always moving forward with her vision of building a community of people interested in growing, harvesting, and processing their own food and becoming more self-sufficient. She helped create The Santa Fe Seed Exchange, brought gar-deners together at Home Grown New Mexico Community Potlucks and scheduled Home Grown New Mexico classes to educate the public. She was involved with all the Santa Fe community gardens and helped create the very popular ‘Santa Fe Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour.’

She was a woman with a vision, a woman with a dream. She will be missed by all who knew her, learned from her and admired her.

Sympathy cards can be sent to Home Grown New Mexico where they will be forwarded to Amy’s family. Please address as follows:

Tony Ballantine, John and Nancy Hetager c/o Home Grown New MexicoP.O. Box 23482Santa Fe, NM 87502

A memorial service is also being planned for a future date. You can make donations in Amy’s name online to her organization at Home Grown New Mexico or mail donations to:

Home Grown New MexicoP.O. Box 23482Santa Fe, NM 87502


Clean and Sharpen Your Pruning ToolsLynne Roberts

In February, Patrick Torres, Santa Fe County Extension Agent, presented a class for Master Gardeners on how to clean and sharpen pruning tools. He offered lots of practical information. “Remember, safety first. Be sure to wear safety goggles or glasses when working with pruning tools. And wear good gardening gloves to pro-tect your hands.” “Let’s prepare our tools by cleaning them,” he contin-ued, “and cleaning tools means washing them with warm soapy water to remove all the ‘gunk’ on them. If the residue is stubborn, use steel wool to take it off the pruning blades or saws. Carefully dry the surfaces of the tools.”

Then, Patrick picked up a by-pass pruner and demon-strated how to sharpen it. “It’s pretty straightforward,” he encouraged us. “Just follow the angle of the cutting edge called the “bevel.” He advised against using an anvil pruner, where the blade comes down on a flat sur-face, because you “end up ‘crunching’ the branch.” He

explained how to use a whetstone for sharpening hand pruners and a metal file for sharpening tools. “Do a simple pass, in one motion; do the beveled side. On the other side, feel the ‘burr’ (pieces of metal raised by the file) and knock them off. Draw or pass the file along the blade, as though filing your nails.” He reminded us to disinfect our tools for each plant or tree we wanted to prune and showed us different techniques. You can add one part bleach to ten parts water in a bucket, use rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle, or spray either solution on a rag and clean the tool before pruning another plant. “If you have several diseased plants, you would be really safe to use several sets of pruning tools. Use one set of tools to cut while another set is soak-ing in the disinfectant solution, taking several minutes to soak each pruning tool.”

After the classroom presentation, we went outside and Patrick demonstrated how to prune trees and shrubs on the grounds by the Extension Office. He invited volunteers to grab their tools and try pruning dead branches, nuisance growth, “suckers” (branches which come from down below), “water sprouts” which come from the center of the tree, and branches that are crossed or touching each other.

Patrick Torres taught the class, ‘How to Clean and Sharpen Pruning Tools’

cont. on page 5


He answered questions about when and what to prune at different times of the year. “Trim junipers during the dormant season and evergreens during December and January. Pruning at any other time could stimulate growth or break dormancy. Don’t trim lilacs now. For spring flowering plants, wait until after blooming. Never take more than 1/4 to 1/3 of the growth of the entire plant or tree off. Remember pruning creates a wound which equals stress on the plant material.”

“At the end of each pruning session, wipe and clean each tool. It’s okay to oil the tool at the end joints (oil, WD40 or 3-in-1 oil) before putting it away.”

In response to questions posed by the Master Gardeners, Patrick suggested the following guide-lines:

• use pruners for pruning branches 1/4”-1/2”• use pruning loppers for branches 3/4”-1” maximum and • use a hand saw for anything slightly bigger than 1”.

Laughing, he said that if the branch was really much more than one inch the gardener needed a chain saw. “You waited too long. Get a professional for the pruning job!”

Clean and Sharpen Your Pruning Tools—cont. from page 4

Richard Angelos learns how to sharpen tools in the class

Spring is Here!As you do your spring cleaning and sprucing up do you have old tools, garden equipment and yard items that you’d like to update? Instead of throwing old ones away, why not donate them to SFMGA? We are now collecting gently used gardening and outdoor items to sell at the Spring Garden Fair, Saturday May 3. Garden tools, patio furniture, garden books and art, pots - anything for and about gardening and outdoor living.

Donations are tax deductible. You may drop off items at the SFMGA office located in the Small Annex at the County Fairgrounds, 3229 Rodeo Road, Mondays from 6:00 to 8:00 pm and Tuesdays 9:00 am – 12:00 noon. Large item pickup is also available. For more information or to schedule a pickup, contact Karen at 690-9388 or at [email protected]


What are those grubs in your soil?Jannine Cabossel Scarab beetle larvae - This time of year when you are add-ing amendments and turning your soil, you may notice some fat white grubs with brown heads. I noticed they were in soil that I heavily amended with horse manure. I took all of them and give them to the chickens. I used to think they were cut-worms but they are not.

They are Scarab beetle larvae and will not harm your vegetable plants or vegetable roots. They are also known as ‘dung beetle’ larvae. In fact, they are beneficial because they help break down the manure by eating it, hence you will find them where you use manure. Just leave them

alone. They are somewhat like worms, adding nutrients to the soil as they process the manure. I have never seen any dam-age to vegetables but if they are in your lawn they will eat grass roots.

Cutworms - Here is a picture of cutworms, which are harmful to your plants. They come out of the ground at night and chew the base of your transplant stem, leaving you with a decapitated plant (so to speak). They attack baby plant stems because they are tender. After the plants get older, they don’t bother them. If you see these, get rid of them. I look for them in the soil around the hole I dig just before I put my transplants in the ground.

But there is something else you can do to protect your plants. You can put a ‘cutworm collar’ around your newly planted transplants. I use a paper towel roll or toilet paper roll cut into 2-inch segments. I cut the tube lengthwise to get them around the plant stem and tape the cut seam.Then I sink the tube about 1 inch into the soil. They won’t crawl up the tube. After your plants get a little older, take the tube off since cutworms only like young stems.

Scarab Beetle Larvae

Cutworms


CONSIDER THE NATIVESStephanie Burns

Given the current drought and changing climate patterns, it makes sense to turn to native trees, shrubs, perennials and grasses for the bulk of the plantings in our gardens. Using plants that have adapted to and thrived in our various high-alti-tude conditions insures a greater measure of success in Santa Fe’s challenging soils and weather conditions.

When designing gardens with native plants, think of the natu-ral communities, or habitats, in which they grow in the wild. By creating similar habitats in your own yard, the attendant pollina-tors and seed-dispersers these plants attract will facilitate your garden’s resilience and longevity, and add to your viewing plea-sure. The Northern New Mexico Native Plant Society identifies Santa Fe’s habitat types as Sage Scrub, Pinyon-Juniper Wood-land, Ponderosa Forest, Mixed Conifer Forest, Sedge Meadow

and Riparian Slopes. If you identify the habitat(s) on your own plot of ground and choose suitable plant material, you stand a good chance of a positive gardening experience.

New native plantings will need consistent water until they’re established (about two years), and after that only when they wilt. Says Plants of the Southwest’s Gail Haggard, “Don’t feed your plants any worse than you’d feed yourself.” Give natives rhizomes, compost and compost tea -- a diet of decay as it were -- and then mulch, mulch, mulch. A self-proclaimed “messy gardener” and an advocate of covering all bare earth with vegetation to hold moisture and prevent erosion, Hag-gard maintains there’s less disease when “everything grows together.” Developing deep root systems and soils teeming with life is a slow but essential process. “Compaction is the No. 1 reason we can’t grow here [because] there’s very little oxygen. Plants need as much oxygen underneath [the ground] as above.” And natives are no exception.

In terms of maintenance, native plants can be left to their own devices, but most will appreci-ate being deadheaded and groomed. If you’re the sort of gardener with an eye for aesthetics,

Apache Plume is one example of a native bush in Santa Fe

Nw Mexico Privet is an example of a native tree in Santa Fe

cont. on page 8


Consider the Natives—cont. from page 7

native trees and shrubs also respond well to proper seasonal pruning. Corva Rose of Divine Earth Aesthetic Pruning and Restoration says that given the drought, she now removes less than she used to -- even less than the “one-third rule,” which dictates removing no more than one third of the plant each year. “Make good cuts [when pruning] and be careful how much tissue you remove. I try to consider how many leaves a plant will have left for photosynthesis.”

Native plants do have superior survival skills, but the complexity of their communities -- the insects, birds and other animals they attract -- makes for a rich system of renewal and fascina-tion. So avail yourself and your garden of our broad selection of natives.

Helpful Resources: Native Gardening in Northern New Mexico, a publication of the Native Plant Society of New Mexico; Plants of the Southwest 2014 catalogue; An Illustrated Guide to Pruning by Ed Gilman.

Chitting PotatoesJannine Cabossel

If you want to grow potatoes this year, try chitting them before you put them in the ground. Chitting potatoes basically means growing out the eyes in indirect light, giving them a head start in the garden when you plant them.

Egg cartons are good to use as they keep the potatoes from rolling and breaking the eyes. Chit them for 1-2 weeks until the eyes start to grow. Get your potato bed ready, picking a rich, loamy and deep bed and dig the trenches 8 inches deep. Plant them in the bottom of the trench, eyes up, covering them with 3 inches of soil. After the plants are 6″ tall, start to mound up the dirt around the plants. Continue to mound the dirt around the plant even covering the leaves as it grows. The potatoes will grow in the dirt above where you planted the potato “seeds.” Growing your own potatoes is much better than store-bought ones.

Chitting potatoes is growing the eyes out before planting the potato seeds

Forsythia: Golden BeautyCarole Langrall

Springtime is officially here just in time to put some life back into our dormant gardens. Fortu-nate gardeners may have survived the winter blues by providing splashes of color with shrubs like Nandina domestica, with its scarlet-hued berries, or native dogwood branches in deep shades of maroon. But if you were like most of us, you probably experienced a landscape de-void of color, a result of deadheaded flower patches and leafless fruit trees bearing last year’s shriveled berries.

For better or worse, this season has been an early one, and while many bulb flowers popped up prematurely last month, we still have more to look forward to in terms of flowering trees and shrubs.

A blazing beauty known as forsythia is one of those flowering shrubs that is now painting the town in wild displays of profuse, golden flowers. A genus of the Oleaceae (olive) family, these deciduous shrubs originated in eastern Asia although one variety is native to southeastern Eu-


cont. on page 10


Forthysia: Golden Beauty—cont. from page 9

rope. The genus is named after renowned Scottish botanist, William Forsyth, a founding member of the Royal Horticulture Society. But another Scotsman, plant hunter and world traveler, Robert Fortune, discovered it.

There are at least a dozen varieties of forsythias as well as several hybrids including dwarf bush-es. They do best in zones 4-8 and can grow to over 10 feet tall. They tolerate well-drained soil, though they require watering in a drought. Each spring, the vibrant flowers bloom first on woody stems, followed by thin, dark green, serrated leaves once the blossoms perish. The leaves turn a deep purplish hue in the fall before they fall off.

Some gardeners like to let forsythias grow naturally while others prefer trimming them into hedg-es. By nature, forsythias will grow somewhat wild, so pruning is important lest you let them take over your garden. The best time to prune is after the plant has flowered. If you cut them back prior to flowering you’ll risk losing blooms.

Removing some of the older canes (branches) is helpful to regenerate growth. If the plant is too leggy and only flowers on the ends of branches, you can rejuvenate the plant by cutting it back severely. This is best done in late winter but not during a frost or drought.

Like most plants, forsythias have been used medicinally for over three thousand years. Its extract continues to be used today in commercial products for dandruff, acne and foot care. While slightly bitter, its flowers are edible and make a cheery garnish in salads.

In the Language of Flowers, forsythia means “anticipation.” It seems a rather fitting name for this carefree golden beauty that brings color back into our spring gardens. Photo credit: Wiki

From the Membership CoordinatorIf you are past member of the SFMGA there is a simple way for you to rejoin our organization. If you would like more information about how to go about it, please email our Membership Coordinator, Mary Ruth, at [email protected].


Membership Sign-upsJoy Mandelbaum

Learning continues outside of the class-room on the Santa Fe Master Gardener Projects. Students can put into practice what they have learned and all mem-bers can continue to gain knowledge and experience by working on the 14 projects available to them. These proj-ects offer a wide variety of learning experiences, functioning as “outdoor classrooms” for our members.

This year they range from helping a school re-establish a garden lost to construction to planting a garden for pollinators. Herb, cactus, xeric and rose-trial gardens are located at the

County Extension. We are restoring a historic garden, supporting a public rose

garden, and have planted a wildlife-attracting garden. Also offered are composting certification class-es, being a docent at a garden tour and we now have “The Garden Journal” radio program on KSFR. Most importantly, we answer gardening questions from the public at our Ask a Master Gardener sites including the new Santa Fe Botanical Garden and on our website.

Using a great new on-line program, SignUpGenius, members signed up for this years projects on March 15. There was a good turn out and a festive atmo-sphere. In fact, it is such a great way to catch up after the winter months and meet the new interns, we’re thinking about converting this gathering to an annual event even though from now on all sign-ups will be done on line. What a great way to re-connect, meet new members, and learn about the projects and committees that keep SFMGA running.

cont. on page 12

Lots of info was shared about SFMGA projects

Mary and Helena at Project Signup Day


Gardening 101Cherry Payne

If Santa Fe’s nickname is the “City Different,” the Santa Fe Master Gardeners Association’s should be “Gardening Different.” Living in a desert in the fourth year of a severe drought, and at high elevation, we enjoy (or endure) a shortened growing season. These realities brought 54 hopeful gardeners one wet Saturday in March to the SFMGA’s offering of “Gardening 101.” Two instructors, Tracy Neal and Arina Pittman, shared their secrets to success honed over years of professionally gardening in our challenging environment. Both instructors encouraged new gardeners to start small so that their inevitable failures will be also be small.

Using SignUpGenius for sign-ups will make it much easier for Project Leaders and members. Now members can continue to sign up throughout the season at their conve-nience and in the comfort of their home. In addition to signing up, they can:• check and/or print out a schedule of their signed up dates,• transfer their schedule to a Google, Outlook or Apple calendar,• swap dates, and• use their schedule to track dates they have worked, facilitating reporting their hours.

Members have commented, “It is so excellent! I am sitting here signing up for the Herb Garden and other activities. The ability to automatically populate my calendar is wonderful.” and “Thanks for all your work in improving the process.”

Additional benefits of the program are still being realized. Members have been very busy already and the gardening season is only just starting!

Bev helps with signups

Membership Sign-Ups—cont. from page 11

cont. on page 13


Pittman, a landscape architect and permaculture design-er, started her program with an explanation of her “Gar-den Wheel of the Year.” She uses the summer and winter solstice and the spring and fall equinox to divide the year. In the winter, plants are at rest. As the spring equinox ap-proaches they begin to take in nutrients in preparation for their energetic growth, reproduction and fruiting during the warmer months. As the fall approaches, seeds set and woody growth hardens in preparation for dormant winter months. She also discussed the importance of mulching and the benefits of biodiversity in the garden. Longtime Santa Fe resident Tracy Neal brought his years of experience as a nursery manager, horticulturist, certified arborist, and landscape designer to offer practical tips on everything from site and soil analysis to plant selection and drip irrigation. Emphasizing climate realities including the potential for long-term droughts, he talked about changes in seasonal patterns, such as smaller and earlier-melting snow-pack (our main source of water) and more torrential rains between dry spells that cause erosion and plant stress.

Neal encouraged participants to develop a partnership with nature - to think of themselves as part of the ecology of the site. This includes considering the role of the garden, land-scape design needs, erosion control, water supply, building good soils, and microclimates created by structures that can serve as windbreaks and offer unseasonal warmth along southern walls. Finally, Neal offered tips on plants to choose for our gar-dening zone - USDA 5 - noting that by taking microclimates into consideration some USDA Zone 6 plants can do well in Santa Fe.

All participants were provided with a resource list of tools, helpful books, websites, and local institutions, organizations and clubs, as well as a sense of what it takes to garden suc-cessfully in the high desert.

Gardening 101—cont. from page 12 Arina Pittman’s Tips• Add compost amendments late February and early March and again in late fall

• Plant summer squash and zucchini around July 4th after squash bugs have finished breeding

• Grow leafy greens in green or hoop houses from Febru-ary to early May before flea beetles appear. Concentrate on other tasty veggies after that

• Plant rhubarb to attract ben-eficial insects such as lady bugs and lacewings

Tracy Neal’s Tips• Plan before you plant

• Good shade trees are Hon-ey Locust, Burr oak, chinqua-pin, hybrid and Asian elms (avoid Siberian elm)

• “Blaze” climbing rose is tough

• Climbing vines: Hall’s Hon-eysuckle and trumpet honey-suckles


Botanical NomenclaturePeggy Rudberg

On February 18 Cristina Salvador, an ecologist from the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, offered a con-tinuing education course for its docents. She gave us an overview of the structure of botanical names and how to form them. When plants are given names that are precise and unique this scientific name facilitates communication between diverse communities and its hierarchy reveals evolutionary rela-tionships with other species. Common names vary greatly by region and often suggest false relation-ships.

The method that scientists use to organize and classify living things is called taxonomy, in our case plant taxonomy. This method was developed by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). He created a system of describing each species with a two-part Latin or Latinized name consisting of genus and species that is known as the binomial name. Linnaeus named hundreds of new plants based on their reproductive structures.

In the early 19th century botanists A.P. de Candolle, who coined the term taxonomy, and A.L. de Jes-sieu contributed to classification methods by also considering characteristics like genetics and evolu-tionary relationships when assigning names.

Botanical names are descriptive and hierarchical and have rules for forming and writing. A taxon (plu-ral taxa) is any unit used in taxonomy. Taxa follow in this order: Kingdom - all plants are in the kingdom Plantae Division or phylum (plural phyla) Class Order Family Genus (plural genera) species

The taxa from kingdom to genus are nouns and are capitalized. The species, also called the specific epitaph, is not capitalized and is considered to be an adjective that agrees in gender with the genus. The combination of the name of the genus with the name of the species is called the binomial name. Both are underlined or italicized. Species names can be based on a personal name such as Quercus gambelii, named after William Gambel, one of the earliest botanists to arrive in New Mexico, or on a location such as Forestiera neomexicana.

The binomial name may be followed by a subspecies (ssp.) or variety (var.). These are sub-groups of species used to distinguish naturally occurring variants of the species existing in the wild. They are true to type. In other words, their seeds will produce plants with the same characteristics as the par-ent plant. Varieties and subspecies are written in lower case and are italicized (Cercis canadensis var. texensis).

The scientific name may also include a cultivar. A cultivar is a variety developed by humans from a naturally occurring plant and/or a hybrid that is maintained under cultivation. It must be distinct from

cont. on page 15

the species, for example, bigger flowers or a different growth rate. It is often not true to type and must be propagated by cuttings or grafting to maintain its distinction from the species. Cultivar names are capitalized and enclosed in single parenthesis or preceded by the abbreviation cv. (Juniperus scop-ulorum ‘Moonglow’). The rank of cultivar is NOT in the subspecific hierarchy, so it may be used with any taxon from genus downward (Rosa ‘Peace’). A plant can have both a variety and a cultivar name (Cornus florida var. rubra ‘Cherokee Chief’).

An × (multiplication sign) indicates a hybrid, whether natural or artificial. When two genera are crossed the × comes before the genus. Sorbus x aronia ‘Ivan’s Beauty’ is a cross of mountain ash & Aronia or chokecherry. When two species are crossed the × comes before the species (Penstemon × mexicali ‘Pike’s Peak Purple’).

Scientific names are complex and detailed. Below are some websites with further explanations.

http://www.iapt-taxon.org/nomen/main.php

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/584695/taxonomy

http://herbarium.usu.edu/teaching/4420/botnom.htm#Authorities

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2008/2-6/CultivarOrVariety.html

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/Gardennotes/122.html


Congratulations to the New SCAT members for 2014! New graduates are Roxanne Barber, Kathryn Bender, Athena Beshur, Jaye Dawson, Jed Dean

Gregory Dye, Mimi Hoffman, Victoria Jacobson, Linda Kluck, Ashley Sanderson, Sandy Shaw, Diane Tjenos

Botanical Nomenclature—cont. from page 14

Mission Statement: The Santa Fe Master Gardener Association is a non-profit volunteer organization whose

mission is to learn, teach, and promote locally sustainable gardening through reliable, cur-rent research-based practices

We all know it’s important to save water as we approach the gardening season. But are you familiar with the current regulations and rebates that are in place for Santa Fe?To find out visit http://savewatersantafe.com The site is loaded with information about our water system, conservation track record and tips for saving water.

THIS MONTH’S GEM FROM THE WEB


NMSU Cooperative Extension Service • Santa Fe County Extension Office College of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences

3229 Rodeo Road • Santa Fe, NM 87507 • Phone: 505.471.4711Fax: 505.471.6076 • www.sfmga.org

NMSTATE

UNIVERSITY

2014 Calendar of Events

Visit the Events Calendar on our website for a complete list of garden-related activities and classes with times and locations: (http://sfmga.org/events-calendar).

APRIL 5 Cold Weather Protection for Vegetable Gardens 1 CE5 Landscape for Today and Tomorrow 1.5 CE5 Compost & Organic Soil Improvement 1 CE12 Plants for Santa Fe 1 CE12 Growing Vegetables in Containers 1 CE12 Basic Drip Irrigation 1 CE14 Pruning Roses 1 CE19 Spring Gardening Workshop 1.5 CE19 Edible Landscaping 1 CE22 Gardening in the SW: Changing Rules for an Extreme Sport 1 CE26 America’s Favorite Flower: The Rose 1 CE26 Basic Drip Irrigation 1 CE

MAY3 Basic Drip Irrigation 1 CEMembers Only - For a complete list of MG projects and hours earned visit the calendar in the Members Only section of the website: (http://sfmga.org/members-only). Be sure to check out the project schedules. Just scroll down to Project Links and Credit Hour Summary and click on a project for the current work schedule.

Documents

Santa Fe Master Gardener Newsletter