Posts Tagged ‘sfeawards-demonstration garden projects’

Search for Excellence Award Blog Posts (Listing by Project Category)

Monday, February 6th, 2012
IMG Search for Excellence

International Master Gardener Search for Excellence Awards

In early November, Monica David, the 2011 IMGC vice president, announced we would be sharing 18 blog posts about each of the Extension Master Gardener volunteer projects that received a 2011 International Search For Excellence Award. These projects were awarded among six project categories during the 2011 International Master Gardener Conference.

Blog Posts Created New National Recognition and Discussion Opportunities

This year, blogging about these award winning projects helped bring new recognition and understanding of the value of Extension Master Gardener volunteers through pageviews on this blog, shares through our Facebook page, and retweets on Twitter.

Many of these projects received kudos in the blog’s comments section and created opportunities for Extension Master Gardeners from different states to discuss and learn about how local programs are participating in similar or different ways across the United States. To make these blog posts easier to access and find by category, we’ve grouped the 2011 International Master Gardener Search For Excellence award winning blog posts by project category and listed them for you below.

As you work toward new volunteer projects this year, you may want to take another glimpse at these posts, share these with a friend, or perhaps add your insights to the comments sections for a particular project that applies or resonates most with you….or (hint, hint) perhaps these posts will encourage your local program to submit an application for the 2013 International Master Gardener Search for Excellence Awards!

Blog Posts by Project Award Category

Workshop attendees learn how to properly construct their own rain barrels in Macon, County Iowa

The next International Master Gardener Conference and Search for Excellence Awards will take place in 2013.  For more information on the next International Master Gardener conference, see the IMGC 2013 Website or Facebook page.

Karen Jeannette
eXtension Consumer Horticulture Content Coordinator

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2011 Search for Excellence Demonstration Garden Award Winner- 3rd Place

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

The Master Gardens of Carteret County- Carteret County, North Carolina

The rain garden located at the N. C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores is used to teach about water quality.

The Carteret County Master Gardener’s demonstration garden project was established to address the needs of its community from its inception. Recognizing the ways in which development had changed the natural landscape, the Master Gardeners planned a series of gardens that addressed issues of rainwater capture,native plants, and vegetable garden management.

The Rain garden is part of the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores where it shares its goal of water quality education. The herb/vegetable garden is located at the Beaufort Historic Site where it provides historic education and the butterfly garden is at the Core Sound Museum and Heritage Center where native plants are kept vibrant and visible. Between these three sites, the gardens are seen by half a million people each year.

To learn more about the Carteret County Master Gardener projects visit: http://carteret.ces.ncsu.edu/index.php?page=lawngarden

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2011 Search for Excellence Demonstration Garden Award Winner- 2nd Place

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Medicinal Plant Garden at the Indiana Medical History Museum- Marion County, Indiana

Medicinal plants at the Indiana Medical History Museum Garden.

The Medicinal Plant Garden at the Indiana Medical History Museum in Indianapolis was started in 2003.  With new additions of beds and plants each year, the garden now demonstrates over 100 different species that have been used for medicinal purposes, including trees, shrubs and vines as well as annual and perennial herbs.  The garden is totally a Marion County (Indiana) Purdue Master Gardener project from concept and fundraising to design, installation and maintenance.

The purpose of the garden is to help visitors remember what people did before there was a bottle of pills waiting for them at the neighborhood Walgreens or CVS – and also to help them better appreciate the amazing qualities that lie within the plants we love.  The garden is NOT meant to promote self-medication with herbal remedies.  The potential dangerous toxic side effects of plants are also presented.

Signage and an illustrated guidebook are well used educational tools

Signage in the garden provides information about each specie’s scientific and common names, its native place in the world, what parts were/are used to make medicine, and a bit about what symptoms the plant could help.  More extensive information is available in a printed and illustrated guidebook, which is also available online (www.imhm.org).  The guidebook also includes a bibliography of the references used in research for the garden.

The witch hazel tree is valued for its medicinal properties.

A wide variety of public individuals come to tour the garden and see the museum.  Classes from the nearby medical school and other universities, colleges, and schools also visit the museum each year and discover aspects of medical history that their intense modern curriculum doesn’t have time to include.

Written by Kathleen Hull, Marion County Master Gardener

To learn more about the Indiana Medical Museum visit: http://www.imhm.org/

For more information about the Marion County Master Gardeners visit their website at: http://IndyMG.org

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2011 Search for Excellence Demonstration Garden Award Winner- 1st Place

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Grassmere Historic Gardens- Davidson County, Tennessee

Visitors attend a class at Grassmere Gardens taught by the Master Gardeners.

Grassmere Historic Garden is located within the property of the Nashville Zoo.   Because of this, Davidson County Master Gardeners are in a unique position to draw people to the garden who may not have made a special trip just to look at plants.

Informational Brochures online as well as at the garden

Master Gardeners had cared for the gardens for years, but a few years ago, with a new group of Master Gardener volunteers, we made a conscious decision to take the garden from just a collection of plants and turn it into an educational setting; a real teaching garden.  We began by installing informational signs for the rose and herb gardens, but since the vegetable garden is the centerpiece, we made moveable signs since our crops change with the seasons.  As we researched our plantings, we decided to develop informational booklets on the various gardens; we have them on the medicinal herb garden, the antique rose garden, and we are now working on the second edition of the vegetable booklet.  The zoo is in the process of redesigning their website, and we have requested a page of our own so that we may post our booklets online.

With so many visitors, the volunteers within the garden are constantly asked questions.   To be prepared, we send out regular emails to the team  and then meet to discuss in detail what we are doing and why.  We get CEU credit for this, and are better prepared to deal with visitors.   And of course, since we are a demonstration garden, we are always trying different methods, and visitors are always interested in that.

Vegetable Classes Respond to Huge Public Demand

A couple of years ago, we began offering Saturday classes for two months in the early spring.  Perhaps it’s because of the local food movement, or just concerns over knowing what we eat, but the requests we received directly and from our feedback forms led us this year to really emphasize growing vegetables.  We taught separate classes on cool season crops, what to start from seed indoors, and on individual crops: tomatoes, squash and melons, corn and beans, and potatoes.    The potato class happened at the time of the first planting of that crop, so that we were able to demonstrate two different methods of planting for the class that day.    The zoo advertised the classes for us, and every Saturday morning we would have our regulars, who came every week, as well as visitors who just happened to wander by and stay to hear what was going on.

Davidson County Master Gardeners harvest the produce from their vegetable garden.

Written by Susan Hiles, Davidson County Master Gardener

For information about Grassmere Gardens and the Nashville Zoo visit http://www.nashvillezoo.org/grassmere-historic-home

For more information about the Davidson County, TN Master Gardeners view their website at http://www.dcmg.org/

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