Garden Gurus Master Gardeners Program Marks 25 Years Of Solving People’S Plant Problems

Kay Stoltz didn’t start gardening until she retired eight years ago.

“Then, I got dirt under my fingernails,” said the South Hill resident. “I got into gardening and I wanted to learn more.”

Now, she’s a member of Spokane County Master Gardeners, an organization that helps other hobbyists become better gardeners.

A nationwide movement, Master Gardeners was originally started in Spokane and King counties in 1973 through the Cooperative Extension of Washington State University.

On Saturday, the organization will celebrate its 25th anniversary with an open house at the county extension office, 222 N. Havana.

The family-oriented event will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will feature displays, demonstrations, children’s activities and door prizes.

Gardeners are invited to bring problem plants or bugs to the plant clinic for diagnosis and recommendations on treating them.

Spokane’s mayor and county commissioners have declared Saturday as Master Gardener Day in recognition of the organization’s work.

“It’s the most rewarding thing I’ve done,” said Stoltz, a retail merchandiser in her earlier life.

Stoltz, along with some 60 other volunteers, puts in 40 hours a year as a master gardener. At least half of that volunteer time is spent at the plant clinic and resource center in the lower level of the extension office.

The center is normally open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays for drop-in visits by gardeners.

Stoltz also visits nurseries to answer gardening questions and helps build raised-bed vegetable gardens for low-income residents.

The veggie gardens are put in early each spring by the Spokane Community Gardens organization, which this year installed raised beds for 40 families and seven group homes.

Like all master gardeners, Stoltz has a flower and vegetable patch of her own.

It’s something more than a patch. Her entire front yard is devoted to perennials, shrubs and flowering trees. Among her collection she has a white-flowered bleeding heart, tall spiked primroses, an early-blooming Christmas rose and a miniature rose she started herself from seed.

Even the parking strip has been planted with hostas, an exquisite shade-loving perennial.

In the basement, she has a half-dozen fluorescent lights for starting seed plants like tomatoes and peppers early in the season.

“It’s good therapy,” Stoltz said.

The idea for master gardeners sprang up so county extension agents could be freed from fielding calls from the public for help. Agents at the time couldn’t handle the volume of inquiries.

Extension agents are faculty members in WSU’s College of Agriculture and Home Economics.

Tonie Fitzgerald, extension agent in Spokane County, said master gardeners gained popularity nationwide and in four Canadian provinces because they provide the public with reliable information in a timely manner.

In Washington, they volunteer 130,000 hours a year.

In Spokane, they offer lectures and classes prior to each growing season. Some of the classes let gardeners get their hands dirty while learning how to propagate plants or create evergreen container plantings.

Master gardeners also help the 4-H clubs and other youths on projects. They staff information booths at various public events like the Spokane MarketPlace.

Food preserving specialists will be at the market on May 16 and 30, and June 13 and 20. They will also make appearances throughout the summer, but the dates have not been scheduled yet.

The program has about 60 active volunteers, and another 20 who are on the master gardener list but don’t put in as much time as active members.

To become a master gardener, each must undergo a three-month series of classes to learn the latest information on horticulture.

“The point is to extend the education to the home gardener and landscaper,” Fitzgerald said.

Small commercial growers are also welcome to take advantage of the program, she said.

In recent years, the extension service and Master Gardeners have promoted the reduced use of fertilizers and pesticides, which can harm the environment. Excess nitrates from fertilizer are known to pollute ground and surface water and some pesticides are harmful to fish and wildlife.

Master gardeners are helping homeowners learn how to landscape with drought-tolerant native plants to reduce the amount of water needed to keep a garden alive.

Plants that thrive in dry conditions - like creeping potentilla, hardy geraniums and golden-flowered yarrow - are now growing in a small display garden on the south side of the extension office.

The gardeners are also planning another display garden south of the parking lot.

Cinde Johnson, who coordinates the volunteers, said a lot of gardening information available through books, articles and broadcast media won’t work in Spokane with its extreme winters and hot, dry summers.

“There’s a lot of information available from other sources, but it’s not necessarily specific to our area,” she said.

A lot of the master gardeners say getting involved in the program has changed them.

Sydney McCrea has run the plant clinic since 1982. Her husband, Floyd, is also a master gardener.

When Sydney McCrea first joined, she said she wouldn’t give talks to groups. Now, she gives lectures every year.

“People who come in here are so happy to have someone who will listen to them and answer their questions,” McCrea said.

“I really like helping people with their questions and their problems.”

1. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Spokane County Master Gardeners will mark its 25th anniversary with an open house at the county extension office, 222 N. Havana. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

2. COMMUNITY GARDENS RECEIVES SERVICE AWARD The Spokane Community Gardens organization was recently named one of 10 winners of a service award from the National Gardening Association. Spokane Community Gardens builds raised-bed vegetable gardens for low-income families and group homes. This year they installed beds for 40 families and seven group homes. The award is sponsored by Mantis of Southhampton, Pa., a company that builds lightweight cultivator machines. As a prize, the community gardens group will receive a free Mantis tiller/cultivator. “Spokane Community Gardens is a great example of how gardening can help create links within communities,” said David Young, administrator of the awards program with the National Gardening Association in Burlington, Vt. After the group builds the gardens, one of the volunteers works with the family as a mentor to help them with seeding, thinning, transplanting, fertilizing and watering.