Master gardeners love dirt. They love nature, sunshine, and everything vegetatively alive. Some of them even love weeds! So, it stands to reason….. that someone who loves growing season busy-ness might find the slow, non- vegetative season, grey skies and white,frozen ground, challenging, maybe even depressing. I wonder if master gardeners suffer more than others in our county from the Winter blues.
Master Gardeners are trained by Penn State Cooperative Extension to assist in providing educational programs and information to county residents in any area of plant science. They receive the designation after more than 30hours of Penn State horticultural training and 50 hours of volunteer service in the community and the county extension office.
The most active time for inquiries, programs and activities runs from Dairy Day in March to the end of the growing season.
What do master gardeners do after they’ve put their own vegetable garden “to bed” and brought their house plants indoors? That’s what I wanted to know. Wouldn’t you like to know?
I loved Glenn’s reply to this inquiry: “I go to a garden center and buy a plant that I know very little or nothing about. Over the next few months, “The Plant” and I will work on my education.” I think that’s lovely. It shows a relationship-building process between the plant and the gardener. That’s how it should be. Since the horticultural field is vast, we know, we can never know everything there is to know. So there is always more learning and Winter is a great time for more learning, whether it’s re-reading the training manuals, or, like Michelle, “read up on Horticulture topics on which I am weak.” Of course, reading gardening magazines is a favorite pastime. “Birds & Bloom” and “Backyard Living” are two of Rosi’s favorites. Mine is “Organic Gardening”. These can be read for pleasure, information, and gardening ideas. Rosi finds gardening projects she enjoys doing. “Two that I plan to work on this winter are: garden art using old bowling balls, tile adhesive, river rocks, glass gems and mirrored tiles and another, making planters using sand, peat moss, pearlite and Portland cement.” She certainly plans to keep busy. In addition to the above, every winter she completes several (1,000 piece) jigsaw puzzles. This year she “will be doing one of 170 American wildflowers.”
I said above that winter is a non-vegetative season. While that’s true for outdoors, let’s not forget that there’s a lot of growing going on indoors. Catherine says: “I think I embrace flowering plants more in the winter, simply because it is out of the ordinary to have blooming plants in the home.” How many flowering plants do you have on your window sills, MaryAnn? You told me, but I forgot the number! Forcing plants indoors for the holidays can be an enjoyable activity for any gardener/homemaker. Sprouting seeds for food is something to try. Rena Scroggins is the local authority on this.
Kim, did you mention bird watching? That’s certainly an enjoyable (and restful) way to stay connected with nature. Kim, a self admitted ‘bird nerd’ hosts a myriad of winter birds at her feeders. I like watching the herd of Lake Avenue deer walk the labyrinth at the Self Discovery Wellness Arts Center! I am not kidding. Six of them are regulars: 6:30-7:00 a.m. or 5-5:30 p.m.
Before I run out of space, I must not neglect to mention the planning that master gardeners do during the Winter months. Michelle tells me: “ This winter I'm going to plan a new perennial garden and focus on the plants that I have in my old perennial garden that need dividing. I'm also going to "play" with a Landscape Design software program and help a friend of mine in Louisiana plan out a back garden (and in March, go down to Louisiana and help her with it). I'll also be writing more veggie sheets for the Master Gardener's table at the Farmer's Market and planning other articles for the blog and the Newsline.”
All of this, even before the gardening catalogs arrive! Does that excite you as much as it excites Catherine?
So, to return to the question of master gardeners and the winter blues ….it stands to reason that someone who loves the outdoors, sunshine, gardening, plants, dirt, etc. etc….might be negatively affected more than most by long Winter days without sunshine and nothing to do. But my feeling is that master gardeners are above all lovers of beauty. They can find beauty all around them: visible beauty above the snow and invisible, projected beauty underneath the snow, to be reborn in Spring. If the blues come or cabin fever, master gardeners can cure them by remembering to smell the roses. This is not a problem for Brenna….she travels to somewhere warm. “This year we are off to Peru, last winter it was Costa Rica. The tropical climate and vegetation is just what is needed to get through the winter.” For the rest of us, Winter is beauty without bugs.
By Anna D’Andrea, Master Gardener
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