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Monthly Newsletter – November 2017 Harford County Master Gardeners

The Garden Fence

The Effect of War on Saving Seeds In our Master Gardener classes, we learned the importance of saving seeds. You may remember learning about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a seed repository which is burrowed into the side of a mountain on a Norwegian island above the Arctic Circle. This repository holds seeds donated from countries all over the world. Seed-savings programs going on in countries throughout the world contribute seeds to the Svalbard Seed Vault. One of these programs, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, also known as Icarda, is located in Aleppo, Syria. Icarda has a goal of safeguarding those seeds that are hardy enough to grow in the hot, arid climate of Syria. This goal is very important not only for Syria, but for other hot countries where hot and arid conditions exist. This goal is also very important for the future, when many more parts of the world could become as hot and arid as Syria. Well, sometimes war can have an extremely negative effect on the seed-saving efforts of an entire country. According to a recent article in the New York Times, Icarda recently became a casualty of the war in Syria, when most of the population (including many Icarda scientists) fled the country. When the Icarda scientists fled in 2014, they sent what seeds they could to Svalbard. Cut to 2015, when Icarda’s scientists decided to start anew in a different location. They borrowed their seeds back from Svalbard (this was the first time in history that Svalbard allowed people to withdraw seeds). The Icarda headquarters is now located in Beruit, Lebanon, where the scientists work to rebuild Syrian seed stores, and continue their research and development of seeds that could be used in hot conditions. As Master Gardeners, we should hope that Icarda efforts can continue, even through catastrophic war events. Resources: New York Times, “Safeguarding Seeds that May Feed the Future.” Front page, October 15, 2017. Wikipedia (English) page on Svalbard Global Seed Vault, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault, accessed on October 23, 2017.

~Ellen Haas – 2013

Inside this Issue President’s Message 1 Flagpole Bird Feeder 2 Chinese Dragon 2 New Field Guide 3 Training 4 Calendar of Events 6 Officers Ellen Haas President Anne Spelman Vice President Lisa Scowden Secretary Greg Murray Treasurer Quick Link Harford County Extension Office Home & Garden Info Center MG Hours Online

President’s Message

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As we all age, it gets harder and harder to lift that bag of bird feed up to the feeder to refill it. But we can’t lower the feeder because that bird-eating cat can still jump just as high. The solution? Hang the feeder(s) from a flag pole. Lower it for the refill, then raise it back up, out of the reach of that pesky feline. There are a number of online sources of flagpoles and hangers, some suitable for feeders and many not. My feeders hang from a rack designed for purple martin gourd-houses, built by S&K Mfg, of O’Fallon MO. http://store.skmfg.com/ The rack, with suspended feeders, travels up and down the flag pole in place of the flag. Be sure to balance your load, with two

similar-size feeders on opposite sides of the rack. And you will want a winch – bird food weighs a lot more than a flag. Total cost for my installation (pole, rack, and winch): about $250. Less than one session of physical therapy.

~Gary Haas 2017

Well, it’s a pretty small dragon, but still … This attractive tufted caterpillar, with two “horns” and a “tail”, appeared one day this September on the well-gnawed leaf of a Lotus growing in a half-barrel of water in my back yard. I figured it would be easy to identify – how many caterpillars eat lotus? So I Googled “tufted yellow caterpillar on lotus”, and there it was, in the first row of images. Only it wasn’t yellow, it was black and red, but the horns and tail and 4 prominent tufts were the same. Okay, it’s got to be at least a cousin. The source webpage said it was a Vapourer Moth (Orgyia antiqua) caterpillar. Actually, it looks more like Orgyia leucostigma, the Whitemarked Tussock Moth.

The adult male Whitemarked Tussock Moth is a small, drab moth-looking moth. His short life is completely consumed with seeking a female; he doesn’t even eat. The adult female is flightless, looking much like Jabba the Hutt, from Star Wars. She emerges from her cocoon, emits a potent pheromone, and is almost immediately fertilized by males attracted from afar to her scent. She lays her eggs on the remains of her cocoon, and dies. Not a merry or complicated existence for either gender. At least the male

gets to fly. The young hatch, secrete a short silken thread, and are dispersed by the wind, similar to the way baby spiders locomote. It’s a good thing for the tiny caterpillars that they are not picky about what they eat – our lotus-eater was a lotus-eater by chance only, tree leaves are a more common diet. The caterpillars grow up, eat (a lot) for four to six weeks, spin a cocoon, and pupate in some crevice,

Flagpole Bird Feeder

Eek! There’s a Chinese Dragon Eating My Plant!

Orgyia leucostigma

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such as in tree bark. Some species of Tussock Moths have two generations per season, others only one. They over-winter in the pupa stage. The Whitemarked Tussock Moth is a cousin of the Gypsy Moth, but it does not appear in sufficient numbers to be a pest. Allergic reactions to their hairs may occur in sensitive individuals. Beware of the female moth, though. Her pheromone is so potent that, according to reports, researchers have been bedeviled by male moths for days after handling a female. http://www.wildlifeinsight.com/american-caterpillar-gallery/ http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/foltz/eny3541/Tussock/Orgyia.htm http://enpp.auburn.edu/outreach/web-publications/whitemarked-tussock-moth/ Caterpillars of Eastern North America, David L. Wagner, Princeton University Press. More caterpillar news: I saw another August caterpillar that I had never seen before. This appears to be a Spotted Apatelodes (Apatelodes torrefacta), a native cousin of the silkworm. It was dining on Witch Hazel, though the species eats many tree leaves. It grows up to be a moth.

~ Gary Haas 2017

Marlene Butler can best be described as empowering to others. She has volunteered in the community for over 27 years. She was a part of Meals on Wheels for many years, delivering not only meals, but her own personal touch in the form of a card, a note or a craft flower. She sings in the choir and is a part of the bell choir at her church and is the co-chair to the Happy Hearts senior group. She has directed the Giving Boxes program at Christ

Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, and has increased the number of boxes filled from 400 to 1200 over the years. Marlene solicits donations from businesses and organizations, coordinates filling and distribution of the boxes and encourages other volunteers to take ownership in the project. Additionally, she has helped her church secure Bay-Wise designation from the University of Maryland Extension, ensuring that the impact of the property is minimal on the health of the Chesapeake Bay. As a part of the Master Gardener’s Group, Marlene introduced the idea of therapeutic Horticulture at Brightview Assisted Living and engages the residents in learning about plants, flowers and arrangements. Marlene is the former president of the Harford County, Maryland branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) which advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, philanthropy and research. She was the co-chair of the Food Fight fundraiser, raising over $3000 for AAUW scholarships for women. No longer co-chair, she stays involved with the program as a judge. Marlene selflessly thinks of others, sending cards, making homemade jellies, cookies or just calling to make someone feel valued and cared for. She is truly one of Harford’s Most Beautiful People!

Apatelodes torrefacta

2017 Nominee for Harford’s Most Beautiful People MG Marlene Butler Nominated by Karen Gyolai

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As the days shorten we begin doing our fall garden and landscape chores and reflect on the past growing season and our MG work. It’s also time to go into the Online Tracking System (OTS) and record all of your 2017 hours. Please don’t delay. This is an essential responsibility of all UME Master Gardeners. In 2016, UME Master Gardeners educated 86,451 contacts via our statewide Master Gardener programs and contributed 111,468 volunteer service hours! This equated to $2.97 million in monetary value to the State of Maryland! We can’t wait to see and share the results of your 2017 efforts! Here are a few of the reasons why every MG should faithfully enter their volunteer/continuing education service hours and contacts: 1. This is your program. These are your hours that we ask you to record. They can help you see what you have accomplished over the past year and where you have put your time and effort. 2. Only through accurate record-keeping can we determine when you achieve Master Gardener status and whether you maintain that status year to year. The OTS tells us when you have reached milestones, so that your efforts can be recognized. The recorded hours provide a nice picture of what is going on statewide and in each county/city program. 3. Accurate data illustrates to your county officials and our University of Maryland administrators that the program is vibrant and worthy of continued support and funding. The numbers we include in our Home and Garden Information Center Annual Report establish a useful metric that can be effectively combined with success stories, survey results, and impact statements. 4. “Contacts” are the clients we educate throughout the year. They bring us questions at Ask a MG Plant Clinics, and participate in our classes, workshops, garden tours, and other events. The U.S.D.A. requires that MGs report contacts by gender, race, and ethnicity. This is done to ensure that the University of Maryland Extension programs are effectively serving all of Maryland’s citizens. Please report these numbers accurately. When recording your hours, please be aware that...

● All activities must be approved through your program’s project approval process. Other one-time, one-day activities must be approved by your Master Gardener Coordinator. ● Informal consultations with friends and neighbors (providing information and advice) is not considered an approved MG activity for which hours are recorded. ● Volunteer service hours should be recorded using the activity code that best relates to the subject matter. For example, if you conduct a special event and the MG display and theme is on pollinators, you would use activity code #1 “IPM/Pollinators” and not activity code #10 “Special Events.” This captures the value of our educational outreach more accurately and powerfully.

Please contact your County MG Coordinator and OTS Administrator when questions arise regarding the OTS. They will be able to assist you. Thanks and enjoy the season, Jon Traunfeld State Master Gardener Coordinator

Letter from MG State Leader Jon Traunfeld

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DEADLINE FOR ONLINE HOURS IS EARLY THIS YEAR!!

Below are the important deadline dates for this year. Please follow these dates closely. If you have not started entering your hours or are having an issue, please email me at dgracew@comcast.net I will work with you to make sure your hours count for you and the Master Gardener program.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15 -- Deadline for Master Gardeners to enter hours. (If you know you have events planned for after that date, the system will allow you to enter any anticipated activity between December 15 and December 31 before your December 15 deadline).

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22 -- Deadline for coordinators to approve hours.

DECEMBER 23, 2017 TO JANUARY 5, 2018 -- No one can access the online system.

JANUARY 6, 2018 -- Site opens up for Master Gardeners to access the site for 2018 hours.

**Please take the time to read the letter above from Jon Traunfeld outlining 2017 Master Gardener hours and the impact our volunteer time makes to the state.

Thank you all for your hard work for Master Gardeners. As you can see from Jon's letter, Master Gardeners contribute in a great way to the State of Maryland.

~Grace Wyatt 2000

A new all-digital field guide ‘A Guide to the Mosses and Liverworts of Alberta Peatlands’ is now available online. This guide, with text by Dale Vitt and photos by Michael Lüth, and edited by Jeannine Goehing and Bin Xu can be downloaded free from two sources 1) http://www.nait.ca/100081.htm - link under ’field guide’) or 2) from ResearchGate.net under Dale H. Vitt’s page. It contains color photos, taxonomic and ecological notes, a key, and glossary to 60 bryophytes found in Alberta peatlands, and can be used for any North American boreal area. Published by the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology through the Boreal Research Institute . ~ Information provided by Linda Davis

DEADLINES for entering MG Volunteer Hours

Announcing a New Field Guide

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Winter Native Tree Identification – Monday, December 4, 2017 – Carroll County Extension Office, Westminster, MD, 10:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

If you think tree identification is normally difficult, you'll probably think winter tree identification is even harder! Actually, the opposite is true. Join us and learn the secrets that make winter tree identification easy enough for beginners to tackle!

We'll spend the morning in the classroom at the University of Maryland Extension Carroll County office, working on our twig ID skills. We'll use a combination of lecture, individual study, and team activities to build our powers of observation and comparison on fresh samples of tree twigs and seeds. We'll use the Winter Tree Finder booklet to practice keying out our twigs to species. (If you don't have a copy of Winter Tree Finder, don't worry, the booklet be available for purchase before class.)

This will be a beginners’ class, designed to help people who've either never attempted winter tree ID, or who have studied it and found that it "didn't stick." Accordingly, we'll limit our focus to a dozen species. However, the booklet you use in class, combined with the skills you acquire in class, will allow you to amaze your friends and family by accurately identifying the majority of Maryland's trees – even in winter!

We'll spend the afternoon honing our skills on real trees. We have a field trip planned to view the venerable old trees on the historic McDaniel College campus in Westminster.

Rain Date -Wednesday, December 6th

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Watts, M. T. & Watts. T. (1970). Winter Tree Finder: A Manual for Identifying Deciduous Trees in Winter. Nature Study Guild Publishers, Rochester, NY. (ISBN 978-0912550039) Continuing Education Credits-This class will count as 5.5 hours of UME MG or UME MN continuing education and also towards the Advanced Training: Native Plants Certificate.

Instructor- Dr. Sara Tangren (Agent Associate, Home & Garden Information Center

Fee: $20.00, Winter Tree Finder Booklet $5 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/winter-native-tree-identification-carroll-county-registration-38014655859

Master Gardener Advanced Training

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Fall Lecture Series 2017, 10:30 a.m. Ladew Topiary Gardens – Harvey Ladew Studio, Monkton, MD November 2, 2017, Glorious Shade: Dazzling Plants, Design Ideas, and Proven Techniques for Your Shady Garden with Jenny Rose Carey Ladew’s Fall Lecture Series features distinguished speakers who will offer insights and inspiration to garden lovers and gardeners of all ages and abilities. The presenters will take you on a journey through their explorations of garden design concepts, plant selections, growing techniques, floral design, and natural history, while offering rare glimpses into some of the nation’s most beautiful private gardens. Ladew’s Lecture Series is offered every Spring and Fall and is held in Harvey Ladew’s studio or barn gallery. Fee: $25 Members | $30 Non-Members http://www.ladewgardens.com/EDUCATION/Adult-Education/Lecture-Series November 4, 2017 , 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Workshop: Trees and Shrubs for Autumn Gardens, Mount Cuba Center, Hockessin, DE Set your landscape apart with trees and shrubs that have colorful fruit, bark, and foliage. Steven Kristoph, nursery owner and garden designer, delivers valuable insights on how to use them in your yard, grow them successfully, and where to obtain them. This class is a must for those with new homes and homeowners interested in adding plants that deliver spectacular colors and textures to the autumn garden. A tour of Mt. Cuba Center’s landscape follows the lecture. Fee: $30 https://education.mtcubacenter.org/wconnect/CourseStatus.awp?&course=174GAR212&Publish=ANYWAY November 8 & 15, 2017 , 10:00 am. to 12:20 p.m. Workshop: Essential Evergreens, Mount Cuba Center, Hockessin, DE Evergreens are an indispensable part of all home landscapes. They provide year-round structure to the garden and offer shelter and food sources for owls, overwintering birds, and beneficial insects. Learn the identifying characteristics, habitats, and uses of approximately 20 native conifers and broadleaved evergreens. Discover the species best suited to your property.. Fee: $65 https://education.mtcubacenter.org/wconnect/CourseStatus.awp?&course=174GAR201&Publish=ANYWAY November 11, 2017, 1:00 p.m. Late Fall Color in the Garden, Winterthur, Wilmington, DE Formerly known as the Second Saturdays Garden Walk, these walks are on the second Saturday of each month, year-round at 1:00 pm (unless otherwise noted). All walks begin and end at the Visitor Center and are free for Members and included with admission. Join Winterthur’s Director of Garden & Estate Chris Strand on a special walk highlighting interesting and seldom seen parts of the Winterthur landscape! Walks last about 90 minutes. Be sure to dress for the weather and wear walking shoes. In case of inclement weather, an update message will be left at 302.888.4915 approximately 3 hours before the walk http://www.winterthur.org/?p=1192

Training Opportunities

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HCEO Office Move

January 2018 Monthly MG meeting is cancelled due to the move.

The Harford County Extension Office will be moving to the New Agriculture Center, in the Dublin area, during the week of December 13 (tentatively).

Address: 3525 Conowingo Road Street, MD 21154

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Joyce Browning; Urban Horticulturist; MG Coordinator

The University of Maryland, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources programs are open to all and will not

discriminate against anyone because of race, age, sex, color, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry or national origin, marital status, genetic information, political affiliation, or gender identity and expression.

Calendar of Events November 2 10:00 a.m. MG Monthly Mtg HCEO November 4 Eden Mill Fall Fest Eden Mill November 4 11a.m. – Noon Bay-Wise Gardening Edgewood

Library November 5 Daylight Savings Time November 5 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Medical Herbs Jarrettsville

Library November 7 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Brightview Brightview November 10 Office CLOSED for

Veterans Day

November 12 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Invasinators Anita Leight November 15 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Evening Study Group

Flower Arranging w/ L. Masland

HCEO

November 16 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Army (ATEC) Annual Employee Health and Wellness Fair

APG

November 18 10:15 a.m. – Noon Garden Series – Deer Resistant Gardening

Bel Air Library

November 23 Thanksgiving Day November 23 & 24 Office CLOSED Thanksgiving Break November 30 10:00 a.m. MG Steering Committee HCEO December 5 !:30-2:30 p.m. Brightview Brightview December 7 6:00 p.m. MG Holiday Party Liriodendron December 13 HCEO proposed move Dublin area

The Maryland Master Gardener Mission Statement

The Maryland Master Gardener mission is to support the University of Maryland Extension by educating Maryland residents about safe effective and sustainable horticultural practices

that build healthy gardens, landscapes and communities.

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