You may email him at [email protected] for an Amazon shopping list to help you plan your own drip irrigation system. Other sources and helpful links from his presentation include:

Link-Tap: email Jack for your 10% discount code

 [email protected]

Sprinkler Warehouse:

 https://sprinklerwarehouse.com

Drip Depot:

 https://dripdepot.com

Demo Garden Dedication

by Stacey Haag

New Community Project Kickoff

by Stacey Haag

On Friday, July 8, Master Gardener volunteers Becky Juanes, Nola Hastings, Stacey Haag, and Jr. Master Gardener Tallen Haag visited McKendree Arbors Senior Residential Community in Springfield. We spoke to residents about the Tennessee Extension Master Gardener Program and our role within the community. We then discussed the basics of succulents and their care.

Next, we provided some inspiration so participants could begin designing their own succulent dish to take home. In assembly line fashion, we offered a variety of containers, succulents (thrillers, spillers, and fillers), potting medium, and stones for both drainage and decoration purposes. Seven senior citizen participants, plus their Program Coordinator, Angie, attended this inaugural program and designed some beautiful dish gardens. Some completed their projects independently, while others needed a little extra help due to mobility and/or visual limitations.  It was rewarding for both volunteers and participants alike.

This program will be ongoing with quarterly workshops planed. If you'd like to volunteer to help, please contact Project Lead Becky Juanes.

Profiles in Gardening... Linda Zanger

Linda has always enjoyed helping things grow. She became a Master Gardener to become more involved and more informed about something she has been doing her entire life.

Linda’s first gardens, like many, were vegetable gardens with tomatoes and squash and zucchini. She has found, over the years, that she really enjoys cut flowers and finding the best places in which to grow them. Her favorite plant is zinnia, a flower she discovered from her Master Gardener studies.

Since joining the Master Gardener program, Linda has found that she most enjoys working on the projects surrounding the Robertson County Extension office and watching the team bring the project to fruition. It gives her a sense of accomplishment and a sense of being part of a team.

In addition to gardening, Linda is an accomplished quilter, enjoys embroidery, and loves spending time with her horse, Agate, a companion for almost 20 years.

In addition to her Robertson County gardening experiences, Linda has assisted her parents in creating a garden at their Dickson home and has created gardens in her past homes in Oakland, Kentucky and White House, Tennessee.

Her grandmother and mother instilled the art of gardening in her when she was a young girl. She admits that she thought her grandmother was a little crazy when she would get up at 5:00 AM to water her garden, but now she understands why she did that as she does the same.

Two interesting things about Linda is that she is a rather passionate Titans fan and has sat in blistering heat and bitter cold to cheer the two-tone blue. She has also developed a love for vintage Model-A cars and often takes trips with her father around the region in those historic vehicles.

We returned to California in early June for our son’s college graduation from the University of California, San Diego. Fortunately, we had a few extra days in San Diego to enjoy the mild, sunny days. My husband wanted to visit an art museum and although we have been to Balboa Park many times over the years, we had never visited the San Diego Museum of Art, founded in 1926. For me though, it was too beautiful of a day to be indoors, so I left my husband at the museum and set off to visit some of the park’s gardens. Sitting on land designated in 1868, Balboa Park encompasses 1,200 acres of museums, performing arts spaces, gardens, and the San Diego Zoo. Originally designated as “City Park,” it was renamed after the Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa and has been declared a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as one of the Great Places in America.

Wholesale creation of the park didn’t begin until 1915 when its Spanish-Renaissance style buildings were constructed for the 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition, commemorating the opening of the Panama Canal. The Botanical Building and adjacent Lily Pond were built to display the flora native to Southern California, as well as tropical and temperate plants from around the world. Unfortunately, the building was closed for renovation, and although disappointed I wouldn’t have an opportunity to view the over 2,000 plants housed in the building, there were 18 more gardens to choose from! 

I decided to visit the California Native Garden. With a background in water efficiency, I’m quite familiar with plants native to Southern California; however, I was curious to see which plants had been incorporated into the demonstration garden and how they were displayed and labeled. Before heading off to find it, I enjoyed some of the other gardens along the El Pardo pedestrian walkway, particularly enjoying the Black-eyed Susan and Bear’s breeches.

Meandering in the direction of the California Native Garden, as if seeing it for the first time (which it wasn’t) I was stopped in my tracks by the Moreton Bay Fig Tree. Planted before 1915, this landmark tree stands 70 feet tall, has a spread of 125 feet and a massive 16-foot diameter trunk. It is an impressive tree! Attempting to avoid the countless squished figs, I continued my quest to find the native garden. 

As it turned out, getting to the California Native Plant Garden required a 20-minute walk through dry, dusty landscape and up a steep slope. This photo, captured from the Balboa Park website, shows a well-marked demonstration area – just what I was looking for! However, what I found was much different. Now, I’m not ruling out the possibility that I missed an entrance somewhere, but I concluded that I had indeed arrived at the native garden because much of what I saw I recognized from the slope behind my house in Yorba Linda, CA. Plants such as Coyote bush, Chaparral mallow, and California brittlebush.

Hound’s tongue

Hummingbird bush

Chaparral mallow 

California brittlebush

Feeling a bit defeated, and concluding I had seen what constituted the demonstration garden, I walked back toward the museum to meet my husband for lunch at one of the many restaurants located in Balboa Park. We had other things to do that day, so our sons, who had blazed their own trail that morning - which absolutely did not include a walk in the park - picked us up. As we drove away, I spotted the Rose Garden. In my quest to see native plants I had missed three acres of beautiful, colorful, fragrant flowers. “Wait, let me out!” I wanted to scream, alas that would have to wait for another time. Balboa Park offered us both the opportunity to view art that morning for as the painter Elizabeth Murray said, “Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.”

Wellfield Botanic Gardens

by Judy Bryant

Wellfield Botanic Gardens, located in the heart of Elkhart, IN, is a 36-acre natural enclave touted as a "living museum and a working source of hydropower and drinking water." I recently took a self-guided tour of these beautiful gardens that feature mostly native plants and lots of water features. Two weddings were taking place while I was there. I even snapped a sweet picture of father and bride.