HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS 2019 at The Perennial Farm It was a bit like a de ja vu – the weather was warm, and we were back at the Perennial Farm for the second time this summer! It made me stop to think how lucky we are to not only have members willing to open their operations up, but members that have such beautiful properties. This time we would spend the whole day at The Perennial Farm for the Herbaceous Perennials event. Special thanks to University of Maryland Extension especially Stanton Gill who took the lead on developing the program as well as Karen Rane, Dave Clement, and Andrew Ristvey. The day opened up with Rick Watson, owner of The Perennial Farm welcoming all of the attendees and speakers to his slice of heaven. We were happily overwhelmed with registration response for this event that we had to change up the format and have interactive stations in the morning and afternoon so that everyone could get up close and personal with the samples and topics at hand.
Rick Watson guiding attendees through the new plant offerings from The Perennial Farm 22 • Winter 2019
The beautiful grounds at The Perennial Farm
There were three rotating stations in the morning led by UMD Extension faculty. The first was “Disease Diagnosis on Herbaceous Perennials” led by Karen Rane, Dave Clement, and Rachel Ross. Attendees were given the opportunity in this station to see real disease on samples and ask questions of the speakers. The second station was “Insects and Mites – How to Deal with Bugs and Mites Based on the Best Biological Control Options and New Low Risk Pesticides” led by Stanton Gill. Stanton was utilizing the new E-Commerce building at The Perennial Farm and was showing real examples of bug and mite damage and spoke with attendees on how to best mitigate these issues. He even provided attendees with ice cream to wrap up his session. The third station was “Best Water Management Techniques for Growing Herbaceous Perennials – What Has Science Taught Us?” led by Andrew Ristvey. Andrew opened up his session talking about irrigation techniques and then had all of his attendees actually testing out the water (continued on page 24)
