Last Word

While I think some kids still respond they want to be President when an adult asks them what they want to be when they grow up, I can honestly say that I never had that thought. I also never imagined that my second go-round as President of our group would be through a pandemic! But I was and now I have passed the torch off to way more adept folks than me. I can retreat back into my little corner and irritate folks whenever I want to.

Sarah Petty donated a Confederate Rose to the Extension Landscape and I realized it was blooming. The blooms can be seen from the Master Gardener office and it’s a reminder that our gardening season never really stops down here. I think of these flowers as a wake up call that the cool weather is coming and it’s time to hit the dirt! Get those cool season crops in the ground. It’s been a rough couple of years that’s for sure. But we’re emerging from the other side of the tunnel. Oh sure, maybe we’re blinking a bit and a tad hesitant but we are starting to venture out. Life may never be what we refer to as ‘normal’ before all this mess but it will be normalized. We’ll learn some new ways to do things and replace others that no longer work. But if you think about it, that’s something we do every single day as gardeners. We plant things that end up not being happy in that location or they start to block the driveway, we move them or we get rid of them. The great water feature we had planned sits right where the pipes for the irrigation run OR there’s a huge tree trunk we forgot about. So, we either move the location or change it up for a water feature in a container.

Oh but we have our stubborn streak as well don’t we? Take the beloved pair of pruners or the favorite shovel. We’d just as soon garden naked rather than give them up. Doesn’t matter if they have seen better days, we love them and we won ’t part with them. We might toy with the idea, those shiny ads get our attention and we might even given in to temptation and buy a new shovel. But we never get rid of the old one, it stays in the shed. You know you can’t trust that new stuff to last right? We will manage. There’ s a whole new group of Master Gardener Interns going through the program. Congratulations to all of them for getting through the initial training! New Board members shall steer our ship through the strange waters we find ourselves in. I’ m sure we ’ll find a few areas with rough seas but I also know there will be more days of calm sailing than we have had.

We’re nearing the end of another year. 2022 is just around the corner and let us make the conscious effort to look forward to the near year with hope and enthusiasm. We’ll keep on blooming.

Remember: When all else fails, crawl onto the back of the couch, get comfy and take a snooze. Eva swears by it.

Plentiful Plantings

The Foundation for the Gator Nation..... An equal opportunity institution.

Mission To assist Extension Agents in providing research-based horticultural education to Florida residents.

Vision To be the most trusted resource for horticultural education in Florida.

The Compost Pile is a quarterly publication created by the Okaloosa County Master Gardener Volunteers.

Marg Stewart—Editor

Karen Harper, Debbie Sewell—Co-Editors