International Master Gardener College Experiencing the Oregon Trail

Clara Yates, Dave Close, John Freeborn, and Linda Kline at the Portland, OR Convention Center

by: Linda Kline and Clara Yates

lInda klIne and Clara yaTeS, from kInG GeorGe CounTy, aTTended The InTernaTIonal maSTer Gardener ConferenCe ThIS paST July and GoT To experIenCe The oreGon TraIl In all of ITS Glory.

The Master Gardener Program exists in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, 6 Canadian provinces, and South Korea. Every other year a different state / province hosts the International Master Gardening Conference (IMGC). This year, Oregon Master Gardeners (MG) hosted the IMGC and all MG were invited to “Follow the Oregon Trail to Great Gardening” at the Portland Oregon Convention Center, July 10- 14, 2017. Approximately 1,300 gardeners attended the IMGC this year, including over 400 gardeners from Oregon. Eleven attendees were from Virginia, including Dave Close and John Freeborn from VT, Linda Kline and Clara Yates from King George county which is included in the Master Gardening Association of the Central Rappahannock Area (MGACRA) and Wanda Gerard, VMGA Secretary, from Suffolk. The IMGC may be described as Virginia’s Master Gardening College (MGC) on steroids. It’s like MGC but bigger and grander with more of everything: more keynote speakers, concurrent sessions, attendees, volunteers and tours, plus vendors and lots of giveaways. Everything was well organized and festive at the IMGC, including the unique bicycle displays that the various Oregon MG associations created. Each attendee had an opportunity to vote for their favorite and the “Beach Bike” was voted the best. Ciscoe Morris, a MG from Seattle and a TV and radio personality, lecturer, author and garden-tour leader, was the colorful MC for the conference. Ciscoe kept us informed, entertained and on-time. Yes, MG are amazing people!

Tom Bewick, a national program leader for horticulture in the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture, gave remarks about the contributions of MG and presented awards to the Search for Excellence winners. MG are involved in many amazing projects and

you may get ideas from some of the projects. To read a short write-up about each awarded project, click here. World renowned plantsman, authors, lecturers, teachers and master gardeners were among the presenters. Subjects ranged from Gardening with Children to Gardening Smarts: Beating the Aches and Pains; Bountiful Berries to Heirlooms, Hybrids and GMOs; All About Seeds to Gardening with Grafted Vegetables; If Trees Could Talk to How to Prune and Renovate the Overgrown Garden; and much, much more. If Trees Could Talk they would convey to us all their needs and wants. Hopefully we can tell when they are unhappy before it’s too late. This concurrent session provided the information that trees would give us if they could talk. First of all, what is your goal privacy, shade, focal point etc.? Next comes the selection, but first you must do your homework. You need to know required soil type, light, water, mature size, etc. Make sure the root flare is above the soil. Trees need to breathe just like us. One thing that most people don’t know about trees is they like company, that’s why Mother Nature plants them in groups. Last but not least, make sure the trees planted together have the same needs. This is just a few of the highlights of this session. A beautiful beginning to a great garden is healthy plants from a trustworthy grower. Portland is known for their great nurseries. We had the opportunity to tour a wholesale grower’s nursery, Iseli Nursery (known for their triangle tag). Their specialties are conifers and Japanese maples. We were given a guided tour of their gardens. We learned about “witch’s broom”, asexual propagation from cuttings, layering, budding and grafting. We learned about the needs and how to care for these plants. Even more interesting, we got to see plants that are not yet on the market.

If you’re interested in learning more about the 2017 IMGC in Portland OR, see the blog: http://blogs. oregonstate.edu/2017imgc/home-page/. Handouts from some of the presenters are also available on the blog. In addition to learning from the speakers and programs, we learned a lot from talking with other MGs. Here’s something the Atlanta GA MGs do that Virginia MG needs to consider: Every other year they offer a MG class for teachers. They require a minimum of 3 teachers from a school (no single point of failure when the only MG-trained teacher leaves) and they work with the school system so the participants are issued CEUs for completing the MG class. As a result, they have children’s garden programs/ Jr. Master Gardening programs in most of their schools. A variety of tours were offered at the IMGC: preconference tours, post-conference tours, as well as during the conference tours; short tours and long tours, something for everyone. Since we enjoy traveling, learning and being with other master gardeners, we participated in the “Land Formed by Volcanoes” pre-conference tour. This 3-day, 2-night tour started in Portland, headed south practically to California and returned to Portland. It was 3-full days and here are a few highlights and interesting facts:

Highlights and Interesting Facts

1. Mt Hood’s Timberline Lodge was built during the Depression and dedicated September 28, 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

2. The US Olympic ski team practices at Mt. Hood in the summer as it’s one of the only US location with good ski conditions all year long.

3. The Dee Wright Observatory, which is located in a gigantic lava field, has clean, odor-free composting toilets.

4. Even though it was short sleeve weather, there was still a lot of snow at Crater Lake - the deepest lake in the US. This lake is filled by rain and snow only and thus is extremely clear blue.

5. The high desert area in central OR only averages 3 inches of rain a year so water-wise gardening is essential. Oregon MGs hosted us at 3 of their demonstration/community gardens.