HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?: Master Gardenrs beautify county

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Have you enjoyed the flower beds and large containers of flowers in downtown DeKalb? Is Hallgren Park Community Garden a place you like to take your family to relax? While visiting residents at DeKalb County Nursing Center, have you sat and enjoyed the beautiful, seasonal flower display in their inner courtyard? All of these projects and many more are the work of a dedicated group of volunteers called the DeKalb County Master Gardeners.

The Master Gardeners have received training from University of Illinois staff. Most Master Gardeners joined the program to increase their gardening knowledge and share that knowledge with their local communities.

The DeKalb Master Gardeners are part of a larger organization that encompasses both the United States and Canada. In the U.S., there are 95,000 Master Gardeners. This large group contributed volunteer time that reached 5 million hours in 2008. During that year, 4.8 million people were contacted by phone or e-mail with advice from Master Gardeners on all facets of gardening and yard care.

Here in DeKalb County, Master Gardeners are busy answering phones and working on many community service projects.

Beginning in April and ending in November, DeKalb Master Gardeners will man the phones from 9 a.m.-noon Monday-Friday to help the community with gardening questions and problems. The Master Gardeners information desk can be reached by calling the University of Illinois Extension, DeKalb County at 815-758-8194. We are also happy to answer questions at our e-mail address, dekalb_mg@extension.uiuc.edu. Last year, more than 600 phone requests were processed.

DeKalb Master Gardeners are very proud of the nearly 20 community service projects in which we are currently involved.

Established youth projects include the Children’s Garden Club at Southeast School, the Junior Master Gardener Project and the Tallgrass Prairie Education at Genoa’s Davenport Elementary School. New programs just getting started are the Children’s Garden Club at Littlejohn Elementary School in DeKalb and the Native Species Garden at Kingston Elementary School.

The therapeutic horticulture programs at the Shabbona Nursing Home and at the DeKalb County Nursing Center bring monthly visits of Master Gardeners to work with interested residents on fun, garden-related projects. Both facilities have attractive outdoor areas designed, planted and maintained by the Master Gardeners for the use of the residents and their families. A new Alzheimer Garden at the DeKalb County Home is a recent project in progress.

Making DeKalb County a beautiful place to live is one of the Master Gardener’s favorite things to do. Some projects involve only concept development while others involve actual planting and maintaining.

Community gardens developed by the Master Gardeners include the Demonstration Garden at Hallgren Park, Plant a Row for the Hungry, DeKalb Area Women’s Center Garden, city of DeKalb planters, Midwest Natural History Museum Garden, Adee Woods Project, the Prairie Corridor and the Tallgrass Prairie Gardens at Shabbona Lake State Park. Plans to restore the gardens and yard areas at the historic Gurler House are in the early project development stage.

Community outreach, in the form of educational opportunities, are being offered in a variety of ways. The Telenet Gardening Series from the University of Illinois is available seasonally throughout the year and is always open to the public. These programs take place at the Farm Bureau building. Our speaker’s bureau has talks on a variety of gardening topics for club, church and business presentations. Once a month during the gardening season, the “How Does Your Garden Grow” column appears in the Saturday Daily Chronicle offering informative articles on caring for your home landscape.

All of these project activities make it necessary for the Master Gardeners to do some fundraising.

Our Gardener’s Pathway Workshop, which takes place at Kishwaukee College in February, is our first fundraiser of the year. This very popular program offers numerous seminars, great food and venders displaying and selling garden-related items.

Coming up, on July 11, the Master Gardeners will again present their successful Garden Walk and Plant Sale. The Garden Walk will showcase eight beautiful, local gardens. Master Gardeners and the host family will be available at each location to assist visitors and answer questions. The plant sale portion of the event is located at the Farm Bureau building and will be offering an extensive and unique selection of plants at reasonable prices. Many of these plants will be coming from the personal gardens of the Master Gardeners. Generous plant donations from local nurseries also will be available at the sale.