my garden feeds me
Like many, long have I wished to spread my wings where gardening acumen was concerned. To move from designing space to being informed about the spaces I design (Ode to Thomas Church’s Gardens Are For People). What landscape architect / designer / artist wouldn’t, right? And who doesn’t love school? So, continuing with the Red Bird Design (RBD) 2009 theme (Hope Springs Eternal = HSE), I made a deliberate attempt to figure out how, where, and most importantly, when. Thus OSU Home Horticulture Extension program: Metro Master Gardener Program. Hip, hip hooray – I was accepted! Jazzed about receiving that Sustainable Gardening Handbook too! Imagine what this will do for my own “restorative landscape”, for the micro-climate of my immediate community, and for my Red Bird Design clients? Imagine what this will do in my conversations with landscape contractors! Move over bacon.
Desperately seeking master gardening enlightenment? You are in luck, OSU offers a variety of choices to grow in gardening know-how. And yep, they hold true to research evidenced from therapeutic gardens – we need choices; we crave choice in our natural and built environments – for empowerment and a sense of control. For me, I selected the Metro program given most RBD clients take me to the tri-country areas (not all – shout out to Yamhill and Marion County folks). However, other options are abundant. Interested enthusiasts might check out the Salem area (Marion County) resource. Or perhaps you’ve got a day job and need this fancy pants option of “virtual learning” (new online program, talk with Terron. He’s nice.).
Best of all, I dig the “give back” component: service back to the community in the form of a 66-hour internship. Helping the peoples – yah, always the social servant.
Class begins on Friday, so look for Master Gardener Mondays on the RBD blog – I’ll share the nitty gritty, down-in-the-dirt tidbits with you. (Subscribe to this blog through the little RSS feed at the top of the window. If you are a blog newbie, similar to moi, I promise it doesn’t hurt.)
Here comes a lean, green, compassionate, gardening machine. Reap what you sow, you dig?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The Master Gardeners Program is excellent. You will have a great time. It is a way to help bring the community together through horticulture and help expand peoples lives to the glories of nature. And, time permitting, it is a wonderful way to connect with the community-at-large.
One of the best things are the calls from the ‘help line’. This can be a hoot. Keep your sense of humor. And be sure to tell everyone that most everything can be cured with time and compost.
Congratulations on being accepted to your Master Gardener program. I am a Master Gardener in California (we do 80 hours, and we have a farm to work on). I got a huge boost out of the program. The MG program really helped me become sure of the ‘why’ behind what I have been doing for 50 years. It also allowed me to correct the practices I learned from my dad (a landscape contractor) that have been researched and proven outdated. Odd what 50 years of research will turn up!
I look forward to your progress and reports! Good luck with the program.
Mike
Thanks Mike! 50 years – wow. Bet you have seen a lot of changes in landscapes through the years. I look forward to weaving my therapeutic garden design & social work background in with my Master Gardener training. Stay tuned! Regards, Annie Red Bird