|
Lowcountry
Master Gardener Association
|
|
Our
Projects
Hilton Head|
Current Projects
Hilton Head Extension
Office & Plant Clinic
Rent A Master Gardener
Hilton Head Boys & Girls Club
Butterfly Enclosure at Honey Horn
Pinckney Island Butterfly Garden
CES Office Landscaping
Enviroscape
High School Rose Garden Library
Master
Gardeners’ Garden Tour
For more
information contact
Hilton Head Island Area Projects Coordinator:
Christine Rosenbach
Email:
crrlbeach@aol.com |
|
LCMG RESCUING ONE ACRE XERISCAPE GARDEN AT THE
HILTON HEAD ISLAND TOWN HALL |
After several years of
neglect, Town officials agreed that a task force would be assembled to
restore the garden to reflect the original seven principles that were used
in its design. They are: 1. plan & design, 2. soil amendment, 3. efficient
irrigation, 4. appropriate plant & zone selection, 5. mulch, 6.
alternative turf, 7. maintenance. The objectives achieved by implementing
these principles are; water conservation, soil improvement, limited turf
areas, use of appropriate plants, effective utilization of mulch, easy &
efficient water usage & long term maintenance.
Many volunteers are required for the project. The Project leaders are
Master Gardeners; Marion Gosson, President of the Hilton Head Island
Garden Council, & Betsy Jukofsky Council member & Garden Editor for the
Island Packet newspaper. Both are also members of the Hilton Head Island
Garden Club. They have organized work teams led by Lowcountry Master
Gardeners. The Master Gardeners supervise volunteers and participate in
planning and implementing restoration activities. |
| Entry to the
Xeriscape Garden at the Hilton Head Island Town Hall. The entry sign
lists the seven principles of Xeriscape gardening. |
 |
 |
From left,
Marion Gosson and Betsy Jukofsky Lowcountry Master Gardens and
members of the Hilton Head Garden Club & the Hilton Head Island
Council of Garden Clubs. They are the organizers the Xeriscape
Project.
|
After years of neglect, Lowcountry Master
Gardener volunteers doing lots of pruning to bring plants back to
health. |
|
|
A volunteer attacks the weeds that have
crept into the Xeriscape garden.
|
A Hidden Treasure
|
 Between
the bustling towns of Hilton Head Island and Bluffton
lies a pristine wilderness area called Pinckney Island
National Wildlife Refuge. It is home to a variety of
birds, mammals and reptiles. The Lowcountry Master
Gardeners and the Pinckney Island Refuge volunteers,
under the leadership of Michelle Baldwin, work to
encourage a variety of butterflies to make Pinckney
Island their home.
If you walk about a mile on the unpaved road that serves
as a walking path, you'll see areas of dense vegetation
as well as areas with panoramic views. On the right,
you'll come upon a beautiful sunny garden that was
created by the refuge volunteers and a local school and
is maintained by these Master Gardeners. In keeping with
the natural environment, native plants are used to
provide nectar and to serve as host pl ants.
On this Spring day, the Master Gardeners Michelle
Baldwin, Kathy and Bruce Allen, Robert Draper and Tony
Talerico are checking on the progress and needs of the
plants while looking for signs of butterflies in any
stage of their life. They find two butterflies, a
Monarch and a Painted Lady and a chrysalis on the bark
of tree. If the Master Gardeners need a reminder of why
they work on this project, these signs of life serve
this purpose.
This garden provides the butterflies' basic needs of
food, water, cover and space. Their food is comes from
the planting of host plants such as Butterfly Weed,
Cassia, Dill, Fennel, Passion Vine, and Milkweed and the
toothache tree. The nectar plants include
 Aster,
Butterfly Weed, Coreopsis, Goldenrod, Lantana, and
Purple Coneflower. The rock and puddling area serve as
the butterflies' water and space source. The butterflies
sit on the warm rocks to warm their bodies before
becoming active. Cover is provided by the Toothache Tree
(Zanthoxylum clava-herculis) and the shrubs in the
garden.
The Master Gardeners maintain the garden through regular
visits, every 2nd and 4th Wednesday March-Nov.
Please visit the garden and enjoy the fruits of the
Master Gardeners' labor and the possibility of seeing a
stage in the life of a butterfly. The best time to visit
the garden is Sept – Oct, after 10am, when the
butterflies are most active.
|
|
Learning & Fun at the HHI Boys and Girls Club
Garden
|
|
Learning can be fun and the Boys and Girls Club on
Hilton Head Island is a fine example of that!
While the boys and girls are learning about
growing plants, they are also learning the
attributes necessary to work effectively with
other people.
|
|
|
|
It is Wednesday at 4:00 and 5 of the 10 members of
the garden club who don't have academic work to do
rush out to the garden and find Master Gardener
Project Leader Susan Schwaikert and her MG
colleagues Vicki Reilly and Becky Yearout waiting
for them. The children hover around MG Schwaikert
who holds a bucket with tools and some vegetable
seeds but MG Schwaikert wants to review some
learning from previous weeks before handing out
seed to the anxiously waiting children. The
children then determine what seeds they want to
plant in their assigned and labeled garden plot
and get help from the waiting MG Reilly and MG
Yearout. Once they have planted, watered and
labeled the seed, they are asked to join the
Master Gardeners at a nearby table, where they
will taste some coleslaw that MG Schwaikert made
from cabbage from the boys and girls club garden.
|
|
|
|
MG Schwaikert then presents a lesson on worm bin
composting as the children wonder about the two
covered plastic containers sitting on the table.
She opens the first of the containers which
contains dampened shredded newspaper and the
children are curious about how the paper feels. MG
Schwaikert tells the children about the paper,
what the worms eat, what does not go into the
container with the paper, and why we use compost.
Some of the children run to the garden to get soil
to add to the paper after which MG Schwaikert
opens a small box with a bag of worms to add to
the compost. They are told the role the worms play
in composting the material and the worms are then
added to the compost. MG Schwaikert then opens the
second plastic container which already has soil
and worms. While it is difficult to draw the
children's attention away from this compost, the
children are asked to write in their journals
about what they did during this club meeting. As
each finishes, he/she puts away his/her supplies
and leaves to go back into the Boys' and Girls'
Club, stopping along the way to say goodbye and
thanks to their leaders.
|
|
|
|
This ended a lesson that reflected the enthusiasm
and interest in gardening cooperatively with their
leaders and peers!
|
|
|
Nestled in the Woods... |
|
The Hilton Head Island branch of the Beaufort County
Public Library is located in a woodland setting. If you
wander to the left side of the library, you'll find a
cozy little area with benches for reading, meditating or
enjoying the surroundings. As you enter this area,
enclosed with brick walls softened by fig vine, you'll
be greeted by two sago palms, a raised planting bed and
other plants that are happy in this shade/part shade
micro climate.
For five years, a small group of dedicated Master
Gardeners have worked with the area to create a vision
of beauty for library visitors on the other side of the
glass wall as well as those who choose to sit in this
area.
These Master Gardeners include Co-Leaders Annemarie
Kinsky and Suzy Baldwin; and Joyce Flowers, Betty Manne,
Rosemary Kratz, Mary Kay Hoffman and Jan Miskin. They
meet about 10 times a year to evaluate the health and
vigor of the plants and to provide the necessary care
and maintenance. |
|
|
|
As with any garden, the care and maintenance includes
planting the right plant in the right place and
maintaining the area to ensure the plants have the best
chance of survival in an esthetically-pleasing
environment. Some of the plants that receive this care
are Ajuga, Daylilies, Azaleas, Salvia, Stromanthe and
Holly Ferns. While the care and maintenance involves
time and a little bit of hard work, Co-Leader Annemarie
Kinsky says the work provides “quick gratification.”
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
The Amazing Life
Cycle
of a Butterfly
Honey Horn Butterfly Garden |
On
this warm October day, Master Gardeners and Master
Naturalists are working in the Karen Werthemer Butterfly
Enclosure at the Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn.
Today, under the guidance of Carlos Chacon, the Manager
of Natural History, they are working to tidy up the
garden and are making preparations for nurturing each
stage of the butterfly's life cycle. This life cycle is
one of nature's amazing feats: an egg turns into a larva
(caterpillar) that eats and grows a tremendous amount
before it turns into the pupa (Chrysalis) stage, which
becomes the adult butterfly. The enclosure at Honey Horn
prepares the environment to serve as a home for these
stages. They do this by providing host plants such as
parsley, dill and milkweed for the larva stage and
nectar plants such as lantana, butterfly bush and
mildweed to feed the hungry butterflies.
Master Gardener
and Project Leader Sue Roderus is working inside the
enclosure, planting host plants and weeding, while the
butterflies land and feast on nectar plants.
Outside the enclosure, Master Gardener Carol Simmons is
trimming back the butterfly bush and thinning out the
salvia while Irene Randall is working nearby on moving
to other locations plants that are neither host nor
nectar plants.
 All
the volunteers working on this particular day found it
easy to state why they volunteer here. Irene sums up the
feelings of all the volunteers when she says that she's
learned so much through this experience. Jan says it
helps her understand the environment while Jack says it
addresses the "mental" side of gardening. Carol has an
appreciation for the classroom learning that surfaces as
children tour the garden and enclosure. Project Leader
Sue describes how she has become "enthralled" by the
wonderful atmosphere and rich learning that takes place
here.
You, too, can have this satisfying and educational
experience by volunteering any amount of time you can
give.
 |
|
ROSES WITHOUT PESTICIDES?
YES!
 One
of the projects for which the LMGA provides leadership
is the Rose Garden at Hilton Head Island High School.
The garden is located behind the school.
On this 20th day of August, Master Gardener Becky Guin
who is also the project leader, has gathered a group of
Master Gardeners and Master Gardener Interns to work on
fertilizing the roses. The fertilizer used is
organic, composed of alfalfa meal, bone meal, blood
meal, cottonseed meal, epsom salts and 5-year-old
composted horse manure. No pesticides are used;
Becky is proud to demonstrate that roses can be grown
here without the use of pesticides!
The group, Master Gardeners: Helen Abbott,
Annemarie Kinsky, Rosemary Kratz, Christy Marsden, Carol
Simmons and George Westerfield and Master Gardener
Interns: Mim Jacobs and Jan Miskin began the morning by
pulling back the mulch, checking for weeds at the same
time. Once the mulch was pulled away, the
fertilizer was spread on the open areas. The mulch
was moved back over the fertilizer and the entire garden
was watered. Rosemary Kratz summarized the work of the
day when she said, "It's hard work but it's worth it!"
The lesson here is that roses can be grown here
organically; visit the garden and see for yourself! |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
| |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Here is a "Before"
Picture before the
Master Gardens were involved!
|
All Rights
Reserved @ 2012 Lowcountry Master Garden Association
Website
Maintained by Kathy Owens / Parkshoppe.com
|
