The Providential Gardener

Garden/Landscape Masters & Professionals

Although garden and landscape work is winding down in mid-October [although it's hard to keep that in mind when the temperature hits 76 degrees, as it did today], the Master Gardeners and RINLA professionals are still busy.

URI Master Gardeners are looking forward to their annual meeting in November, and they are still answering the URI Master Gardener Hotline for a few more weeks. Call them if you are having garden problems Monday through Thursday, 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., at 1-800-448-1011 (this only works in Rhode Island). They are also working on the Poinsettia Sale on Saturday, December 1 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at URI East Farm on Route 108, one mile south of the intersection of Route 138.

But most of all, I'd like to recommend you take the Master Gardener course yourself. Registration is open for this February-April, 16-week course that trains people to be volunteers who help Rhode Islanders learn about sustainable gardening practices. Find out more about the program on the MG About Us page, and consider taking the course ~ if not this year, then in a year or two. It took me a few years to work this into my schedule, but I succeeded this year and have completed more than the required 50 hours of volunteer work to earn the official recognition of Master Gardener. Another Rhode Island blogger, Caroline Brown, was in the class of 2006 and wrote about her experiences on Earth Friendly Gardening. Hope you join us one day!

Professional Gardeners include members of Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association (RINLA) , a trade organization that takes the industry far beyond the mow, blow, and go guys to provide "education, research support, legislative representation, certification, and promotion of the value of green industry goods and services to the public."

If you hire people to tend your lawn, gardens, or landscape, be sure to read the RINLA links page. They  explain how to choose a garden center, horticulturist, landscape contractor or designer, lawn service, stone mason, or arborist. RINLA runs a horticulturist certification program. If you are going to pay good money for your landscape, you owe it to yourself to know what professional landscape expertise would look like.

Children and Lawn Mowers

A recent brief in the Providence Journal is worth highlighting now that the kids are home for the summer: mower-related injuries numbered more than 220,000 in the U.S. last year. These included injuries to 16,500 children and teens.

It's not the same as when I was 5 years old and my father decided it was time for me to mow the lawn. We didn't have a power mower (maybe no homeowners had such machines in the '50s?) and I was tall enough to reach the handle of the push mower. Of course, I had no sense that there was a system to the project, so when I finished I had missed little sections all over the lawn and he had to mow the whole thing over again anyway.

But now with the power equipment that looks like "fun" ~ including the edgers, weedwhackers, tractors, and leaf blowers ~ all sorts of injuries, many of them serious, are possible. The American Academy of Pediatrics has Mowing safety ecommendations for protecting children and teens, as do several other groups with sobering names like the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery. See their page, "Mowing the Lawn can be a dangerous chore for kids." Nobody wants to spend time in the emergency room and such doctors' offices.

How to Grow a Beautiful Organic Lawn

Believe it or not, entire golf courses and public parks and athletic fields are gorgeous and green without the aid of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. If they can do it, why can't we owners of point one acres? This training is for professionals, but homeowners, especially those with lawns played on by children and pets, will want to hire professionals with this kind of training. If you're a do-it-yourselfer, check out Safe Lawns and get a copy of The Organic Lawn Care Manual by Paul Tukey.

From Northeast Organic Farming Association:

The third annual NOFA Organic Lawn & Turf Course, happening August 14, 2007 at Marblehead High School in Marblehead, MA and August 16, 2007 in Manchester, CT! The course is geared towards landscapers, groundskeepers and municipal staff.

Special this year is that all students will get first-hand tours of organically managed athletic fields. In MA, tour the athletic fields at Marblehead High with Chip Osborne, of Lassana Osborne Natural Lawn & Turf Co., who maintains them. Many of you probably know Chip, a renowned organic turf educator from Marblehead and co-founder of The Living Lawn Project there. An optional tour of  The Living Lawn Project is also included in the MA course, courtesy of Chip. And in CT, visit soccer fields just up the road from the college, where an exciting organic turf transition study is being conducted through the Town of Manchester, the CT DEP, CT NOFA and Harrington's Organicare.

Rhode Island Agricultural Hall of Fame Inductees

Many of us live in cities and towns, and we may forget where our food and turf and flowers come from (yes, the farms). Last week, six individuals and one cooperative were recognized at a special ceremony by  Governor Carcieri and the Department of Environmental Management for their outstanding professional achievements. Take a moment and read the press release and brief sketches of their careers. Some have passed on, but some are still going strong.

This is the first group of inductees into Rhode Island's Agricultural Hall of Fame:

Lawns Are Gardens #2 -Organic Products & Further Information

Don't be daunted by today's other post on lawns. Just be prepared to attend to your lawn over the long haul, and eventually it will be routine, lower maintenance, and healthy for your family and your neighbors. And let's not forget the Bay and watersheds that don't need all the stuff we're broadcasting all over our lawns and sidewalks each year.

For further information, check out Safe Lawns. Here are some brands of organic fertilizers, pest controls, and weed controls. More are listed in The Organic Lawn Care Manual.

• Bradfield Organics
• Cedarcide
• Cutting Edge Formulations
• Woodstream Corporation

There are other products listed in The Organic Lawn Care Manual. I have not tried any of these products, and I myself am not recommending a specific brand. I am very impressed with the The Organic Lawn Care Manual, though.

The Garden Guys recommend Bradfield Organics on their weekly Sunday morning radio show (WHJJ 920AM - 8-10am), by the way. I've written to Bradfield Organics about local distributors. If any readers know where to buy organic lawn care products, please add comments to this posting! Many thanks.

P.S. I have discovered that Hattoy's Nursery in Coventry, RI orders from one of the wholesalers that supply Bradfield Organics. Also, A New Leaf on Gano Street in Providence orders from this wholesaler as does Fleming's Feed in Stonington, CT and Evergreen in Seekonk, MA. That means that these companies can add Bradfield Organics and other organic products to their next orders.

• Hattoy's Nursery & Garden Ctr, 315 Blackrock Road 02816 | Telephone: (401) 821-5549
• A New Leaf, 135 Gano Street, Providence, RI 02906 | Email or Tel: (888) 300-LEAF
• Fleming's Feed & Hardware, 769 Route 1, Stonington, CT | 860-535-3181
• Evergreen Tree & Landscape Service, 351 Oak Hill Ave, Seekonk, MA | Email or Tel: 508-761-5505

Lawns Are Gardens: Notes for Rhode Island Lawn-Gardeners

Have you mowed yet? Are you dreading the reemergence of those weeds, wishing your lawn looked better this year? Do you worry about the lawn chemicals and how they may affect your children or pets (or you, for that matter)? From every side we're hearing about organic or sustainable gardening practices, yet many of us are in patterns of routinely attacking the lawn's problems with chemicals. And after having the lawn overrun by the truly ugly crabgrass plant and successfully beating it back with fertilizers in bags or bottles, it seems like a good idea to continue with what works.

HOWEVER, as Paul Tukey points out in The Organic Lawn Care Manual, this is a "lawn on steroids," and all sorts of other problems arise from relying on fertilizers alone to deal with the weeds and insects that make a lovely lawn challenging to maintain.

The Organic Lawn Care Manual gives a 12-step plan for transitioning to a natural system over three years. I like the way the book takes gardeners (our lawns are made up of thousands and thousands of plants, and so lawns are a sort of a garden) where they are and clearly explains the whys and hows to get a beautiful, natural lawn, and all with less work and stress over time.

Here are the 12 steps for the first year of transitioning from chemical fertilizers and pesticides (p. 106):

Organics & You: Making the Switch

ORGANICS AND YOU: MAKING THE SWITCH A Workshop for Land Care Professionals & Municipal Employees Monday March 12, 2007, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Aspray Boat House, 2 East View Street Warwick, RI, (Adjoining Pawtuxet Park) PARENTS, SCHOOL PROFESSIONALS AND ADMINISTRATORS, MUNICIPAL, COMMERCIAL AND RESIDENTIAL LAND CARE PROFESSIONALS, TAKE NOTE! Schools, athletic fields, play areas and parks are especially important to maintain by healthy, child-friendly methods. Yet it can be a daunting process to switch a landscaping/lawn care business or public space land care to organic. Here’s a chance to find out what are the best methods to implement first,

Not too Late for Professionals to Check out New England Grows!

Today the time flew by as I managed to see about one fifth of the exhibitors at New England Grows! [The exclamation point is part of the convention name, but I suppose it could also function as punctuation for the sentence.] This is a convention and expo for professionals in landscape gardening, nurseries, arborists, etc. ~ a trade show for the green industry, with training sessions for updating certifications, continuing education credits, and business development.

There's a lot of big, heavy, clean and shiny machinery in there for expediting all sorts of gardening and agricultural projects; any number of plant and seed wholesalers and nurseries; suppliers of pottery, mulch, nutrients, etc., we'll all see this spring in our local garden centers; and a number of associations and organizations I will write about in the next couple of days. If you have a professional interest in the green industry and can get to Boston Wednesday or Thursday, check out the New England Grows! exhibitors and the program, get on the train, and hightail it to South Station. A shuttle runs from South Station to the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, but I walked it this morning ~ getting used to this bitter cold weather ~ it's 6 or 7 blocks, more or less. Note that if something interests you and you cannot get to Boston, you can buy recordings of programs, but as of tonight the 2007 sessions are not yet listed.

Check the Condensed Events listings regularly. I gathered a lot of information at the Expo about upcoming meetings, and I am adding to the events listings almost every day.

Garden Guys ~ January 28, 2007

This morning's Garden Guys show was full of useful info (WHJJ, 920AM, 8-10am). You miss something when you don't listen to the whole two hours! A few notes:

• Seeds dry out ~ test last year's seeds by dampening a paper towel, put TEN seeds on it, fold the towel, and place in a plastic bag that you seal part way to keep it moist. In 7 to 10 days see how many sprout...
• Time to prune wisteria ~ cut the branches that come off the main trunk leaving one or two nodes... Lack of flowering may be due to too much nitrogen and too little phosphorous in the soil (use 0-20-0).
• Lawn fertilizer ~ beginning in April, add lime and fertilizer (some organic brands are Organica and Bradfield Organics). Don't apply milky spore at the same time you fertilize if using a chemical fertilizer, because the chemicals will kill some of the microbes. Wait a couple of weeks...
• Mature trees in a lawn can be harmed by chemical fertilizers...
• People, Places, and Plants magazine has its Spring Break issue out now. It lists many flower and garden shows and has articles about organic lawn care.