Would UW-Extension help develop plans for planting our yard and gardens? We have a lot of space and would like to put in some new gardens. We want to make good decisions about what to plant but we don’t really know how to do it. Also, we have a lot of shrubs and flowers in our yard that we don’t know what they are; can you identify them for us? Will master gardeners come to our home and help us? We could pay them. — Robert, Racine.
UW-Extension and the master gardener volunteers provide educational services to the community using university research and resources. Our purpose, to which we commit, is to teach, learn, lead and serve, connecting people with the University of Wisconsin and engaging with them in transforming lives and communities. There are many ways that we work to serve our communities, but we are not a horticultural business so we do not hire out for private gardening services.
We do provide assistance in other ways, however. There are many publications on our UW-Extension publications website at http://learningstore.uwex.edu that can help you choose the right plant for the right place and learn more about gardening. Also, our master gardener volunteers, who work as plant health advisers, can help you identify plants if you bring in plant samples or photos of the plants you would like to know more about.
These volunteers have different areas of specialization and interest; some enjoy working with community members on garden design, some enjoy teaching others about vegetable gardening or use of native plants. They all can help you with identification of flowers and shrubs.
In addition, the plant health advisers excel at disease and insect questions, and will help you figure out why certain plants may not be doing well.
We have master gardener volunteers at the Racine County Office Building at 14200 Washington Ave. in Sturtevant on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon, and sometimes on Wednesday mornings. We also have master gardener volunteers on Tuesday mornings from 9 a.m. until noon, and on an intermittent basis at the Burlington UW-Extension office, located at 209 N. Main St. These volunteers answer the phones, respond to email inquiries and work with walk-in clients on all gardening questions. Be sure to thank them for their service to the community.
They volunteer their time out of a desire to learn more about gardening, but also because they want to teach others how to make good gardening decisions. Our landscape and gardening decisions affect us in many ways, impacting our quality of life, our pocketbooks and the environment.
If you would like to have someone come to your home and help with garden design, plant identification and garden labor assistance, we have many horticulture professionals who provide excellent service in this area.
We are fortunate in Racine to have an abundance of excellent local greenhouses, nurseries and landscaping businesses; at least one of them should have someone who can meet your needs.
Another place to search is www.findalandscaper.org; this is the Wisconsin Landscape Contractor Association website which lists the landscapers who are members of this professional organization. A quick search will give you a list of people to call in our area.
For more information on garden design and maintenance, visit our Wisconsin Horticulture site at http://hort.uwex.edu.
More questions?
Master gardener volunteers serving as plant health advisers are able to answer your questions at mastergardeners@goracine.org or by calling the Horticulture Helpline at (262) 886-8451 (Ives Grove) or (262) 767-2919 (Burlington).
Dr. Patti Nagai is the horticulture educator for Racine County UW-Extension. Submit your questions for The Journal Times QA column to Dr. Nagai at Patti.Nagai@goracine.org and put “Question for RJT” in the subject line.
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