Kissing Ball Workshop – Saturday, December 14, from 9:00-11:00 am. Join Master Gardener Barbara Peshkin for a hands-on workshop to make this interesting fresh decoration to hang for the Holiday season. Bring gloves and hand pruners. All other supplies will be provided. Registration is $25. There are limited spaces, so please register early to confirm your spot. For more information and to register, please call the Penn State Extension Office at 717-263-9226.

CHEMSWEEP in Franklin County for 2014

Penn State Extension Environmental Educator George Hurd forwards this information that Franklin County will part of the CHEMSWEEP program for 2014.

CHEMSWEEP provides free, legal disposal for up to 2,000 pounds of unwanted pesticides.

Farmers interested in participating need to submit a registration/inventory sheet to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture by February 28, 2014 to be eligible. Paper copies of the registration form and information fact sheet on CHEMSWEEP are available here at the office. This has been the first time that Franklin County has been included in a number of years.

Agricultural businesses and pesticide applicators in 20 counties can dispose of unwanted pesticides safely and easily in 2014 through the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s CHEMSWEEP program.

The program is offered in different counties each year. In 2014 it will be available in Adams, Allegheny, Beaver, Cameron, Carbon, Centre, Chester, Clearfield, Clinton, Elk, Franklin, Jefferson, Lancaster, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton, Pike, Potter, Schuylkill and Washington counties.

“CHEMSWEEP provides a safe, legal way to dispose of unwanted pesticides,” said Agriculture Secretary George Greig. “For more than 20 years, the program has helped our agriculture industry properly dispose of more than two million pounds of unwanted or unusable pesticides, helping to safeguard our environment.”

Every year, many pesticide products are discontinued, phased out or become unusable, leaving growers, commercial establishments and applicators with potentially dangerous and toxic materials that cannot be placed in landfills. The unwanted pesticides often become a safety hazard and an environmental concern through long-term storage in garages, barns or other areas.

Licensed pesticide applicators, pesticide dealers and commercial pesticide application businesses from the designated counties are eligible to participate by completing the CHEMSWEEP registration/inventory form that will be direct-mailed. The registration period ends Feb. 28.

An independent contractor hired by the state agriculture department collects and packages all waste pesticides at each participating location, primarily for incineration at facilities approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. CHEMSWEEP covers the disposal cost for the first 2,000 pounds per participant. Above that level, participants are billed at the agriculture department’s contracted price.

The program is funded through annual registration fees paid by pesticide manufacturers and applicators.

For more information, visit www.pda.state.pa.us/CHEMSWEEP.

Winterberry: Our Native Holly

Here is Dr. Leonard Perry of the University of Vermont on Ilex verticillata our native holly.

If you are looking for an easy care, native ornamental plant to add color to the late fall and early winter landscape, consider the winterberry. Also known as winterberry holly or North American holly (Ilex verticillata), this relative of the evergreen hollies is “deciduous” (losing its leaves in winter). It loses its dull green leaves in autumn, leaving an abundance of attractive scarlet berries (orange on yellow on some selections) on every stem and branch. These are attractive in arrangements, or just left in the landscape, if they aren’t devoured by birds.

Native populations of winterberry can be found from the eastern Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and New Brunswick south to Virginia and as far west as Michigan. This shrub is generally found in swampy areas, wet thickets, and low woodlands, and is often seen in masses in such areas from highways. Winterberry can grow up to 10 to 15 feet tall, although they are generally half that height. Cultivars for landscape situations generally range in height from 3 feet up to 6 feet.

Winterberry is hardy for USDA hardiness zones 4 to 9 (to -20F average minimum temperature in winter, or lower), which includes all of Franklin county. Plant in full sunlight. This plant prefers acidic to slightly acidic, wet soil- conditions which mimic its natural habitat. Planting it near a pond or stream is perfect. However, it also can be grown in drier soil or partial shade, though may not spread as much. These characteristics make it an excellent choice for rain gardens.

It is ideal for wildlife landscaping as its dense, twiggy growth provides nesting sites for songbirds. Fruit are eaten by red squirrels, cedar waxwings, catbirds, thrushes, and other birds. It is surprisingly disease-resistant, prone only to occasional leaf spots or powdery mildew.

One thing to keep in mind is that you will need to plant both male and female plants for fruit production. Purchase at least one male plant for every three to four female plants, and plant close together.

You also need to think about placement in the garden as this shrub is at its most attractive stage from September through mid-winter when its branches are covered with brightly colored berries. In summer, this plant has only tiny white flowers. Leaves are pale to dark green and elliptical to round in shape, depending on cultivar.

Many cultivars (cultivated varieties) of winterberry grow well in our area. In trials a few years ago at the University of Vermont, best were ‘Jolly Red’, ‘Maryland Beauty’, ‘Winter Red’, and the hybrid ‘Sparkleberry’.

‘Winter Red’ is a favorite for cutting for arrangements as it is multi-stemmed with an abundance of bright red, medium-sized berries and dark green leaves that turn bronze in autumn. It can grow to nine feet tall. ‘Winter Gold’ has a similar growth habit and produces attractive peach to gold-orange berries that get paler as they age. A good male cultivar for pollinating these is ‘Southern Gentleman”.

For a low hedge or mass planting, choose ‘Red Sprite’ with its tight branching and mature height of only 3 to 5 feet, which you may also find as ‘Nana’. It was the 2010 Holly of the Year of the Holly Society of America. ‘Afterglow’ too is rather low, only reaching about 6 feet at most, and has lovely orange-red berries. ‘Jim Dandy’ is a good male pollinator for these, as well as for the 5-foot ‘Maryland Beauty’, the 8-foot ‘Stoplight’, or the 9- to 10-foot ‘Jolly Red’.

‘Maryland Beauty’ has dense cluster of dark red fruit along stem, developing color early. It is the cultivar often grown commercially for its cut stems, and was Holly of the Year for 2008. ‘Jolly Red’ is an older cultivar, originally from Connecticut, with large berries. ‘Stoplight’ and ‘Hopperton’ are names for the same plant–a newer cultivar with deep red fruit.

‘Sparkleberry’ is a hybrid of the winterberry species with an Asian species, the finetooth holly (serrata), bred in the 1970’s by the USDA. The result is a shrub, 10- to 12-feet high, with young leaves that are plum colored, and large glossy fruit that ripen early. It is reliably hardy in the Franklin County USDA zone 6 (or -10F) as the other winterberries. Use the hybrid cultivar ‘Apollo’ for pollination.

These are only a few of the good winterberries available. Check with your local full service garden center or nursery for their recommendations.

Parks And Gardens Development: The Lagos Example  

Published on December 3, 2013 by pmnews   ·   No Comments

By Tayo Ogunbiyi

The benefits of parks and gardens, especially in a cosmopolitan city like Lagos, cannot be over- emphasised. From improving our physical and psychological health to making the environment and neighborhoods more beautiful places to live and work, the benefits of parks are endless. Parks and gardens provide a diverse and quantifiable range of benefits that immensely improve the quality of life of the people.

For one, parks offer opportunities to enrich the quality of life for diverse kinds of people. Research has shown that when people have access to parks, they relax and exercise more. Regular physical activity has been shown to increase health and reduce the risk of a wide range of diseases, including heart disease, hypertension, colon cancer, and diabetes. Physical activity also relieves symptoms of depression and anxiety, improves mood, and enhances psychological well-being. It has also been established that contact with natural habitat improves physical and psychological health. Older adults with access to recreational prospects profit from the social connections and interactions that are fundamental to their well-being.

Parks have long been recognized as key contributors to the aesthetic and physical quality of neighborhoods. Today, we realize that parks are more than recreation and visual assets to communities; they are valuable contributors to larger community policy objectives, such as public health, youth development, job opportunities, social and cultural exchange, and community building.

At the community level parks play a special role, they have something to offer everyone from young children and teens, to families, adults and the elderly; their presence can also be a cohesive force. They are more than places to recreate and relate to nature; parks can also offer a multitude of opportunities to engage in arts and music. A park can be a community focal point, a symbol of its vitality and character, adding to its overall health, well-being and quality of life.

From the ecological perspective, parks reduce energy use and storm water runoff, increase the value of neighboring property, and improve academic performance among teens. Studies have, equally, shown that crime is relatively lesser in places where parks exist. The availability of recreation opportunities and park amenities is also an important  factor for investors in deciding where to invest.

The world is presently faced with enormous challenges that constitute a great danger to the environment. The consequence of global warming has been conspicuous in our environment due to increased temperature, rising sea levels, destruction of forests, flooding, among others. The necessity for a new approach in addressing new environmental challenges has become urgent to the survival of the human race. The degree to which we embrace and maintain natural tendencies in our present world is critical to the survival of the whole world.

Lagos, being a coastal city, has peculiar environmental challenges such as flooding arising from its location on the banks of the Atlantic Ocean and the lagoons, which naturally overflow from time to time during the rainy season. The problem has been compounded by the erection of houses in flood-prone areas, including on the drainages, and further obstruction of water by the dumping of refuse into the drainages.

It is in an attempt to tackle some of these contemporary threats to the environment that the Lagos state government encouraging the establishment of parks and gardens across the state. Presently, there are over 32  parks across the state while work is in advanced stage to establish additional 17 at various locations across the state. The 17 new ones would bring the total number of parks and gardens in the state to 197. The gardens and parks have greatly improved the aesthetic appeal of the environment, contributed to the global war against climate change and boosted tourism as a major revenue earner. But, perhaps, more significantly, the beautification and landscaping of the state has created experienced professionals in the art of gardening, structural design, landscaping.

It is no longer news that Lagos has, in recent years, witnessed a massive landscaping and beautification programme that has literally changed the face of the mega city for the better. The government’s environmental renewal programme has led to the recovery of open spaces from garbage, illegal structures and miscreants who used them as launch pad to unleash terror on innocent citizens and make the state look like one big slum with haphazard development.

This initiative of the state government is meant to beautify and regenerate Lagos environment from the effect of climate change. This cannot be overemphasized as the intensity of global warming is real as a lot of damage is being done to animals, plants and human beings thereby, causing serious threat to the entire ecosystem.

The Lagos State government through its agency, Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency, LASPARK, is committed to consolidating  on the great work done by the state government in changing the face of the environment. It is, principally, in order to sustain the effort that LASPARK was established. Government’s effort at putting in place gardens and parks across the state has placed upon her enormous responsibilities. It is pleasant to note that this effort was recognized when Lagos was mentioned alongside Johannesburg as one of the most improved and green compliant cities during the Environment Summit (RIO 20+) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2012.

It is, however, important that Lagosians support this government’s initiative by respecting trees, parks, garden, lawns and railings put in place across the state as they were provided with tax payers money. They should not be abused. Parks should not turned into market places, toilets, refuse dumps or places to where animals graze. Failure to control animals or allowing  their defecation or engaging in an unhygienic use of fountains, pools or water in the parks, gardens and open spaces would be counter- productive and as such must be discouraged.

With natural disasters occurring across the world, as a result of the abuse of the environment, this is the time for everyone to have a rethink about our attitude to the environment.  That we have not experienced monumental environmental tragedy should not be taken for granted as being immune from such . Thus, we must take our destiny into our hands and do all the needful to ward off avoidable natural calamities. Hence, the need for everyone to support the state government in protecting the parks and gardens across the state.

•Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.