How do you get to be a master gardener? Do you take a course or what?

Wayne

Its not that hard.

Phone your local farm extension and ask.

Usually its a class, about once a week for 6 weeks or so, and 40 hrs of
community service.

Hope this helps


"wayne" wrote in message
oups.com...
How do you get to be a master gardener? Do you take a course or what?

Wayne

"Anna M. Miller" wrote

Its not that hard.



I don't know about that.
The schedules are impossible if you hold down a job.


--
Toni
South Florida USA
Zone 10b
http://ww.cearbhaill.com

When living in Hawaii, I once sold a so called "Master Gardener" some seeds
from my I.Canna plants. He wanted seeds from Real Hawaiian plants, which
canna are far from.

Now I live in the High Mojave Desert where there is no master gardeners.


--

The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond
Telescope Buyers FAQ
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"wayne" wrote in message
oups.com...
How do you get to be a master gardener? Do you take a course or what?

Wayne

In article , "Toni"
wrote:

"Anna M. Miller" wrote

Its not that hard.



I don't know about that.
The schedules are impossible if you hold down a job.

That's cuz the program is mainly for retired little old ladies & gents
who've outlived most of their previous friends & need some new ones.

The "public service" volunteer aspect of the system requires each little
old lady or gent who has achieved Master Gardener status to sit at a card
table at Saturday markets or in nurseries to answer questions. If the
question is "How do I join the Master Gardener program" they'll know. If
it's anything about gardening anything like that, they won't know.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson

"paghat" wrote in message
news
In article , "Toni"
wrote:

"Anna M. Miller" wrote

Its not that hard.



I don't know about that.
The schedules are impossible if you hold down a job.

That's cuz the program is mainly for retired little old ladies & gents
who've outlived most of their previous friends & need some new ones.


That might be true in general. The local extension agency has a program on
cable access TV where they visit the gardens of local master gardeners. The
people who they feature seem to be middle-age housewives, probably
empty-nesters. Most of the gardens are nothing special, by the way. They
aren't notable for either the selection of plants or the over-all design.

You forgot to mention you pay them a lot of money and need to buy all your
own supplies too!!!

You need to fill out a waiver so you can't sue if you get hurt master
gardening too!!!

Be prepared to do many hours of grunt work for free too!!!

Its a lot of fun if you are a masochist!!!


"Anna M. Miller" wrote in message
...
Its not that hard.

Phone your local farm extension and ask.

Usually its a class, about once a week for 6 weeks or so, and 40 hrs of
community service.

Hope this helps


"wayne" wrote in message
oups.com...
How do you get to be a master gardener? Do you take a course or what?

Wayne

(paghat) wrote:

The "public service" volunteer aspect of the system requires each little
old lady or gent who has achieved Master Gardener status to sit at a card
table at Saturday markets or in nurseries to answer questions. If the
question is "How do I join the Master Gardener program" they'll know. If
it's anything about gardening anything like that, they won't know.

Each state runs their master gardener programs differently. I am not a
master gardener, but know many and even tutored several who were
studying for the master gardner status. In our area the master
gardeners have a number of gardens they maintain for educational
purposes and for the local Penn State campus. They participate in lots
of actual gardening projects for local parks and provide demonstrations
for school children. They go on interesting field trips and have a lot
of information to share with each other. They tend to be cliquish and
identify with each other. They do not sit at tables and answer
questions. They include a cross section of our community including
teachers, nursery and garden center workers, and other gardeners. In
our area there is no waiting list to take classes and we get a lot of
people taking the classes.
--
Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to
Visit my Rhododendron and Azalea web pages at:
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Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA Zone 6

Stephen Henning expounded:

Each state runs their master gardener programs differently. I am not a
master gardener, but know many and even tutored several who were
studying for the master gardner status. In our area the master
gardeners have a number of gardens they maintain for educational
purposes and for the local Penn State campus. They participate in lots
of actual gardening projects for local parks and provide demonstrations
for school children. They go on interesting field trips and have a lot
of information to share with each other. They tend to be cliquish and
identify with each other. They do not sit at tables and answer
questions. They include a cross section of our community including
teachers, nursery and garden center workers, and other gardeners. In
our area there is no waiting list to take classes and we get a lot of
people taking the classes.

The Master Gardener program run by the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society is a serious program too, Stephen, but many people get their
jollies out of ridiculing Master Gardeners. Not around here, they're
known as knowledable advisors, but somewhere they must not be very
effective to have earned this bad reputation.
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

Ann wrote:

The Master Gardener program run by the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society is a serious program too, Stephen, but many people get their
jollies out of ridiculing Master Gardeners. Not around here, they're
known as knowledable advisors, but somewhere they must not be very
effective to have earned this bad reputation.

It is partly sour grapes and partly the statement "I am a Master
Gardener". It is sort of like the bumper sticker "My child is an honor
student." However, the ones here are knowledgeable and hard working
also. I look at the Master Gardener program the same as the PhD
programs in many universities. They give a distinguished title in
exchange for slave labor. Sure, the person who receives the title has
made an accomplishment, but the University extracts their measure of
slave labor before they present it. In the Master Gardener program, the
Extension Service keeps extracting the slave labor.

--
Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to
Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA
http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman

Contact your county extension office.
The master gardener program allows extension offices to increase their
reach using trained volunteers who barter a little volunteer time for
training and some cash for course materials.
You will have a blast, meet a lot of similarly minded people, learn 3x
as much as you expect, and gain access to all manner of hort resources.
It's not for everyone, but if it suits your temprement you can have a
great time.

In article , Ann
wrote:

Stephen Henning expounded:

Each state runs their master gardener programs differently. I am not a
master gardener, but know many and even tutored several who were
studying for the master gardner status. In our area the master
gardeners have a number of gardens they maintain for educational
purposes and for the local Penn State campus. They participate in lots
of actual gardening projects for local parks and provide demonstrations
for school children. They go on interesting field trips and have a lot
of information to share with each other. They tend to be cliquish and
identify with each other. They do not sit at tables and answer
questions. They include a cross section of our community including
teachers, nursery and garden center workers, and other gardeners. In
our area there is no waiting list to take classes and we get a lot of
people taking the classes.

The Master Gardener program run by the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society is a serious program too, Stephen, but many people get their
jollies out of ridiculing Master Gardeners. Not around here, they're
known as knowledable advisors, but somewhere they must not be very
effective to have earned this bad reputation.

The reality is that the University of Massachusetts Extension Service,
assessing the master gardeners system as of very little value when it
comes to education, stopped supporting a program that wasted University
resources on what never became more than a social outlet for a very few
amateur gardeners (some knowledgeable most not so much but none
knowledgeable due to a workshop series & volunteer service). Now
volunteer service is praiseworthy, but these volunteers are just about
always lousy sources of horticultural information.

Since the Horticultural Society took over the program, four or five
hundred of their 7,000 members have gone through the process & can now
boast they are Master Gardeners. If they know they did it for social
reasons & to help their Society squeeze more funds from them & to do good
volunteer work as unpaid public garden weeders, then that's respectable
enough. If "graduates" ever believe they're instantly the next best thing
to an arborist then that's a little sad. But I think most people within
the system know perfectly well they joined a club & their "teachers" are
merely clubsters who joined earlier. It's only the occasional individual
impressed by the word "master" but never saw the club in action who
mistakes it for more than it is, a misconception master gardeners may at
worse allow to go uncorrected.

In most states an agricultural college or horticultural system oversees
the program so there's at least an off chance of encountering & learning
from people with educating expertise (it just won't be anyone whose
greatest boast is they're a Master Gardener, i.e., a club volunteer).
Around here that would be Washington State University's extension. With
the right affiliation Master Gardener volunteers will have access to soil
sample testing services for the public or can give tours to enormous worm
bins & do an "educational" show & tell for folks who've never seen a worm
bin.

But the MG system as the University of Massachusetts figured out really is
more suited to garden social clubs & public garden fundraising entities
than it is to educational systems. In the future there are bound to be
more colleges & extensions dropping their affiliations with the program.
If the MG system is to survive into the longterm future as the club it has
always been, it'll probably be increasingly sustained by the volunteers
themselves, perhaps in affiliation with old horticultural clubs as in
Massachusetts. But if the Massachussetts example becomes standard & more &
more university systems ditch the MG as dead weight, this will hardly be
evidence of its value as education.

Does that mean amateurs can't do good work? In some regions Master
Gardeners work side by side with "ordinary" gardeners & other sorts of
garden club members to help sustain roadside gardens, babysit in
children's & youth gardens, work in p-patches that help feed the poor, &
work for free in private & public gardens to keep things weeded &
fertilized & topcoated, very rarely even to help select the plants. So yes
they do good work. They only seem silly when their volunteer service means
they end up sitting at a cardtable at a farmer's market or nursery to
answer gardening questions they never can answer, because they so rarely
have any expertise of any kind, & if one meets the very rare MG who is
very knowledgeable, they got that knowledge elsewhere than the MG system.

Since it is an amateur system it occasionally happens that by sheer luck
in one or another region there are more knowledgeable participants &
instructors than elsewhere, but actual expertise is not a prerequisite, so
it is more likely to be found elsewhere.

And if you find the facts "ridicule" M-G, that would be because YOU don't
value the good volunteer work they do & so have to make up imaginary
values above & beyond the helping hands their club can provide to
underfunded gardens & p-patches that need unpaid laborers to survive.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson

(paghat) expounded:

The reality is that the University of Massachusetts Extension Service,
assessing the master gardeners system as of very little value when it
comes to education, stopped supporting a program that wasted University
resources on what never became more than a social outlet for a very few
amateur gardeners (some knowledgeable most not so much but none
knowledgeable due to a workshop series & volunteer service). Now
volunteer service is praiseworthy, but these volunteers are just about
always lousy sources of horticultural information.

Oh blah, blah, blah, Paghat. I live here. I know the reputation of
all, the Mass. Hort. Society, the UMass Extension service (both via
the university and via the service, Dr. Lyle Craker is a personal
friend of mine - oh, that means you'll do a character assasination on
him. Sorry, Lyle!) and the Master Gardener Program. You haven't
got a clue other than going on your usual rant against Master
Gardeners. Diarrhea of the fingertips doesn't mean you know
everything.
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

Stephen Henning expounded:

Each state runs their master gardener programs differently. I am not a
master gardener, but know many and even tutored several who were
studying for the master gardner status. In our area the master
gardeners have a number of gardens they maintain for educational
purposes and for the local Penn State campus. They participate in lots
of actual gardening projects for local parks and provide demonstrations
for school children. They go on interesting field trips and have a lot
of information to share with each other. They tend to be cliquish and
identify with each other. They do not sit at tables and answer
questions. They include a cross section of our community including
teachers, nursery and garden center workers, and other gardeners. In
our area there is no waiting list to take classes and we get a lot of
people taking the classes.

The Master Gardener program run by the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society is a serious program too, Stephen, but many people get their
jollies out of ridiculing Master Gardeners. Not around here, they're
known as knowledable advisors, but somewhere they must not be very
effective to have earned this bad reputation.
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

there are a lot of really well informed master gardeners in our world that is if we bother to go and ferrett them out for the answers we want.
here is one that i really enjoy watching on television i find him both entertaining and knowlegable.

http://mastergardener2005.usask.ca/p...-keynotes.html

there are also a few hotlines and radio programs that we have in our area which i am sure there are also in others that feature master gardeners that i also find very informative.
so i guess the old story stands that no matter what profession a person is in there is good and bad in all of them. sockiescat

Ann wrote:
paghat expounded:
The reality is that the University of Massachusetts Extension Service,
assessing the master gardeners system as of very little value when it
comes to education, stopped supporting a program that wasted University
resources on what never became more than a social outlet for a very few
amateur gardeners (some knowledgeable most not so much but none
knowledgeable due to a workshop series & volunteer service). Now
volunteer service is praiseworthy, but these volunteers are just about
always lousy sources of horticultural information.

Oh blah, blah, blah, Paghat. I live here. I know the reputation of
all, the Mass. Hort. Society, the UMass Extension service (both via
the university and via the service, Dr. Lyle Craker is a personal
friend of mine - oh, that means you'll do a character assasination on
him. Sorry, Lyle!) and the Master Gardener Program. You haven't
got a clue other than going on your usual rant against Master
Gardeners. Diarrhea of the fingertips doesn't mean you know
everything.


Oooo. What a great comeback. You've convinced me. Or did you?

You didn't really say anything. You said you live somewhere, and you have a
friend who's involved somehow (which isn't even very clear). And you said
that paghat is wrong. But you really didn't do anything but express an
unsupported opinion of paghat's assessment.

If you disagree, what parts of what paghat said do you disagree with? And
why? What can you add to support your opinion other than making it a
she-said/she-said thing? Ultimately, all you've convinced me of is that you
have no respect for paghat. You didn't address the issue at all. Your post
was all personal attack, and no substanance.

Do you have any real information to add? Or should we simply take your
opinion over paghat's substantiated opinion because of your good name? (Or
the one name you dropped?)

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.

This fall, vacuum up your leaves instead of raking:
http://www.holzemville.com/mall/blac...r/blowers.html