Master gardener help?

 In response to one of my posts about my recently acquired garden, someone
posted that an agricultural organisation would send someone out, usually a
volunteer master gardener, to help with identification of plants. I thought
this was an excellent idea, but didn't think to ask how to go about this.

Now then, bearing in mind I'm from England and have no idea how things work
over here in Texas (but I'm learning ;-), can anyone give me some pointers
of who or where I should be approaching to go about this?

The alternative would be for me to take a whole bunch of pics and post them
on my website for y'all to look at. Meh, I might just do that anyway! But I
do think it would be great to have someone walk around my garden with me
and share their knowledge.
TIA.
--
Lynda

 On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 04:10:19 GMT, Lynda LeCompte


You might start looking here:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/mastergd/

 

hehe - yes, thanks.
Spooky actually, as I found this site this morning before I took my son to
school and was going to post about it when I got back... but ya beat me to
it :-)

When I was first searching, I made the mistake of using 'agriculture'
instead of 'horticulture' in the search strings. Duh!
--
Lynda


--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

 On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 14:28:21 GMT, Lynda LeCompte


^_^  I used "master gardener" and as it happened, there were
references on the first page to Texas.

The usual response is "call your local extension agent/office," which
is rather cryptic sometimes. Many (most? all?) state universities have
a public service operation that is a coordinating information resource
for local agricultural, horticultural, home (cleaning, canning),
social, and other topics. They vary in usefulness. I discovered,
looking for some specific info on the web, that many are ready to
supply the same 1950s pamphlets that must have been distributed in the
millions. However...they *do* generally coordinate Master Gardener
programs, handle things like soil-sampling, and *may* have a genuine
expert on local conditions.

 You may not get as much help from this source as you would like. Were I to
ask a MG to do this in my state (and this is where the MG program started),
I would be telling THEM what plants were what. If you have pretty basic
plantings - ie., your standard foundation plants, etc. - this may work.
Otherwise you may want someone in with a higher skill level.. Ask at a local
nursery if they can recommend a horticulturist to assist with this task. You
will have to pay for their time but at least you can count on what they are
telling you is accurate.

pam - gardengal



thought