Home Gardeners' School - Penn State Master Gardener Annual Event April 9, 2011

8:00 Registration and Continental Breakfast.
Marketplace Open
Silent Auction begins
8:45 Welcome

9:00 My, What Great Bone Structure Your Garden Has!
Rick Lewandowski, Director of Mt. Cuba Center, explores how the thoughtful choice and placement of native plants and shrubs in key areas can greatly enhance the quality and character of your garden throughout the entire year.
10:00 10 Tips for a More Bountiful Vegetable Garden When and how to amend the soil, judicious watering and best practices for keeping accurate garden records are just a few of the topics Penn State Senior Extension Educator Scott D. Guiser covers in this presentation of useful tactics that both novice and experienced gardeners can employ to improve the quantity and quality of veggies from their home gardens.
11:00 Break. Box Lunch, Marketplace, Silent Auction

12:00 Sustainable Landscaping: What Is It? How Do I Do It?
For most homeowners, lawn is the default landscaping option. But there are so many other attractive and earth-friendly alternatives. Discover how to let site conditions guide your landscape choices while promoting biodiversity and creating a wildlife-friendly habitat from Susan Barton, PhD, a faculty member in the Dept. of Plant & Soil Science at University of Delaware

1:00 Master Gardener Forum
a - Peonies - the Unabashed “Queens of the Garden”
Eleanor Tickner, owner of A Peony Garden and Master Gardener gives you a glimpse of her newest passion: early blooming peonies, both species and hybrids. It’s definitely not your mother’s peony garden where Paeonia lactiflora reigned supreme.
b - Lasagna Gardening
Forget digging and tilling! Master Gardener and science instructor Leslie Trimble, describes how to prepare a new garden or enlarge an existing one by layering organic materials, then allowing Mother Nature to do the rest. This earth-friendly, back-saving technique produces rich, hospitable garden soil, saves time and money plus yields terrific crops.

Official Website: http://delaware.extension.psu.edu/MG/HGS_11.pdf