I hope you have been out and about these past few weeks – the flowering trees and shrubs have been in their glory. Karl and I planted three trees in our yard and have enjoyed their blossoms already – I guess this means we did "our part" for Arbor Day!

MG Help Desks
We are really bringing the University to the community with all our MG Help Desks. Thank you for your quick response and interest. Please help me...I must have the contact information for each time that each of you "work." It hurts our program if I don't have the "numbers" to report to the state and federal government.

Youth Programs
From Junior Master Gardeners in Villa Park, to Garden Mentors in Darien and Downers Grove, to classroom programs in Downers Grove, to monthly lessons at Easter Seals, to our Fourth Annual Budding Gardener's Day, we've already had a great year encouraging youth to learn about plants, soil, and gardening. Over 1,100 children have participated in our programs since January!

MG Help Line in the Office
Our new hours have worked out well – you've done a wonderful job of arriving early and being ready to accept calls at 10 a.m. It seems like the flow of calls has been nice and steady. Thank you for providing such good customer service.

Since my schedule is erratic and I am out of the office frequently, I have struggled with how best to communicate with each of you who answer questions on our MG Help Line. I know you are eager for feedback, from compliments to corrections. If I am not here, it's difficult to follow up with each of you. Beginning this week, I'll be using a short note form to write suggestions for better answers, requests for clarification, compliments, and attach it to a copy of the original message sheet. This will be placed in your blue folders. Since we answer hundreds of questions each month, I know I won't be able to do this for every question; but, since I review all the messages, I'll select some of the more interesting and important ones. In addition, I know there are times you leave the office without knowing the outcome/answer to a question or specimen. If you are interested in learning the outcome/answer to anything you were working on, be sure to leave a note on the message form and I'll fill in a sheet for you to read.

Butterfly Education Garden
Team Leader Pam Kowalczyk is getting her MG team ready for garden planting and maintenance. MGs will be at the site twice per week throughout the season. There will be a Butterfly Garden Open House on Saturday, August 14. We will have the opportunity to participate with a MG Help Desk, as well as leading interpretive walking tours of the garden site. Details will be available in the next quarterly Volunteer Signup Sheets.

Open Day's Directory
We just received a copy of the Garden Conservancy's Open Days Directory for the Midwest. This booklet lists the private gardens that will be open for public viewing. If you are interested in visiting beautiful, private gardens in our area, be sure to check this out.

We will soon be receiving details on the State MG Conference, which will be in Decatur this year on September 9-11.

In order to make it easier for MGs to attend, please let the office know:

• if you plan to attend
• if you would like to carpool
• if you would like to share a room

We can then put you in touch with each other so that you can make your arrangements.

We need an additional four people to work at the Master Gardener Help Desk on Saturday, June 5 for the Bridges Community Garden Walk in Glen Ellyn. Two MGs are needed for each shift; shifts are noon - 2 p.m. and 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. Please call the office (653-4114) to sign up.

Four people are needed for a Master Gardener Help Desk at the Wheaton Public Library on Saturday, June 5. Two MGs are needed for each shift; shifts are 10 a.m. – noon and noon – 2 p.m. Please call the office (653-4114) to sign up.

We have a request from a member of DuPage County Association for Home and Community Education, another of Extension's volunteer organizations. Ruby Zimmerman is 93 years old and lives in the Lombard area. She would like to have a garden but is no longer capable of doing the work herself, and would like to hire someone to do the job for her. If you are interested in this opportunity, please call Ruby directly at 630-627-2650.

Even though you may not have signed up for "Plant-A-Row for the Hungry," any amount of veggies or fruit surplus goes a long way. A few pounds of produce can add zest to a meager meal. Pass on any surplus to the pantries and report your hours and poundage, however small, for extra volunteer credits. DuPage County Master Gardeners have marked a target of 1,000 pounds for this year. Last year several Master Gardeners, including Art Feid and Ron Ory, contributed more than 200 pounds each, so we have a good jump on this goal.

Last year, Art Feid contributed 243 pounds of tomatoes, 51 pounds of cabbage and lettuce, and 20 pounds of peaches. Naturally, these amounts are extraordinary, but Art fits that bill, too, with his dedication to maintaining a large orderly garden. He has two 30x40 feet well-tended plots, two large raspberry beds, blackberries, gooseberries, a very prolific peach tree, an apple tree with super fruit, and a heavy-bearing cherry tree...and, oh yes, he also has a large rhubarb bed. For over 30 years, Art has mulched all his leaves and garden debris into his soil.

He fertilizes regularly and sprays sparingly, especially his peach and apple trees, plus limited spraying for garden pests. It's a labor of love for Art and his wife, Marion, who deeply appreciate the joy and rewards of decades of gardening. They freeze, can, and preserve a large part of their harvest. Large quantities of peaches and raspberries are frozen for processing in the winter months. Making raspberry jam or eating fresh peaches in the middle of winter is a real treat!

You may not have the space or time to give the quantities Ron and Art provide, but every pound of fresh garden produce is deeply appreciated by those who have no space.

Please set apart a small part of your garden for volunteer hours and welcomed garden produce for the hungry.

- Warren H. Senneke

Date: Saturday June 12, 2004
Time: 10 a.m. -12 noon

Everyone will have a chance to browse and the swap itself will begin promptly at 11 am. Each plant you bring is good for one plant to take home. Swapping will be done in successive rounds depending on how many plants you bring. Please bring at least three potted and labeled plants. A plant can be a shrub, a tree, a perennial, or a package of annuals. Plants will be sorted by sun requirements.

Robin Chotzinoff's thoughts in a passage from her book - People with Dirty Hands:

Old roses, by example are full of thoughts on how to live right. They stand for certain things I like to consider true, such as:

1) There is more than one way to be beautiful.

2) Survival is a noble goal.

3) Good climates are in the eye of the beholder, not the tourism board.

4) If you are attacked by diseases, abandonment, or a bad chain of events, do not necessarily despair. There is always the chance you were bred to be tough.

5) Everyone should not smell the same.

Robin Chotzinoff's book, People with Dirty Hands – the Passion for Gardening, 1996 – Macmillan Reference, USA, is a somewhat quirky book that may not be for everyone. Personally, I first read it several years ago and couldn't put it down. Re-reading it again this winter, I was just as thoroughly entertained.

Robin Chotzinoff's book is bit unusual, as gardening books go, but I hope that some of you will find it as fascinating as I have. It is all about the somewhat bizarre, yet always entertaining lifestyles of some very passionate gardeners. Robin takes you along for the ride through her unconventional yet ardent gardening life. Along the way, you'll get to meet equally zealous and entertaining gardeners, like the ladies from the Texas Rose Rustlers, a shaman, and a man who grows more than 450 tomato plants in his home garden. You'll also get to meet Angel, the Chile Grower. An expert on the subject of chilies, he has no formal education, instead working since he was just a small boy, in chili fields with his father, he grows over 100 different varieties of chilies, which he sells in over 40 states through his mail order company. Then there is the Green Guerrilla, a man who delivers manure to gardeners all over New York, or Miz Daniel a wealthy old southern dame who considers herself a dirt gardener and has some very definite opinions on flowers, gardens and life.

Throughout this long, strange trip, Robin also shares her innermost thoughts and life experiences. Some of her reflections and memories will make you cry, others will make you laugh, but in any event, it is certain that her book will not bore you.

- By Eileen Kostock

The use of tissue culture technology to reproduce hostas for the retail market in the U.S. has had a huge impact. First, let me explain briefly what TC is. Tissue culture is the use of micro propagation techniques to create many plants from one. This is an asexual process that involves dissection of certain parts of adult plants (99 percent are from dormant bud tissue or from actively growing bud tissue) into tiny sections that are kept in a sterile growth media (a thick sugar rich substance often called agar) until leaves and roots appear.

Then, under carefully controlled environmental and sterile conditions (more associated with a medical lab than with a nursery), the crop of young plants is nurtured and repotted as necessary until they achieve a size required for sale- either as "liners" in pots about one inch square or, more recently, as much larger plants that have even undergone a period of dormancy. The larger plants are much more developed and can often be planted in the garden the same season that is often not the case with liners.

As many as 1,000 or more tissue culture offspring can be grown in a one to two year time frame. The number of plants obtained will vary greatly, however, according to the amount of tissue available and whether the sectioning process is repeated to increase yield. The growth rate of the parent plant often (but not always) has a great deal to do with the time it takes to grow a crop of tissue culture plants. Solid colored plants (green, blue and most golds) achieve a high rate of consistency and livability percentages of 100 percent have resulted when those plants have been tissue cultured. The same cannot be said for variegated plants.

The percentage of true clones in such cases may vary greatly and can be as low as 10 percent. The remainder of the crop may consist of any number of variations or, in some cases, reversions. Variations are usually referred to as "sports." Sometimes such sports are beautiful or interesting themselves and are grown on and eventually may be named and introduced to the retail trade. Others may show no unique characteristics or may even possess undesirable qualities. Those are almost always discarded by reputable tissue culture labs. Some problems with sports (either tissue culture or naturally occurring ones) are not immediately apparent. Sometimes they do not show up for a year or more. That is why conscientious hybridizers and tissue culture growers should grow out promising sports for a number of seasons before releasing them to the public. Unfortunately, not all do.

So in what ways has the introduction of tissue culture reproductive practices affected the popularity of hostas over the last 20 years or so? The most obvious effect is that it has made it possible for the average gardener to own the latest products of the leading hybridizers much sooner (and at a much more reasonable cost) than when reproduction depended solely upon the multiplication of divisions. As recently as the late 1980s, it was common for collectors to pay a thousand dollars or more at auction for a single division of an outstanding new cultivar rather than wait five to ten years for it to become generally available.

If one wanted a new plant within a few years of introduction, prices well in excess of $100 were quite common. Today, such plants are often available at more reasonable cost within two to three years of introduction and within five years or so, are often relatively inexpensive. Furthermore, sports created in the tissue culture process have greatly increased the number of new plants available. It should be pointed out that there are some notable exceptions to the trend toward inexpensive newer cultivars caused by the use of tissue culture techniques.

Such exceptions illustrate how things were when plants were being slowly reproduced through division. These plants come to mind, because they have proven to be resistant to quick reproduction through tissue culture. They are H. Embroidery and H. Dorothy Benedict. The first is unique in leaf shape, with a margin that looks truly as if it has been stitched. It has been tissue cultured but the percentage of plants in a typical TC crop that come out of the process lacking the unique leaf shape is so large that most labs have given it up as being a losing proposition. As a result, one division plants of H. Embroidery are often priced in the $50 range when they are available even though it was first introduced in the 1970s (actually grown as a seedling of H. Frances Williams in 1978.)

H. Dorothy Benedict is prized more for it's breeding value than for unique appearance. It has been the most sought after breeding plant since it's introduction in the mid 1980s because it's seeds produce a high percentage of high quality streaked seedlings. Such seedlings often evolve into new cultivars when they eventually stabilize after several years of growth. Like Embroidery, Dorothy Benedict does not produce a high percentage of clones of the parent when tissue cultured compared to many other cultivars. As a result, it is common to see H. Dorothy Benedict offered in the $200 price range when it is made available even though it has been around for more than two decades.

Last but not least is that the tissue culture process insures that plants coming out of it are free from nematode infestation assuming that the nursery that sells the TC plants does not expose them to such organisms once they are grown out. While it is commonly believed that the TC process also will prevent transmission of plant viruses from the parent plant to TC offspring that is apparently not true, according to TC expert Mark Zilis of Q&Z Nursery.

So, what are the negatives associated with tissue culture? The first one only matters to those who are involved with (or who benefit from) the work of the major hosta organizations such as the American Hosta Society or AHS. The auctions at the annual conventions have historically been a primary source of income and funding for the AHS as well as for the regional hosta groups. Since plants are often donated by major hybridizers, the AHS coffers were the beneficiaries when collectors paid large sums for new introductions. Since member's dues do not fully fund the publication of the wonderful Hosta Journal now published three times per year by the AHS, the organization has had to rely on a variety of other fund raising activities to fill the void. On the other hand, it is certainly likely that membership growth in such hosta organizations has benefited greatly from the TC impact on the genus.

A second byproduct of TC is that the market is now replete with many cultivars of relatively unproven value or with cultivars that are virtual clones of existing plants. There are now thousands of registered hosta cultivars with hundreds more becoming available every year. The Hosta Library (perhaps the best online source of high quality pictures of most registered cultivars), for example, lists and pictures over 3,700 different named plants. In addition, some are coming to market that are not registered and are not mass marketed but are simply offered for sale by their hybridizers. As mentioned earlier, it takes years of growing a new cultivar before one knows all of its strengths, weaknesses and growing characteristics.

Many of the more established and famous hybridizers routinely grew out plants for seven or more years before they finally decided to release them to the public. For one thing, before TC became available, a hybridizer used plant division as the only method of reliable vegetative reproduction. By so doing, they could also determine with certainty such qualities as hardiness, growth rate, disease resistance, and fertility, among others. Many cultivars found their way to the compost pile instead of to the public during that process. Today, growers are often so anxious to get a new plant to market before someone else does due to the volume of yearly introductions that plants are sometimes rushed to retail sale before the parent plants have had enough time to truly mature and reveal all of their secrets.

The last significant negative is that liner size TC plants are sometimes more delicate than divisions off of a mature plant and (some claim) may be slower to achieve the size necessary for it to take a place in the garden. If a plant is slow growing by nature, it may well take several years of growing out before it amounts to much in the garden regardless of how it is produced. Meanwhile, some losses are likely, especially while it overwinters. The cultivar H. Great Expectations comes to mind. It took me four to five years of growing in pots and then nursery beds to achieve good size with the liners I had purchased. The fact is, however, that without the ability of TC to make the purchase of so many small plants economically feasible, I wouldn't have had a large group of Great Expectations at my disposal to begin with.

Truly TC can be a "mixed blessing" in some ways but it is certainly much more of a blessing than a curse. The interest in growing hostas today is many times larger than it would have been had not TC made a huge variety of plant material available to the average gardener. As time goes on, the availability of many types of plants will be increased as the use of TC spreads well beyond hostas. Eventually, every gardener will benefit from TC technology.

- By Lou Horton

Do you have a plant to share with your fellow Master Gardeners? How about a piece of equipment you would like to sell or trade (or donate)? Is there a plant you are looking for that one of us might already have? We'd like to put you in touch with each other. Contact Pat Kosmach. She will take the information and put all of it together for the next newsletter.

Gingko seedlings: Paul Stoffels has Gingko seedlings. About one year old. Sex is unknown. Please contact him.

Water Iris: Pat Kosmach has Iris virginica "Pond Lilac Dream". Will grow two feet tall and about as wide in a season. Blooms in early June. She also has goldfish in various sizes up to about eight inches long.

Plants needed: Joyce Ernst is looking for plants to landscape a bare space at her church. A very large Spruce tree formerly occupied the space. If you have extra divisions this spring, please contact her.

• Number of years as a Master Gardener: One
  
• What prompted you to become a M.G.? Ellen Kangas
  Occupation: Retired Electrical Engineer
  
• Favorite annual: Geraniums (Not very exciting I know, but I really like perennials better.)
  
• Favorite perennial: Hostas. I collect them and have 51 varieties in my back yard. (But now I am moving to a town home and will give many away to friends.)
  
• My most humbling garden experience: As a young gardener, trying to grow plants that grow in shade in full sun.
  
• Greatest gardening accomplishment: I used to grow orchids in a greenhouse when I lived in Seattle, WA. Very easy there.
  
• Best garden tip: Just enjoy the hobby; don't let it get too serious.
  
• If I am not gardening, you will find me: At the Morton Arboretum Urban Horticulture Lab as a volunteer working on an experiment or on a walking tour of the Arboretum as I am a volunteer Docent. I also love to fly fish (or fish for any fish or a boot), and have built a weather station at home on which I track the weather on my computer. At night you will find me with my telescope, as I am an amateur astronomer and member of the Naperville Astronomical Society. When I can, I take my scopes to dark sites for star parties for the public.
  
• Personal hero: Albert Einstein...I only wish I could understand more of his complex theories.
  
• Something about me not too many people know: I am very shy.
  
• Outside of M.G., other gardening involvement and studies: I have a Horticulture Certificate from the Morton Arboretum, and am now working on a Naturalist Certificate. I am taking a course in Meteorology at COD.

- By Pat Miller

May 8	Pat Pieper	Container Gardening demonstration at Aurora Public Library
May 12	Pat Pieper	Shade Gardening at Itasca Community Library
May 12	Sandy Lentz	Annuals: Three Seasons of Color for Darien Park District
May 13	Sandy Lentz	Annuals: Three Seasons of Color for Wheaton Garden Club
May 25	Sandy Lentz	Annuals: Three Seasons of Color at Carol Stream Public Library
May 27	Pat Pieper	Container Gardening for Belmont Village
June 7	Beth Corrigan	Container Gardening for Naperville Community Gardeners
June 17	Sandy Lentz	Annuals: Three Seasons of Color at Elmhurst Public Library

Spring into summer, the gardeners' busiest season. So an herb described by medieval herbalists as "comforting the heart, purging melancholy and quieting the frenetic or lunatic person" should be just the thing! Borage (Borago officinalis) is that herb. It has beautiful blue, starshaped flowers in nodding clusters all summer. They may be candied, frozen in ice cubes to decorate a punch bowl, or included in a salad to add a cucumber flavor.

Borage is an annual, but it self-seeds easily (read: once you have it, you'll always have it)! That said, borage seedlings are easy to pull out when they're small, so you can only have the one or few plants you want to keep. But wear your garden gloves - the stems and leaves of this plant can be prickly!

Borage likes a sunny spot, in light, well- drained soil, where it will grow to 24 inches. It does tend to flop, so I grow it up against an ugly chain link fence and weave the stems into it. It can be kept in check by cutting it in half in May, encouraging bushiness.

Borage has thick, hairy (or prickly) hollow stems, and large, fuzzy leaves, a coarseness, which contrasts with its delicate clusters of blooms, which may also be white in a cultivar called "Alba." These plants add an interesting texture and wonderful flowers to your herb patch.

- By Sandy Lentz

Most lawns do...so I would be amazed if your answer was no. White Grubs are the #1 most serious and destructive turf insect pest in Illinois. Grubs are the larvae of many kinds of beetles. They come in two colors whitish or grayish with brown heads, and the characteristic shape of a "C." Now that you know what they look like, you can head right out to your yard and look to see if you... Got Grubs?

Remember most every yard has some grubs, but HAVING grubs means that in a square foot area of lawn you count 8 – 12 grub larvae. Use a flat shovel, digging to turf roots and pry up a one foot by one foot patch of sod, do you... Got Grubs? You may want to try a couple of locations to get an average number. A "natural way" of telling if your lawn has...Got Grubs!... is if animals like raccoons, possums, and skunks make evening visits, ripping up the sod for a moon-lit grub feast. This fact alone, however, may not be a tried and true reason to declare "grub war." Like I said, most lawns have grubs, to some degree, so your lawn might be just the appetizer for the grub feast at your neighbor's house. So, before you panic, do the square foot dig and count.

If the count is up there, then you...Got Grubs!, and a trip to the garden supply store is top on the list. But before that trip, you need to ponder....Should I go chemical or non-chemical. There are lots to learn. Both methods used to de-grub your home turf take an understanding of how it works followed by a proper application. There are many different chemicals that can be used, however one tricky part may be finding the chemical that works effectively at the time you are de-grubbing. Read the label. Insecticides for white grub control include the chemicals trichlorfon, carbaryl, halofenozide and imidacloprid.

For non-chemical grub "war," you could spread heterorhabditis bacteriophora, or nematodes in laymen's terms. I can't emphasis enough to read the label. All of these will kill grubs, but timing and application are key. Also keep in mind that grubs are insulated from attack by layers of grass, thatch and soil, as they feed on grass roots. It's recommended that a granular formulation be applied, then watered in thoroughly thru the thatch to the root zone, with at least a half inch of water. If treating a large area, stop after a portion has been treated and water the material in, then complete the rest of the lawn. Remember to only treat affected areas of your lawn.

Spring treatment for control of the annual white grub is not suggested. In spring, grubs are reaching maturity and are only feeding for a short period of time. What's that you say? All the grub stuff is in ads and out on the market now! True, very true. The key to winning the grub war is to READ THE LABEL, then read the label again to understand that specific product, then make sure your hoses are out and ready for water dispersement, of course only if you... Got Grubs?????

- By Ambi Pellegrini

(How to survive a construction project with your garden and your sanity intact!)

1) Plan AHEAD

When you've decided to expand your back porch, build a two story-addition, or turn that tiny kitchen into something really usable - as soon as you know roughly where the new construction will go, begin to think about its IMPACT on your garden. Will whole beds be eliminated; will the new wall come close to a treasured lilac? Making a sketch to scale, or making a copy of your architect's drawing can be very useful here.

Not only should you think about the spaces to be worked on, the footprint of the finished project, but also both ACCESS, and STORAGE. How will the plumbers and carpenters, the demolition guys, enter your premises? This is especially important if they will need to use bobcats or other heavy equipment. Remember that the roots of your valuable trees may be close to the surface and, more importantly, that they spread very widely. Compacting the soil by running heavy equipment over it, or even storing materials on it, can sound the death knell for a tree. Decide how and where you want the workers and their equipment to move on your property. You may be able to minimize the impact of heavy equipment or materials by placing plywood on the ground, which spreads the weight - this can also indicate the route to be taken, enabling you to "herd" people where you want them to go.

The related question is STORAGE - where will they park everything, from paint cans to saw-horses to the compressor for the nail gun? If what is now a lush patch of lawn will shortly be a paved walkway, it won't matter that a pile of lumber is stacked there for three weeks, killing the grass underneath. As you begin to think this through, you will need to...

2) Be REALISTIC

The old adage that you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs applies in no uncertain terms to a construction project. Holes will be dug, ladders must be given a solid footing, carpenters and painters need room to work. Key to a successful project is the homeowner's recognition that there will be a MESS; that workers will be walking all over in size 13 boots, and that there is a strong likelihood that most of these folks don't know a delphinium from a dandelion. Trust me, it will happen. So, to go back to #1, plan ahead. Move that irreplaceable rose; heel it in temporarily, or just transplant it. Don't plant the seedlings you've babied in your basement into a bed where you know workmen will have to stand. When our new porch was to be built, starting in late August, an annual flowerbed was directly in the way. So instead of putting in the usual plants in the spring, I did nothing, and expected that it would look bare and awful for most of the summer.

To my surprise, a full crop of nicotiana and four-o'clocks came up anyway, having reseeded themselves from the previous season. I wound up with a reasonably presentable bed, and when the workmen arrived, I only winced slightly when they stepped on these plants. The porch done, that bed was very compacted and littered with scraps of wood and stray nails, but I KNEW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, so as I'd planned I raked out the debris, tilled in lots of compost, and wasn't all stressed out. Figure out ahead of time where the ladders can be parked, where you'd prefer that people walk, but don't try to place unreasonable restrictions on your workers. Which leads me to....

3) COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE.

These points are all related, but if I had to choose the most important, this is it. And it should start BEFORE you hire ANYONE. Discuss with the architect you're considering how you want the project to relate to your landscape, and get the answers you want before you sign the contract. Same thing, even more so, with the primary contractor - I talked to the people when they came out with the plans to prepare their bids, both to make it clear that there was landscaping that was important to me, AND that I would work closely with them and their people to make it as easy as possible for them to do their jobs. I would be realistic, and not turn into a screaming shrew (though my next door neighbor with whom I garden threatened to charge admission and put up bleachers during the project) but I had legitimate concerns that needed to be paid attention to. You need to be comfortable that you and your contractor(s) can work together, BEFORE you hire them. And, of course, get references and check them.

But the communication has only begun. If at all possible, be there, at least at the beginning. Know what is happening, what is needed, and try to make the workers both feel welcome AND know what your concerns are. It's a balance - don't micromanage, but keep an eye on things; the best problems are the ones you've been able to prevent. Encourage them to come to you first if they have a question, and try to be available to answer. Not only answer, but....

4) Appreciate Careful Work

I have an old lilac, given me by a friend, that was both very close to the side of the new porch and impossible to move. I wrapped it, and the adjacent rose bush, with staked orange plastic mesh construction fence - wonderful stuff! (I also ran it along the edges of all my borders that were in the vicinity of the project. It protected the plants and, by its very presence and bright color, reminded the workers that this was off limits.) I discussed the lilac with the painters, showed them where their scaffolds could go, and asked them if that was workable. They said it was. When I saw one of them doing a bit of a contortionist act to paint behind the lilac, I thanked him for his care. Whenever I saw anyone being careful, I let them know I appreciated it. Result: a beautiful new porch, a lilac that had a couple of broken branches, easily pruned, and half a dozen contractors who are still speaking to me, and whom I'd hire again in a minute.

- By Sandy Lentz

Saturday, May 8	MG Help Desk at Villa Park Men's Garden Club Plant Sale, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
	MG Help Desk at Mother's Day Plant Sale, Carol Stream, 9 a.m. – noon
	MG Help Desk at Naperville Community Gardeners Plant Sale, 7 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Tuesday, May 11	Understanding West Nile Virus telenet, Extension Office, 1 – 2:30 p.m.
Saturday, May 15	MG Help Desk at West Chicago is Blooming Community Event, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Tuesday, June 1	Herb Gardening telenet, Extension Office, 1 – 2:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 5	MG Help Desk at Bridges Community Garden Walk, noon – 4 p.m.
	MG Help Desk at Wheaton Public Library, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Saturday, June 12	MG Help Desk at The Growing Place, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
	MG Plant Swap, 10 a.m. – noon
Thursday, June 17	Advanced MG Training – Insect Pests in the Landscape, Extension Office, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Saturday, June 19	MG Help Desk at Naperville Farmer's Market, 6:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Saturday, June 26	MG Help Desk at Naperville Farmer's Market, 6:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

"The Garden Thymes" is the official newsletter for DuPage area MG's. If you misplace your copy, it can be found at our DuPage County Extension website. From time to time, you may have something you would like to share with fellow MG's or perhaps include an article of your own. We would love to hear from you!! As always, your comments and suggestions are most welcome.

• Issue #4 – June 18
• Issue #5 – August 21
• Issue #6 – October 29