Big news! The University of Illinois is eager to have a greater presence in NE Illinois and is leasing office space in Naperville. Several departments will be housed there, and we will be among them. We will be relocating our office to Naperville sometime this spring. As of today, the target month to move is May. Obviously, this can change, depending upon construction, etc. This decision has been in the making for some time now, but we were unable to say anything until all the details were truly confirmed. We are very excited about this move for many reasons. In addition to a greater presence, some of our operating costs will be lowered.

Now I hope you can understand why I have not been able to offer many horticulture classes this spring - I was not sure when this decision would be finalized, when we would be vacating this building and when we would be moving to the new one.

Our new office will be located on the 1^st floor, at 1100 E. Warrenville Road, Suite 170, Naperville. This building is on the south side of Warrenville Road, just west of the Naper Blvd/Warrenville Road intersection. There is a protected turn lane and stoplight.

I'll keep you posted on the anticipated "move date". Once things "settle down," we'll announce our summer and fall classes. Since we now know we will not be relocating until May, we can offer an April telenet class. See Notes from the Office for details. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

Telenet Class:
Diseases of Herbaceous Perennials

Tuesday April 17
12:45 pm – 2:30 pm

Are your posies past saving? Is disease the only thing growing in your yard? Monica David, MG State Coordinator, will share simple ideas for managing disease problems before they get out of hand. Space is limited, so sign up early. Class will be held at the Extension Office conference room, using the telenet equipment. Pre-registration required. There is a $10.00 fee.

Volunteer Assignments
Our 21 trainees complete their classes on March 28^th and officially become Master Gardener Interns! Beginning April 1^st, we will have 123 active volunteers. We try our best to make sure everyone is scheduled for as many of their requested events as possible. Don't worry if you aren't scheduled for everything you signed up for. We have such a willing group of Master Gardeners that we usually have many more volunteers for each event than needed. When scheduling, we make sure the hours are distributed between as many MGs as possible; always trying to make sure no one is "left behind."

Additional Volunteer Opportunities

We need one volunteer to help at The Terrace in West Chicago on May 1 from 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. Please call the office if you can help.

We have an additional help desk scheduled on May 12 at the Naperville Community Gardeners Plant Sale. Two volunteers will be needed at each of three shifts: 7:30 – 9:30 a.m., 9:30 -11:30 a.m., and 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Please call the office if you can help.

Garden Help Line/ Garden Clinic
Beginning this year, we will be changing the way we handle our samples. The number of samples we received has increased steadily for the past 3 years. In 2004 we identified/diagnosed 186 samples; in 2005 it was 231 samples; and in 2006 we handled 357 samples. Our Garden Clinic MGs did an extraordinary job, trying to handle all of this. But we think the number of samples will continue to increase, especially with the threat of EAB. We believe we'd be offering better service to our clients if we accepted their samples 4 days each week and have MGs begin working on them as they come in. We hope to have our former Garden Clinic MGs scheduled at least once per week on the Garden Help Line and also hope that all MGs continue to strengthen diagnostic skills.

We will do this on a trial basis this year and see how it works. We hope the public will be excited to know they can bring their samples in on a less rigid schedule.

We want to thank the Garden Clinic MGs for their wonderful work these past few years, and ask that they share their expertise with each MG they may be paired with.

Garden Help Line
Don't forget to check-in with our secretaries before heading downstairs to the Master Gardener office. They need to know when you arrive!

Thank you to all Master Gardeners in the Speakers Bureau. They are all busy giving talks at libraries, garden clubs and other civic organizations. Below are the talks scheduled for the next three months:

Wednesday, March 7 Vegetable Gardening, Downer Grove Park District

Thursday, March 15 Spring Garden Calendar, Warrenville Public Library

Monday, March 19 Integrated Pest Management, Westmont Down to Earth Garden Club

Wednesday, March 21 Perennials: Workhorses in the Garden, Oak Brook Library

Tuesday, April 3 Butterflies: Magic in the Garden, Winfield Area Gardeners

Thursday, April 5 Perennials of Northern Illinois, Westmont Library

Wednesday, April 11 Annuals: Four Seasons of Color, Naperville Nichols Library

Thursday, April 12 Perennials: Workhorses in the Garden, Beth Corrigan, Roselle Public Library

Friday, April 13 Perennials: Workhorses in the Garden, Hinsdale Area Women's Connection

Monday, April 16 Container Gardening, Villa Park Library

Monday, April 23 Butterflies: Magic in the Garden, St. Patrick's Residence

Wednesday, April 25 Container Gardening, Naperville Public Library

Monday, April 30 Butterflies: Magic in the Garden, Indian Prairie Library

Wednesday, May 2 Gardening with Children, Itasca Library

Saturday, May 5 The Herb Patch, PEO in Glen Ellyn

Sunday, May 6 Container Garden Demonstration, First Methodist Church in Glen Ellyn

Tuesday, May 8 Container Garden Demonstration, Gardens, etc.

Wednesday, May 16 Gardening with Children, Bloomingdale Garden Club

Thursday, May 17 Container Gardening, United Childcare Network in Woodridge

Thursday, May 17 Butterflies: Magic in the Garden, West Chicago Library

Thursday, May 24 Shade Gardening, DuPage Organic Garden Club

Reporting Continuing Education – All Master Gardeners who are Database Reporters need to submit their own continuing education classes for approval. Please do not make these submissions to the office on paper. Log on to the database, select, "Enter Continuing Education", and look through the alphabetical list of approved classes. If you do not see the class you want to attend, then select "Suggest Continuing Education" and fill in the requested information. When the class is approved, it will appear in the list of classes that can be reported against. Do not enter continuing education hours until after you have attended the class. Please remember that travel time should not be included when reporting continuing education hours.

Time to Archive! – Please enter all your volunteer and continuing education hours at least every week or two. You are such an active and well-educated group that the list of volunteer events and continuing education classes can quickly get out of hand if we do not archive regularly. Thank you!

Getting Help – If you need a volunteer event added to the list or don't see the correct date to report against, please email Sarah at sarahnav@uiuc.edu. Use the "Help" feature only to report error messages or general database trouble.

Contact Reporting in the Master Gardener Database System: There seems to be some confusion on how to report demographics when youth are involved in a program. If you are a team leader and are doing the demographic reporting please remember to put the youth numbers in two (2) places. First the adults (teachers, parents, etc.) and youth get reported in the demographic breakdown area together. For instance if there is one teacher that is a white female and there are 3 white female students in the lesson then report the number 4 under White F/F Female(F/F means Face-to-Face contact). Second report the total number of youth by female and by male under the Youth F/F column. (The system will automatically total all of the F/F (Face-to-Face) contacts and total the youth. The difference between the two would be the number of adults in the audience.)

Need Assistance? – If you would like help entering your hours or just need a refresher course on the database, please make an appointment with Sarah. You may use the office computer on Tuesdays or Thursdays to report your hours.

Earth Day was created to remind us of our shared responsibility to protect the planet we all reside on. This year, consider celebrating Earth Day by taking part in a local recycling event. It's simple and easy; first, read the following information about the upcoming FREE, yes, free, recycling events. Then spread the word to friends, family, neighbors and co-workers. Next take your items, and perhaps some from friends, to the recycling locations listed below. The volunteer workers will take items out of your car for you; just drive up! Yes, it's that easy. Remember your local actions can and do have global impact.

Please remember to pass this information on to others. Thank you.

Recycling Extravaganza
Saturday, April 21^st 9am-3pm

Commuter parking lot in Wheaton, at the corner of Liberty & Carlton Streets.

What They Will Take

• American flags - any condition
• Bicycles – any condition
• Books – any kind, any condition, yes even old moldy encyclopedias
• Car & House keys
• Cellular phones
• Eyeglasses & hearing aids
• Garden tools
• Lawn mowers
• Misc. household tools such as hammers, wrenches, etc.
• Scrap metal – any kind

(*Note: Usable bicycles, eyeglasses, mowers, tools, & phones will be donated to those in need through charity organizations)

What They Will Not Take

• NO appliances, propane tanks, Freon appliances, or hazardous waste

(Have questions, call 630-653-8877)

COMPUTER & ELECTRONICS RECYCLING
Saturday, April 21st - 8am -1pm

United Recycling
1600 Harvester Road, West Chicago
(One mile south of North Ave. between Powis & Hawthorne Roads)

What They Will Accept

• Telephones, answering & fax machines
• Personal computers including: monitors, CPU's, printers, keyboards, mice, fax machines, scanners, & speakers.
• AV equipment: TV's, stereos, VCR's, DVD players, etc.
• Game systems such as Playstation & Nintendo
• Microwave ovens

What They Will Not Accept

• NO Appliances such as washers & dryers, stoves, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.
• NO Irons
• NO Scrap metal or other non-electronic goods

(Have questions, call 630-231-6060)

PLEASE Do not let toxic materials such as lead and mercury (in computers & TV's) go into our landfills to contaminate our soils and waterways, especially when there are organizations out there willing to recycle them and help OUR environment.

HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE COLLECTION
The Illinois EPA coordinates one-day household hazardous waste collections; these collections are FREE to the public. This is an opportunity to clean out your garage; basement and storage shed, and safely dispose of old and out–dated chemicals. Its easy, just drive up and they will take the materials directly out of your car.

Saturday, June 2nd 8 am – 3 pm
DuPage County Complex parking lot
421 N. County Farm Rd., Wheaton

Acceptable Materials
Aerosol paints
Antifreeze & automotive fluids
Cleaning products
Drain cleaners
Fluorescent lamp bulbs
Hobby chemicals
Household Batteries
Mercury & mercury containing items
Oil-based paints (NO latex)
Old Gasoline
Paint thinners
Pesticides – Insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc.
Pool Chemicals
Solvents
Used motor oil

Unacceptable Materials
Please Do Not Bring Latex Paint
Explosives
Fire extinguishers
Fireworks
Lead Acid Batteries
Medical Wastes

(Visitwww.epa.state.il.us/land/hazardous-waste/household-haz-waste/index.html for more information.)

- Nanette A. A. Kalscheur

Mayslake is located on the SW side of 31^st street, 1/4 mile west of Route 83. All lectures are 7:30 – 9:30 pm. Cost is $3.00. Before each lecture, there is an opportunity to take a docent-guided tour of Mayslake Hall at 6:30 p.m for an additional fee of $5.00 per person. For reservations (strongly recommended), call 630-850-2363 ext 3.

March 27
Trudi Temple and Her Garden
By Trudi Temple

Trudi Temple, the founder of Market Day has transformed an ordinary 1 acre yard into a show garden that attracts hundreds of visitors each year. Her garden has been featured in numerous books and articles.

April 10
A Shady Love Affair; Knockout Plants that Light up the Shadows
By Betty Earl

Betty Earl will highlight some of the more rare and unusual, yet glorious perennials perfect for a Midwest garden. Betty is the author of In Search of Great Plants: The Insider's Guide to the Best Plants in the Midwest and she is a garden scout for Better Homes & Gardens publications and Midwest Living magazine.

April 24
No More Pink Flamingos! How to Decorate your Yard with Style
By Shirley Remes

Learn four easy was to determine whether or not a garden ornament will look good in your yard and how to place it. Shirley is a field editor with Better Homes & Gardens publications. In addition to writing a weekly newspaper column about gardening, she is a regular contributor to the Chicago Sun Times, the Chicago Tribune and Chicagoland Gardening.

Plant a Row for the Hungry

Anyone who has read the Daily Herald's Home and Garden section is familiar with Plant a Row for the Hungry. What you may not know is how this program got started. In 1994, the Garden Writers Association decided to use its position in the media to make a difference for the hungry in the members' communities. So they began the Plant a Row for the Hungry program, which asks their readers who are vegetable gardeners to plant an extra row of vegetables that they can then donate to local food pantries or soup kitchens.

1 in 10 families in the United States are at risk of hunger, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (2002). Poor people are more at risk of developing diabetes and hypertension, diseases associated with poor nutrition. And while fresh produce is part of a healthy diet, it is expensive for the food pantries to acquire and store. Receiving produce from the community allows the food pantries to offer nutritious, fresh picked produce to their clients and helps the food pantries stretch their money budgeted for fresh produce a little further.

The DuPage Master Gardeners started participating in this program in 2000. While each year there is great variation in the number of MGs who decide to do this, the numbers are impressive. Starting with a donation of 200 pounds of produce in 2000, DuPage Master Gardeners have donated as many as 1,700 pounds in one year. Pam Kowalczyk, a Master Gardener who has participated in the program for a few years, read about the program and thought this was a good way to give back to the community. She was able to donate 100 pounds of tomatoes from just six extra plants. Art Feid, who has participated since the beginning, thought it was a great idea; he now had a place to donate his surplus! From his garden of tomatoes, wax and green beans, cabbage, beets and carrots, Art was able to donate 300 pounds of produce last year–dropping off ninety-six pounds of tomatoes at one time!

Bill Mark feels this is a great way to earn hours easily. He has been signing up for 3 or 4 years. He devotes a "small part of his garden" (4' X 4') to cucumbers, a vegetable he doesn't eat. He donated between 40 and 50 pounds of produce last year, including beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and beets. One of his favorite plants is the Red Ace Beet, of which he can get two crops in one growing season. He was happy to learn the food pantries will take green tomatoes, so the vegetables won't go to waste at the end of the season. 13 MGs participated last year, providing 1,045 lbs. to DuPage food pantries.

Part of the Master Gardeners' mission is to "enhance life in [our] communities". This project touches so many directly in a positive way. Will you help this year?

- Debbi Heinze

Plants that provide winter interest are gaining in popularity. And now is the perfect time to look around your garden to see what areas look a little barren and could use more visual impact. For some great ideas, I have found two books that explore how to add to your winter landscape.

Seedheads in the Garden
Noel Kingsbury (Timber Press 2006)
ISBN# 0-88192-796-1 $29.95

Richly detailed landscape and close-up photographs really showcase the possibilities of seedheads as a valuable part of the late summer to winter garden. Kingsbury provides an array of design ideas along with essential practical information including botany, cultivation and ecological contributions to wildlife. There is a good plant directory covering size and growth form, zones, and specifics for cultivars suggested.

The directory has an interesting rating called "Persistence", which ranks the ability of the seedheads to last through the winter. I have left up some seedheads over the past two years and have found that not all stand up to our winter. But by using the persistence rating, it may remove some of the experimentation and improve my choices for success.

The Winter Garden
Val Bourne (Cassell Illustrated 2006)
ISBN# 1-84403-481-X $19.95

Along the same line, Bourne's book covers a wider range of plant materials for winter interest. Textured bark on trees, evergreens, brightly stemmed shrubs and colorful berries all provide a wealth of ideas to add shape, texture and color. Consider the glimmery frost on the silhouette of stems, first snow dusting the evergreens and the glisten of ice on red berries.

Even early blooming flowers are covered to help you take your garden from fall to late winter/early spring. Plus there is a chapter on adding structural features with stone paths, wood pillars and statuary for finishing touches.

The plant suggestions and cultivar information is presented more in a narrative form throughout the book and breaks down into chapters covering specific design categories rather than in a master plant directory. This is useful if you want to concentrate on a particular aspect, such as berries or bark.

- Debbye B. Simpson

Several years ago my husband surprised me with a lovely trellis for Mother's Day that he had copied from a catalog. The next year he offered to make me a free-standing trellis of my own design to contain my boisterous year-old William Baffin rose. This rose had the potential to become a king in the garden or, if left untamed, a King Kong. I envisioned a tower of blooms cascading from a sleek and elegant basket that would also be large and strong enough to contain a ten-foot tall pillar rose.

My garden fantasies were haunting me night and day but, on paper, I had no luck in conveying them to my scientifically minded husband. Before he could begin work, he needed something more tangible and less "Monet." I finally resorted to sticking shish kabob skewers into a block of foam core board and fabricated a decent model by binding the skewers together with bits of tape. Model in hand; he proceeded to create the trellis of my dreams!

For a while, I was so delighted with its strong presence in the garden that I regretted that the trellis would be obstructed by the rose. Now we see it as the perfect basket for this robust rose. Its rough, rusty texture mimics the rose's barbs, canes, and coloration in winter but, in the summer, provides the rigid support required by this exuberant plant. The "Billy Basket," as we call it, is an arresting sight in June with the blooms overflowing the top.

You are invited to come see it anytime (it is on the east side of our front yard) and copy it if you wish. The directions are below. While you are here you might also be interested in checking out my husband's latest "trellis" which probably defies imitation. It is a soaring, swirling masterpiece of his own design that really has crossed over to being a sculpture.

Instructions for Building a Basket Trellis

Materials:

· Eight ½" OD, 20' long rebars.

· One ½" ID, 8' long M-type copper pipe.

· Two ¾" ID, 4' long steel water pipe with end fittings.

· One 1" ID, 1' long steel water pipe.

· About 40' of bendable steel wire.

Instructions:

· Slide the four-foot water pipes onto the end of one rebar and bend them together until the ends of the rebars are 25.5" apart, and you have a large rebar V. Repeat with the seven other rebars.

· Saw the copper pipe into eight foot-long sections. Working on a durable floor, center the 1"ID water pipe crosswise on top of the center of a copper section and flatten it with a heavy mallet. Use your hands to bend the copper section into a V with an angle of 24.5 degrees. Repeat for the other sections.

· Draw a 3' diameter circle in the dirt where you want the trellis. (Note: it is possible to erect the trellis in position over an existing plant if you are careful. That would spare you from having to lift a very heavy finished structure.) Poke the V ends of the eight copper sections into the circle at even intervals (13.8").

· So far, it has been a one-man job. Now you need the help of two or three other people. Raise the V end of the first rebar so that it is about nine feet above the ground and insert its first foot into one of the copper pipes. Swing its other foot clockwise, by-passing the adjacent copper V and inserting it into the following copper V.

· Repeat the operation with a second rebar, putting its first foot into the by-passed copper V and swinging its second foot clockwise. With the third rebar, the first foot will share the other half of the copper V filled by the second foot of the first rebar. (Always make sure that the right side of the new rebar is on the inside of the old rebar, while the left side is on the outside.) It may sound insane but you will catch on as you work. Repeat for the remaining five rebars.

· At each of the 40 points where two rebars intersect, wrap the intersection with steel wire.

- Marti Travelli

Herb: a plant or plant part valued for its medicinal, savory or aromatic qualities." Webster's Third New International Dictionary gives us a broad definition – guess I can't run out of column material for quite a while yet.

Though we're still buried in winter, if not in snow, when this issue arrives in our mailboxes, it's fun to think of the herbs sleeping under the snow, especially those whose early arrival brings us the first tastes of fresh greens in the spring.

One of those is sorrel, Rumex acetosa, commonly called broad leaf or garden sorrel. Perennial to zone 3, sorrel is an upright, fast-growing plant that can reach four feet in height, good for the back of the patch. Its leaves are bright green, lance-shaped, with a broad base, and may be six inches long. Their stems are ridged, juicy and sometimes reddish. Sorrel leaves have a sharp, acidic flavor; the first leaves used in spring salads can reduce the amount of lemon juice or vinegar needed for the dressing. A related species, R. scutatus, called French sorrel, has a smaller, shield-shaped leaf often tinged with silver. It grows as a mat-forming groundcover, six inches to two feet high. French sorrel has a milder, almost lemony tang. R. acetosa can take a little shade: R scutatus needs full sun. Needless to say, both species have been called both French sorrel and garden sorrel; it's easiest to tell them apart by their leaf shape. R. scutatus 'Silver Shield' has silvery green foliage and green blossoms and makes a fast-growing groundcover.

These perennials need moist but well-drained soil, and are easy to start from seed. Sow seed in spring, thin to 12 inches apart. Mature plants may be divided in fall. They prefer cool summers, which we tend not to have, so even with afternoon shade and mulch to help the root area stay moist, sorrel can flag in the summers here. Sorrel bears its small, yellow-green flowers in panicles along two to three foot spikes. The resulting red-brown seeds are attractive to finches, so self-seeding is minimal. Sorrel is disease- resistant, though its succulent stems and leaves may attract slugs: diatomaceous earth is a good remedy.

The most frequent culinary use for sorrel is for a simple soup; the leaves almost dissolve when steamed. In addition to salads, sorrel leaves also make good additions to omelettes, too.

Sorrel is definitely worth growing, for that first green taste of spring.

- Sandy Lentz

Celebrate Gardening in the Natural State!
May 2-5, 2007
Little Rock, Arkansas

Consider signing up for the International MG conference. MGs and MG Coordinators from across the country and Canada attend this informative and enjoyable event.

The conference will be hosted at the Peabody Hotel/Statehouse Convention Center in downtown Little Rock from May 2 to 5, 2007.

IMGC Website
Official website of the 2007 International Master Gardener Conference: http://mg2007.uaex.edu/

"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. Please note the change in issue numbers to reflect our program year.

· Issue #3 – May 30, 2007

· Issue #4 - August 29, 2007

· Issue #1 for 2008 - November 28, 2007

Every Wednesday, January 10 – March 28
2007 Master Gardener Classes
9 am – 3:30 pm
Limited space
Pre-registration required

March 13
12:45PM – 2:30PM
Aggressive Thugs in the Flower Garden
Telenet Class
Pre-registration required

April 17
12:45 pm – 2:30 pm
Diseases of Herbaceous Perennials
Telenet Class
Pre-registration required

May TBA
Office Relocation to Naperville
Details to follow

September 6-8
State Master Gardener Conference
Crowne Plaza, Springfield
Pre-registration required

DuPage County Extension Office
310 South County Farm Road, Suite C
Wheaton, Illinois 60187
Telephone: 630-653-4114
FAX: 630-653-4159
dupage.extension.uiuc.edu

Susan M. Grupp
Extension Unit Educator, Horticulture
DuPage County

The Extension Service of the University of Illinois provides educational programs and unbiased research-based information to help Illinois residents improve their quality of life, develop skills and solve problems, by helping you put knowledge to work.

The Illinois Extension Service provides equal opportunities in programs and employment.