Cornell Cooperative Extension Community Horticulture

The bi-annually state MGV conference will take place July 22-24th 2009.  We want to create a schedule that is attractive to MGV and highlights our campus resources.

Please take a few minutes to respond to this brief survey ASAP (no later than Dec 8th):

Cornell’s Mann Library seeks your assistance in identifying the information needs of Cooperative Extension staff in counties throughout NY State. Your feedback will help us allocate our resources to best enhance your work life as a Cornell Cooperative Extension staff member. This one page survey should take about 10 minutes to complete, and you can access it at

http://surveys.cit.cornell.edu/Survey.aspx?s=54a64dd6048a4ee6bc9e104947242215

Greetings from Horticulture magazine.

As you may know, Horticulture is a national magazine for avid home
gardeners. In 2009 we¹re planning to introduce some regionally specific
coverage to the mix, with a couple pages of news and tips from Master
Gardeners across the country.

I would like to talk or e-mail with staff or volunteers about gardeners’ questions, tasks and activities in your area (according to the issue’s month), and quote gardeners in
the article. I’ ll also include information about your program.

We¹re also planning to recognize gardeners with great community spirit‹hobby
gardeners who make a difference to others through their passion for plants.
I¹d love to hear about any special projects or successful initiatives by the
gardeners in your area. We¹d like to feature one outstanding gardener or
group of gardeners in each issue.

We¹re already working on our 2009 issues, so please let me know if there¹s a
chance you’d would be willing to work with me. Feel free to forward this e-mail to others in your organization.

 Thank you,

Meghan Lynch
Editor
Horticulture
513-722-6631
meghan.lynch@fwpubs.com

Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center of North America regularly sends me a press feature packet. Which contains images as well as seasonally appropriate stories.

 Click here to see the package

Iis useful to county educators?

I’ll only pass it along if some portion say yes it is useful.

Thanks.

Lori

Bus ridership is on the rise and the Northeast IPM community IPM work group jumped on board to give riders something valuable to read. This bulkhead banner aims to raise awareness about best lawn care practices.

CCE educators would you be interested in getting these banners in public buses in your communities?

Let Lori (bushway@cornell.edu) .

How this for getting the message out about gardening?

Roger Doiron Founding Director, Kitchen Gardeners International created this YouTube video about the “Eat the View” campaign to turn part of the White House lawn back into a productive landscape.

What clever campaigns might we think up for our local goverment?

Have any of you seen these videos from Fine Gardening?

http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/Videos/

What do you think of them? Have you made use of them in meeting your programing effort or volunteer training? Share by posting comments below.

This is an invitation to submit photos for the Cornell Garden-Based Learning Program’s new website. Your program can become world famous!

We have been working on an exhaustive and exciting revision of our website. Soon, it will be easy to navigate, attractive, user friendly, featuring excellent content! BUT, we’re missing photos of YOUR program, and that would make it so much better.

1) We are looking for 4 photos to feature on our homepage. We invite you to submit photos from your program that you would like to be permanently featured on our site! Your photo submission(s) should illustrate the following four themes:
· Garden-based learning activities and projects in action
· Keys to a successful adult, youth or adult and youth gardening programs
· Your garden
· Connecting with others interested in gardening (i.e. photos of Master Gardener Volunteers, 4-H leaders, older folks in the community, etc…)

2) We are also looking for many more photos to feature throughout our website that beautifully illustrate the following:
· Garden-based learning in action with youths, adults, families, communities…
· CCE Volunteers or adult and youth citizens actively engaging in leadership roles
· People of all ages learning about food/ nutrition as it relates to the garden
· People demonstrating an appreciation of the outdoors/garden environment
· The intimate connection between children, youth or adults and nature
· The unique perspective volunteers or children and youth bring to a program
· The role of your garden/program in your community
· Your garden-based learning success stories or any other fantastic photos from your program!

Please send your photos to Marcia Eames-Sheavly by August 1^st, 2008.

This training targeted at retail employees of garden centers is out of CA so I am not sure how appropriate it is for the Northeast. If you have a moment to check it out let us now what you think about it for NYS by leaving a comment below. Maybe it is a model for the development of a similar course for NY retail employees? A job training grant opportunity that might also benefit our volunteers’ training needs?

The website is here.

The press release (pdf).

Have you checked out their resources lately?

Lots of good resources including…

Woody Plant Data Base

Recommended Urban Trees

Using Porous Asphalt and CU-Structural Soil® (pdf)

Deciduous Woody Groundcovers (pdf)

What else have you found on the Cornell website to be particularly useful for your outreach to the gardening public? Please share in the comment section.