Area Home School Students Tour the
CBMGA Master Gardens
The CHEMPA organization brought around 20 area home schooled students for a field trip Friday March 31 to tour the Master Gardens at the Titus County Extension Offices. The group tries to incorporate a field trip every Friday to offer the students experiences they won’t get just from their studies at home. The students only had 45 minutes to spend at the Master Gardens but still learned about several of the specialized areas.
Area Home School Students Tour the CBMGA Master Gardens
The areas toured by the home school students were:
PERENNIALS where Master Gardener Margaret Lawson informed the students about the plants in that bed.
Master Gardener Sue Farr tells the students about Texas Superstars. Texas Superstars are plants that have been certified to thrive in Texas.
Master Gardener Kay Miller shows the differences between bulbs, corms, rhizomes and tubers. The bulb bed has over 500 separate plants consisting of around 60 different plants and one Rising Sun Redbud tree.
Master Gardener Dale Vanhoose gives an overview of our Earthkind® grapes. The Earthkind® program is a program started by Dr. George of Texas A&M that does research to determine plant varieties that perform the best with minimal water, no fertilizer, no pesticides and minimal maintenance.
One of the newest beds is the Butterfly/Pollinator bed. All of the plants in this bed provide a smorgasbord for nectar loving insects. Master Gardener Regina Clark shares her love of butterflies and the plants that support them.
Master Gardener Glenda Brogoitti shares information on the benefits of utilizing Native Plants in landscaping. They use less water and since they are native, they thrive in the Texas summers.
The plants in the beds in front of the extension offices consist primarily of perennials but have a few annuals sprinkled throughout to provide a little more color in between the blooming of the perennials. Master Gardener Deloris O’Conner tells the students about the different plant in the front office beds.
The students also heard about the Master Gardens Wildflower area, the Raspberry bed from the knowledgeable Master Gardeners for those areas. There were Master Gardeners knowledgeable and available for each of the specialization areas plus a few extra Master Gardeners for support. The CHEMPA organization plans on bringing a second group of home school students to tour the Master Gardens on Friday, April 7.
The Master Gardens are an ongoing project of the Cypress Basin Master Gardeners Association, CBMGA located at 1708 Industrial Blvd in Mt. Pleasant, Tx. The Master Gardens are open to the public to view at any time. Groups are welcome to tour the gardens on their own or can request a guided tour of part or all of the gardens by appointment.
The Master Gardens consists of around fifteen areas or specialized beds that includes perennials, Texas Superstars, Earthkind® Roses and Grapes, Bulbs-Corms-Rhizomes and Tubers, Vegetables, Herbs, Blackberry, Blueberry, Raspberry, Greenhouse and Demonstration beds,Butterfly and Pollinator Bed, Wildflower areas and a Nature Trail with a picnic area. A self guided tour of the Master Gardens can be done in 20 to 30 minutes if all you do is walk through the gardens stopping to look only occasionally at those plants that catch your eye. To do a full guided tour, one should allow between one and two hours. And if you can’t come in person, you can get a good idea of what the Master Gardens have to offer through their Master Gardens Virtual Tour or enter http://cbmga.org/cbmga-master-gardens-site-plan-ii/ into your browser.
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Cypress Basin Master Gardeners
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