Master gardener Mary Niezelski has extensive had a preference for planting greens, but this yr she acquired to take pleasure in the daylily tubers that are bursting forth with vibrant July blooms.
A Derry Township resident, Niezelski is a the latest addition to the much more than 180 Westmoreland County users of the Penn Condition master gardener software.
The group maintains extra than a dozen demonstration gardens following to the Penn Condition Extension Business at Hempfield’s Donohoe Center, and Niezelski agreed to provide get to the patch of daylilies that turned overgrown all through months when covid-19 pandemic constraints kept volunteers away.
Now, she mentioned, “I appreciate working right here at the daylily mattress. 50 percent of the exciting of staying a grasp gardener is understanding a thing new all the time.”
With pandemic safety measures eased, the public will be capable to get pleasure from the benefits of Niezelski’s labor of really like. They are becoming encouraged to check out the backyard garden Monday by means of July 20, when the daylilies will be in peak bloom.
As the title implies, every single flower lasts for only about a day, but “deadheading” the expended ones will enable preserve additional blooms coming. Niezelski also has been active dividing the bigger daylilies, donating some of the surplus tubers to other region gardeners.
The exercise gives more house amongst the plants, allowing for adequate air move.
“If they really do not dry within, that’s when fungus commences,” she described. “They will need a ton of air to create and continue to be healthful.”
Of the approximately 100 daylily kinds sharing place in the backyard garden, the Stella d’ Oro was the first to answer to Niezelski’s notice, unfurling its yellow petals.
“That first a person that bloomed just took my breath absent,” she claimed, “and then the deer ate it.”
The Donohoe Center web page also features a yard devoted to deer-resistant species, such as St. John’s wort, marigolds and elderberry.
1 of the primary explanations for retaining the demonstration plantings is so “people can appear and see what can get the job done in their garden,” said learn gardener Jane Sibenaller of Hempfield. She cares for the site’s perennial backyard but also assists field backyard- and lawn-related calls to the community extension business office.
“If you see a learn gardener performing in the backyard garden, use the possibility to discuss to them,” she claimed. “We get individuals pulling their hair out occasionally. They want to know, ‘What can I plant that the deer won’t take in?’”
A single of the oldest Donohoe gardens is the Cottage Garden, which options a mixture of time-honored bouquets and ornamentals such as cone bouquets, hydrangeas, lilacs, yarrow and bee balm.
“It appears to be like extremely much like your grandmother’s back garden from way again when,” according to Deb Christopher of Derry Township, who chairs the community grasp gardeners’ method advisory committee. “It’s really a homey put.”
A person of the latest additions, in response to rising curiosity, is a rock backyard garden. Species there involve sea holly, which has spiny-toothed leaves and a lengthy taproot that permits it to tolerate dry circumstances.
“We mounted up the location to be sure to the vegetation,” Christopher reported. ”We had to dig out the dirt and set in the correct sand and stones that these unique vegetation are heading to want to dwell in.”
There also are Donohoe gardens devoted to annuals, conifers, greens, plants that thrive in the shade and other individuals that entice butterflies and other pollinators. There is also a Welcome Backyard, a Winterberry Backyard and a 4 Seasons Garden, exactly where one thing is in bloom every single quarter of the year.
The Harrold Memorial Backyard features large shrubs when the Grossheim Memorial presents a meditative atmosphere, with vegetation that evoke an “East satisfies West” theme and encompass a shade-coated swing.
“Some persons arrive for the quietness,” stated master gardener Janet Waugaman of Greensburg, who oversees all of the Donohoe gardens. “That’s why I come. As a gardener, you discover that you can’t be a incredibly impatient individual.”
The demonstration gardens at Donohoe Heart are situated at 214 Donohoe Road. They’re open up for self-guided tours each day from 9 a.m. to dusk.
The county’s master gardeners sustain other demonstration plantings at Twin Lakes Park, Historic Hanna’s City, the Westmoreland County Courthouse and in Ligonier Township, at 6 Outdated Lincoln Highway West, in the vicinity of the Loyalhanna Watershed Affiliation headquarters.
Pollinator program slated
The Ligonier Township backyard will be the web page for “The Buzz about the Yard,” a program on pollinator-pleasant plants open to the community from 2 to 3 p.m. July 31. Registration expenditures $5. Check out the Westmoreland County Master Gardeners Facebook web page for information.
Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Overview personnel author. You can call Jeff at 724-836-6622, [email protected] or through Twitter .
