Master Gardeners provide plant starters at Saxonburg library
SAXONBURG — What started as a single pollinator garden in the backyard of the South Butler Community Library in 2021 has grown into multiple plots around its perimeter which the Butler County Master Gardeners have created annually and maintained every summer.
This summer will be the first since the project started that the two Master Gardeners who started it all won’t be seeding a new plot. They instead plan to teach people about each garden so they, too, can start and maintain gardens at their own homes.
Perennial plants are just starting to poke their bulbs out from the recently snow-covered soil in the library’s backyard plots, which on Wednesday, March 18, caught the planters, Kathy “Kate” Allen and Bonnie Miller a little off guard. The two planted more than 1,000 seeds in the first garden — a pollinator garden — around five years ago, and many of them have been able to grow back every spring.
“ (We) planted 1,040 the first year. We fertilized them in the spring and fall to enrich the bulb, because they tend to get smaller year after year,” Miller said. “Rudbeckia, daylilies, all perennials that support the pollinators.”
The two Master Gardeners started the pollinator garden at the South Butler Community Library after completing the course that earned them their titles. Allen said the garden was their community service project. It grew every year because there was so much room to plant — and the soil around the library was pristine.
Digging and creating a garden was no small feat, but the Master Gardeners and some helpers managed to plant a new one at the library year after year. The year after making the pollinator garden, they made a bird sanctuary garden, then a shade garden, then three rock gardens, which sit in front of the library.
“Our shade garden, there are trees above this that provide shade so the perennials in here really do well in shade or semishade,” Allen said. Miller commented that the gardeners put up a bird house the second year of their involvement of the library, which a bird laid eggs in right away.
Although some of the perennials were sprouting up from the gardens at the Saxonburg library March 18, Allen said it was too soon to plant annuals. She said annuals are flowers like Impatiens and Marigolds. Certain produce seeds also need to wait until the temperature warms up to stand the best chance at flourishing.
“Other seeds like beans, tomatoes, you're going to have to wait until the last frost, and that is at the earliest mid-May,” Allen said.
Miller also said that although the March weather remains too cold for planting, people can get a head start on their sprouts. “What most people do is start them around March in their basement or on their window sill so they're at least 8 inches tall or so whenever they put them in the garden,” she said.
The early emergence of some of the bulb plants bodes well for the rest of the season, however. Miller said the remnants of the bulbs die off and cover the rest of the soil, helping to fertilize the ground for plants that bloom later in the spring.
“All those die back and then the perennials come up,” Allen said of the bulb plants.
Some of these lessons will be covered in educational programs hosted by the Master Gardeners at the South Butler Public Library. Miller said the group has presented more than 30 times at the library, covering all kinds of topics relating to planting and maintaining a garden or plants.
“Anywhere from ticks and lime disease to how to start a vegetable garden; tons and tons of topics that we've presented,” Miller said.
The Master Gardeners haven’t rested on their laurels throughout the winter, either. Allen said they have had meetings since January about what to do at the library and with its existing gardens.
Additionally, the Master Gardeners have kept its seed library active, a project that also helps library patrons start gardens of their own at their homes. Dozens of seed packets hang from a rack at the library, which people can take home and follow the instructions written on them to grow. According to Michelle Lesniak, director of the South Butler Community Library, people don’t even need to have a library card to pick up seed packets.
“We have a display that can display hundreds of packets of seeds so people can come in and grow them at home,” Lesniak said. “They try to put them out late-February, early-March so when May comes and planting season they'll be able to plant something.”
Allen said she or Miller visits the Saxonburg library at least once a week through the spring, summer and fall to make sure its gardens are in good shape. The gardens don’t need a ton of upkeep, but according to Allen, the Master Gardeners just want to make sure they still look good so people can enjoy them.
One of the group’s upcoming projects will provide more information on the plants growing outside the library.
“We do have plant identification tags which we will be reinstalling as soon as we start working again,” Allen said. “So when people start to visit the gardens, they will know exactly what they're seeing — both the common name and the scientific name.”
Miller said the gardens will change in appearance over the season, not just because plants will continue to bloom and grow, but because some new plants will emerge as the seasons change.
“We have fall blooming plants as well,” Miller said. We have flowers for all the seasons.”
As Miller explained about the end of the year “the latest theory on garden clean up in the fall is don't.”
“You let these hollow stems exist because little insects will crawl down in there and winter over,” she said.
Among the meetings and educational programs the Master Gardeners will perform at the South Butler Community Library is regular soil testing, which Allen said will help the gardeners determine how much work each plot needs. She said the Penn State Extension service can perform soil tests, which the Master Gardeners can use for decision-making.
“That's very important,” Allen said. “We want to take a soil test at least every other year. That will allow us to determine if we want to put anything on it; fertilizer, lime, whatever.”
For information on upcoming Master Gardener programs at South Butler Community Library, visit the library’s website at southbutlerlibrary.org.
