URI Master Composter

The URI Master Composter program trains volunteers to compost and to become advocates for composting and recycling within their local community and around the state. To earn the title 'URI Master Composter' participants in the program must attend all classes and fulfill a volunteer commitment of at least 30 hours.

Location

Classes will be held at URI's main campus in Kingston. Directions will be emailed prior to the class starting. For field trips we will meet at scheduled location. Directions will be provided during the first class. Carpooling is encouraged and time will be set aside to organize on the first class if people are interested.

Price: $100.00

payable by check or credit card during online registration.

Click here to Register.

 

For more information about this course and others, visit the URI Outreach Center's website here.

What a sad summer for Impatiens.

Impatiens are one of the most common and colorful bedding plants in the United States. If you've seen your lush, full colorful impatiens fade and wither to scrawny stalks, you've seen Downy Mildew (IDM) up close. It is a plant disease (specifically a fungal-like pathogen) that is spreading. Downy mildew was spotted on impatiens on both coasts last year.

Powdery or Downy?
Since downy and powdery mildews are managed differently, it's really important to identify the issue correctly.

Downy mildew:

• Appears very rapidly and is difficult to control.
• Found on the underside of leaves
• Causes the leaves and flower petals to drop off, and begins with leaf stippling, downward curling of leaves and leaf yellowing. After losing their petals and leaves, infected plants will die and appear like they had heavy frost damage.
  
• Also affects basil, coleus, snapdragon, salvia, alyssum, pansy, rose, rosemary, and ornamental cabbage, and Perennials including aster, coreopsis, geranium, geum, lamium, potentilla, veronica and viola.

Powdery mildew:

• Can occur on either the upper or lower surface.
• Spreads slower than downy mildew.
• Causes minor long-term damage, stunting growth.
• Different species affect different plants/crops.
• Powdery mildews are most severe when the weather is warm and dry, and they affect virtually all kinds of plants: cereals and grasses, vegetables, flowers, weeds, shrubs, fruit trees, and broad-leaved shade and forest trees. Many plants have been developed to be resistant to or tolerant of powdery mildew.

GOOD NEWS: New Guinea Impatiens (Impatiens hawkeri) are resistant. Next year, you can plant them in rotation with susceptible impatiens in fresh planting beds.

Largely considered a minor nuisance since the 1940s, DMI has been known from scattered and minor occurrences in the U.S. beginning in 2008 it began to spread in eastern parts of the U.S. It is a type of “water mold” that is weather dependent requiring humid, moist conditions and spreads by both airborne and water spores.

 

Without a susceptible host the pathogen will eventually die off in the planting bed.

 

To prevent the disease from living in your soil over the winter and returning next year: 

1. Remove and dispose of infected plants (roots included) immediately.
2. Don't compost the infected plant material.  

Speaking of next year, plan to plant your impatiens in different flowerbeds to avoid a re-occurrence of the disease.   It is safe to plant other flowering or foliage plants in affected beds next season.

Don't give up hope, with a few adjustments, common garden impatiens will continue to be a mainstay of our landscapes.

Sources:

http://www.anla.org/knowledgecenter/ticker/index.cfm?view=detail&colid=123&cid=360&mid=5422&CFID=4020987&CFTOKEN=56688396 by Joe Bischoff, ANLA

http://www.anla.org/knowledgecenter/ticker/index.cfm?view=topic&colid=123&cid=360 by Joe Bischoff, ANLA

http://www.state.nj.us/agriculture/news/hottopics/approved/topics120706.html The State of NJ Dept of Agriculture

More Resources:
Click here for the Ball Horticulture fact sheet.
Click here for the Syngenta fact sheet.

Click here for more information and photos.

Information compiled by Renee C. Brannigan

"A late summer garden

has a tranquility

found no other time of the year."

- William Longgood

Share your Bounty

 

Woodbridge Greenhouses is collecting donations of extra garden produce.

 

We deliver it to the Trinity Episcopal Church Food Closet.

 

Woodbridge is open and accepts donations every day from 9 to 5 .

 

Thank you for sharing your bounty with those in need.

"The moon is at her full, and riding high,
Floods the calm fields with light.
The airs that hover in the summer sky
Are all asleep to-night."
- William C. Bryant

(1794 - 1878)

American romantic poet, journalist,

and New York Evening Post editor.

"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart."

- Celia Thaxter

(1835 - 1894)

American writer and poet

"In August, the large masses of berries,

which, when in flower,

had attracted many wild bees,

gradually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue,

and by their weight again

bent down and broke their tender limbs."

- Henry David Thoreau

(1817 - 1862)

American author, poet, philosopher

Not so lush Hosta?

A new plant?

Last week my dear hubby asked about the new plant in the garden bed behind the house. With a closer look, it wasn't a new plant, but a bare plant. The next morning, we found a clear set of hoof prints near the plants, we identified the culprit.

One of my favorite plant groupings in our garden is a varigated hosta next to a giant blue hosta. We planted this garden bed about three years ago, and it's really doing well. In front of the bed is a large area of crushed stone.

Woodbridge carries many different variegated varieties and currently has these BIG Hostas in stock:

• Frances William,
• Big Daddy (blue) and
• Elegans.

Crushed Stone...a deer deterent?
Occassionally, hungry deer wander into our yard from the woods. Most often, they graze their way across the lawn and meander back into the woods. I felt really lucky that they weren't attracted to our garden beds. I had been told that our paths of crushed stones are a good deterrent, since walking on it is too noisy for the stealthy deer.

When deer are hungry enough, so I've been told, they will eat anything and take unusal risks.They must be hungry now. They discovered that by circumventing the crushed stone, they could approach our hosta from the back of the garden.

It was time to apply on my most-reliable deer deterent, Plantskyd. It is a bit smelly for a day, then the smell fades, but it's strength lasts for months. Luckily, Debbie sells it at Woodbridge Greenhouses. I sprayed it that night on the hostas and around our vegetable garden. We haven't seen any deer since.

Thank you, Debbie for the great plants in the garden. 
Thank you, Plantskyd for protecting the plants in my garden.

~ R.C.B.