North Country Master Gardeners – UW Extension announce Kids in the Garden, a FREE summer program for kids 5 to 14 years of age.
Dates: The program will be offered on Monday afternoons from 4:00 to 5:30 pm; and repeat on Tuesday mornings from 9:30am to 11am.  Each program will have an educational presentation, an activity, a nutritious snack, and end with a topic-related story read on story boards while walking around the garden.

• Monday or Tuesday, June 11th & 12th – Planting Our Garden and Construction of a Bug Condo!
• Monday or Tuesday, June 25th & 26th – Composting We Go and Magical Hummingbirds!
• Monday or Tuesday, July 9th & 10th – Looking Down the Wiggly Worms Hole!
• Monday or Tuesday, July 23rd & 24th – Marvelous Monarchs!
• Monday or Tuesday, August 6th & 7th – Apples, Apples, Apples and Painting Friendship Rocks!

  
Where:
Spooner Agricultural Research Station Display Gardens, W6646 Highway 70, Spooner, WI 54801
(Children’s garden – raised beds area of the gardens)
In case of rain– we will meet at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station large meeting room.

To Pre-Register & for more information call the Spooner Agricultural Research Station @715-635-3506.
**A parent or an adult is required to stay with children under 10 years of age. **
 
 For more information on Event click here for the full brochure

We all love the scent of lilacs. We want to enjoy them in the house as well as outside. Lilacs make lovely bouquets. Here are a few tips to make your lilac bouquet last longer.
After you bring in your lilac quickly put them in a sink of cold water. Lilacs love to drink water. With a woody stem that can be hard to do after they are cut for bouquets. To help your lilac drink up, soften the stem by placing the end of the stem in a cup of hot water. After softening the stem, pound the bottom of the stem with a hammer. This will help your lilacs drink up. Create you bouquets and be sure to watch your vase, again, lilacs like to drink up, you may need to refill your vase with water in a few hours.
For a step by step tutorial click here..

Hello Gardeners,
”You deserve a Break Today…” Busy as bees, our Spring routines have begun here in the
Northwoods as we aspire to the challenge of another exciting growing season. Whether your
garden undertaking is large or small, eventually we all feel we’ve extended some muscles
beyond the norm. On occasion, perhaps you like me, have cast aside the importance of
“ergonomic” gardening, only to be reminded of it later when you reach for the Tylenol!
​
Here’s an idea to interrupt that routine… lay down your rake or hoe, invite a friend and head to
Cable, WI to spend a couple of hours visiting the new “BEE-Amazed...by our Native Friends”
Exhibit at the Natural History Museum. I did just that on May 2 for the Grand Opening and was
warmly welcomed by Emily Stone, Naturalist/Director and Mollie Kreb,Curator Naturalist of the
Museum. Their team of creative volunteers have been designing and constructing this exhibit for
months. I personally believe it should be nominated for the Natural History Academy of Exhibits
Award! Did you know northwest WI is home to 166 species of pollen seeking native bees?
Visitors of all ages will be enlightened with many useful facts and stimulating visuals throughout
the interactive exhibit from the mural tracing a year long bee cycle to “Play Pollinator” at the
pinball machine. Set your GPS and be on your way - you will BEE Amazed!

And another opportunity...As part of the “Save the Pollinators” initiative, the certified Monarch
Way Station, established in 2016 by the North Country Master Gardener Volunteers, is an
outdoor classroom with walking paths among the native flowering plants and shrubbery. This is
a perfect segue to observe the bees and pollinators in action at the Spooner Agricultural
Research Station Teaching and Display Garden, Spooner, WI.
​
Kay D. Childs, North Country Master Gardener Volunteer

​We are all guilty.  We buy our plants and immediately take them home and plant them.   This is harsh treatment for tender seedlings who have been coddled in the greenhouse.  Take an intermediate step and be rewarded with healthier plants.  

​Transplanting from indoors to outdoors can cause a plant to go into shock.  Consider the greenhouse:  steady temperatures, little to no wind, controlled watering, and filtered sunlight.  Our gardens offer none of this.  While the plant is dealing with the harsher outdoor conditions it can be a victim of environmental damage, diseases and pests.  And while dealing with these conditions, it will not be growing much.  Take the time to condition the plants for their new home by hardening them off.

Our pollinator plants are growing well and will be ready for your gardens.
Our pollinator six pack features the following..
Lupine
Butterfly Weed
Swamp Milkweed
Blazing Star Liatris
Black eye Susan
New England Asters

You will receive planting instructions and other helpful tips in your pollinator six pack.
See you at the sale!

by: ​Kay D. Childs, North Country Master Gardener Volunteer 

Listen...Close your eyes and listen to Spring!
Since April, our weather has been a bit abnormal with measurable snowfalls and extreme temperature fluctuations. With yet another lesson in patience learned, however, spring is now in full swing, albeit it is mid-May. While Mother Nature still has more shades of green than Crayola, the sounds of Spring are just as provocative and alluring. I have several favorites to share with you...Last evening at dusk driving by a wetland, the peepers were deafening...the high-pitched chirping chattery noises, created by these very small brown frogs, practically drown out the car radio. And an early morning attention getter is the first call of the loon on Golden Pond, an official signal the maestro was ready for the daily symphony to begin. Soon thereafter the sandhill cranes were soaring overhead in search of the perfect nesting shoreline, sending their screeching, snorting, bugling calls over the airwaves. The geese, not to be outdone, are patrolling the shoreline as well, honking boisterously challenging any approaching waddling, quacking ducks looking for a territory to call home.

​The North Country Master Gardener Plant Sale will be on May 19.  This is the culmination of many weeks of volunteer effort starting with seed acquisition in the middle of the winter. 
 
Peppers are started ahead of the tomatoes because of a typically little longer germination period and a little slower rate of growth. The tomatoes were started on April 10 as part of a learning opportunity for the new class of Master Gardener Volunteers.  With the seedlings up and wanting actual sunlight, they are relocated into the Spooner Ag Research Greenhouse. There were earlier starts for native plants.  The greenhouse tends to overflowing so some plants were transferred to friendly volunteer homes and greenhouses.  Volunteers visited the greenhouse each day to maintain a watering schedule for the six weeks between planting and the sale.  As the weather warms and the plants put on growth, the daily watering expands to twice a day.
 
As the seedlings grow they eventually need to be transplanted into larger pots. Finally, the temperatures are warming, the sun is out, and the seedlings are on their way.  

May 19th will be the Annual Plant Sale 8am until sold out!

Heirloom Tomatoes and Pepper Plants
and new for this year
6 Pack Pollinator Garden
The following plants will be in the six pack.
Wild Lupine Lupinus perennis
Swamp Milkweed Asclepias incarnata
Blazing Star Liatris  Liatris spicata
Butterfly Weed Asclepias tuberosa
Black-eyed Susan Rudbeckia hirta
New England Asters Aster novae-angliae 
(In some references, it will be listed as Symphyotrichum)