Room to Grow: Meet the Morgan County Master Gardeners
By Deborah Storey | Living 50 Plus
Have a brown thumb when it comes to growing plants? Morgan County Master Gardeners training can help. Most of the members come to the group after retirement or as a late-in-life hobby.
“If you have any kind of interest in gardening, it’ll make you a better gardener,” said group member Darryle Waldron.
Cecilia Adams earned her Master Gardener certification in 2017. She is now the state association treasurer and a member of the Morgan County chapter.
“I’ve always loved plants and planting and doing stuff in the yard and having potted plants,” Adams said. “I’m not formal at all. If I see something, I find a place for it. I like a wide variety of plants.”
After the initial classroom training members still learn things, said Adams, a former nurse and insurance company coder.
“It’s continuing knowledge. It’s not just the class. You take the class and you still have so many opportunities for learning. I guess we’re all lifelong learners,” she said.
“One of our main purposes is to encourage gardening for others because gardening is fun, it’s profitable as far as your health and having fresh food, but it’s very good exercise,” Waldron said.
Public plant outreach
Helping others is the top priority.
“Part of our mission is education of the public with regard to horticulture,” explained Decatur Master Gardener Norris Johnston.
Any time club members can talk about the benefits of gardening, “we try to take advantage of that,” he said.
The group is affiliated with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.
“None of us are nearly as much an expert as are the ACES people, so we lean on them for specifics in many areas,” he said. “We are their boots on the ground, so to speak. I’m talking about Master Gardeners all over the state, not just Morgan County.”
Johnston said at last count the Morgan County chapter had 70 dues-paying members, 80% female, mostly retired from health care, education, industry or raising a family. Those 70 people recorded about 12,000 hours of volunteer service to the community in 2023.
In a recent speech to a group of teachers, Adams described the start of the nationwide organization in 1972. An extension service agent in Washington State was overwhelmed with answering horticulture questions from the public.
“He thought he would engage some people who were also interested in gardening to supplement his questions,” she said.
Room to grow
Waldron became a master gardener in 2008 after taking courses one day a week for 11 weeks.
“I knew some of the things about certain plants — growing certain crops and some specific topics like soils and pruning and landscaping. I knew some things, but it taught me a lot,” he said.
Waldron grew up on a farm but spent much of his career at sea or living in Alaska, where he couldn’t do much gardening. After he retired from the Coast Guard, he and his wife moved to north Alabama to be near their daughter.
They cut some 800 tons of timber to clear six or seven acres on their property off Chapel Hill Road for, naturally, flower and vegetable gardens.
“My wife freezes a lot, so we’re still eating out of the garden from last year,” Waldron said in late winter.
The couple sold plants and flower arrangements at the farmers market for years.
“I did it for fun and had really a lot of nice customers,” he said. “They would come back and ask questions about growing things and I felt thankful to be able to help them enjoy gardening.”
A great resource
Adams said that young people who don’t have the time to earn official Master Gardener certification can still learn from the group.
“A lot of them are wanting to do vegetable gardening and they’re wanting to do organic gardening, so they’re hungry for the information that we give,” she said.
The last lunchtime program attracted 47 people. Nearly half were not master gardeners.
The group also sets up at the Morgan County-Decatur Farmers Market and sells some plants in summer, she said, “but primarily we were there to answer questions for the public.
“There’s just a lot of different people that call on us to do talks for them,” she said, such as her Hickory Hills neighborhood association.
Adams said each club meeting includes education.
“We have a two-hour meeting once a month and usually an hour of it is some sort of information,” she said.
“It’s mostly book learning. It’s an interesting group of people. There’s retired nurses, teachers, a lot of engineers.”
They eat after the meetings. Surely it’s mostly fresh vegetables?
“It’s a lot of desserts,” Adams said with a laugh.
Adams is known for her orchid expertise.
“I revive people’s orchids for them,” she said. She has about 15 inside in the winter and moves them to a dogwood tree in the summer.
Pro tip: Don’t trust those “water with an ice cube” instructions. She uses tepid water and removes the package netting.
Topics master gardeners address in their public speeches are based on expertise or trends.
Some speakers are well versed in herbs, Johnston explained. He’s talked about soil and water chemistry and how to build and manage raised beds. Others discuss pollinators or centerpieces.
Interest in native plants is increasing, club members said.
“I think there’s an overall trend of conservation,” said Johnston. “We do a lot of things about conserving water and how to deal with pests in a non-invasive or a nontoxic manner, that kind of thing.”
“We don’t do a lot of physical labor, but we consult a lot.”
They also do initial soil tests or help people submit samples to Auburn University experts.
The club is doing a series of programs at the Somerville library right now. In the past, they planted a butterfly garden for Austinville Elementary School.
Plant sale
The group’s biggest activity by far is the spring plant sale.
“We have 150 people in line starting at 6 a.m. for an 8 a.m. opening,” said Waldron.
“Our main purpose is to try to encourage people to try gardening without having to pay large amounts of money for popular plants that grow here. We don’t sell exotic stuff. We sell stuff that grows here.”
Many of the plants come from members’ gardens, he said, “so people that buy from our plant sale generally have a good idea that it’s going to grow when they get it home.”
“These people work so hard and many of those plants are donated,” said group member Patricia Ludlow. “They’re out of their own gardens.”
Johnston said the annual sale is “very large and a lot of work.”
“We have three greenhouses that we operate and maintain and use to propagate plants for our annual plant sale,” said Johnston. “We raise a considerable amount of money and we try our best to turn most of it back into the community, except for what we need to operate and survive.”
Proceeds go to greenhouse supplies and a horticultural scholarship at Auburn University.
Salt of the earth
Education is the Master Gardeners’ primary focus, but members say the camaraderie is terrific.
“I can’t tell you how wonderful this group is,” said Ludlow. “They are intelligent. A lot of them have been professionals, so they’re bringing all those professional skills into this organization. They have commitment. They are workers. They are kind to each other.”
Club activities can become a full-time commitment if members choose, she said, but don’t have to. She’s helping train 23 interns in the Madison, Limestone and Morgan County groups.
Ludlow, who lives in Hartselle, has been a master gardener since 2022. Her background in environment, safety and health was an advantage.
“I’ve always done a little bit of gardening, even if it was in the house,” she said.
She grew up in West Virginia where many families raised staples like tomatoes, lettuce, carrots and onions. Back then, World War II Victory Gardens were still very much a part of their thinking.
“There’s room for everybody” in the local club, she said. “All walks of life. It’s a very welcoming environment and you can learn something.”
Club president Barb Brown said “you don’t have to have your hands in the dirt all the time.”
“The best part of being a Master Gardener is the camaraderie and you learn so much, but you have so many people and so many resources as a gardener to go to,” Brown said.
“We have members that come from Limestone, Lawrence County and Madison County because we have a lot of fun,” said Johnston. “They like to come and work with us.”
“People who like plants are just nice people,” said Adams.
Morgan County Master Gardeners Foundation Spring Plant Sale
When: April 26, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.; April 27, 1-4 p.m.
Where: Point Mallard Park
To know: Only cash and checks will be accepted
The Morgan County Master Gardeners Association is a nonprofit group that operates under the umbrella of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, or ACES.
Its volunteer members educate the public in various ways, including a free monthly program at the Aquadome, by assisting schools in developing outdoor classrooms and offering input on community gardens. They also help with the garden at Hospice of the Valley and donate plants to its clients.
The free Lunch and Learn program at noon on second Wednesdays covers topics like attracting pollinators, container gardening, creative watering solutions, arranging flowers, herbs, starting a fall garden, creative pumpkin arrangements and making a greenery garland.
Their biggest yearly event and public relations outreach is the spring plant sale, this year April 26-27 at Point Mallard. The selection will include roughly 6,000 vegetable plants like tomatoes, plus native plants, hanging baskets, herbs and potted-plant arrangements.
The Alabama Master Gardeners Association incorporated in 1993 to support ACES. Since then, more than 6,000 people have become certified Master Gardeners across the state. Currently more than 2,000 members represent approximately 35 associations.
Extension agents and local horticulture professionals train hopefuls in various subjects including plant pathology, pest management, wildlife control, taxonomy and more. After classroom sessions, trainees are required to volunteer a designated number of hours by speaking to groups and answering questions.
