Let’s Get Growing is an event for home gardeners of all skill levels looking to learn more and have a great time. This event includes classes, a keynote speaker, lunch, silent auction and a chance to win door prizes too. Classes are taught by U of M Master Gardeners as well as horticulture professionals.
Please join us, in-person, on Saturday, March 5, 2022 from 8 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. for Let’s Get Growing at the Rosemount Community Center. Admission is just $40 and includes interesting and informative classes on a wide variety of gardening topics, morning refreshments, silent auction, lunch and a chance to win door prizes too. Come to enjoy friendly people, a garden marketplace where you can peruse and purchase books, garden decor and more (cash and checks only please) and a spring-time atmosphere!
Health & Safety
The health and safety of our Let’s Get Growing volunteers and attendees is very important to us. Let’s Get Growing will require proof of vaccination to attend. Please plan on presenting your vaccine card or a picture of both sides to enter the event. Masks will also be required by all volunteers, speakers, and attendees, except while eating or drinking. Speakers may remove their masks while presenting if they prefer. We will be following all CDC, Minnesota Health Department, and any local guidelines at the time of the event.
Event Agenda
8:00 Check-In & Refreshments
9:00 Welcome
9:30 Session I (Attend one of five classes)
Jumping Worms in Our Landscape
Jumping worms are the latest invasive worm to arrive in Minnesota. They live in the top few inches of soil and alter the soil structure and chemistry through their feeding and burrowing behaviors. Found in garden beds, mulch and compost piles, they represent a threat to the health of our managed and wild landscapes. This presentation by Laura Van Riper will focus on their distribution and dispersal mechanisms throughout Minnesota. Jumping worms are spread through composting, horticulture, landscaping and live bait. A network of Worm Rangers will be created utilizing a diverse group of Minnesota citizen scientists through the Master Gardener and Master Naturalist programs.
Native Landscaping Solutions
In the “Native Landscaping Solutions” class, Andy Scott will cover native garden basics. He will highlight unique, under-utilized and biogeographic native species that can help address, trouble shoot and find balance within specific sites in residential garden settings.
Vegetable Gardening 102
During the last two years many have discovered the joys and sorrows of growing their own food. If that sounds like you, you might be wondering “how can I do it better? ” and “what should I be growing next? In this presentation, Don Feeney will review the easy, harder, and hardest vegetables to grow (including some you wouldn’t have thought of) and the pluses and minuses of growing each one. He’ll also go over some of the common mistakes that beginning gardeners make and briefly discuss growing vegetables in containers and the joys of starting your own plants from seed.
Enticing Books for Gardeners
“Enticing Books for Gardeners” is a shared talk from school librarians and Master Gardeners Sally McNamara and Gail Maifeld. They include delightful books to excite everyone from young children to adults about gardening. They will have each of the books shared in the room to pass around so participants can have a chance to skim each of the books for themselves during the hour presentation. Many can be found in the Dakota County Library system, but you may just want to buy a few for yourself and as gifts for favorite gardening friends. They are irresistible!
Creating Bird-Friendly Homes and Landscapes
We find birds nearly everywhere we find people. Our lives are enriched by their songs and diverse array of plumage colors and patterns. We know that when birds and nature thrive, people do as well. Join guest speaker Katie Burns of the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis, to learn about the challenges birds are facing in our shared outdoor spaces and what we can do in our own homes and gardens to help support and attract them throughout the year. Katie will focus on bird-friendly landscaping and bird-safe home solutions during this program with special focus on the relationship between birds and native plants.
10:30 Break
Visit with other gardeners, shop the Garden Marketplace and get your questions answered at the Ask a MG table.
10:45 Session II (Attend one of five classes)
Plan, Plant, and Grow
“Plan, Plant and Grow” is the class for you if you always wanted a vegetable garden or wondered how to make it easier. In this session John Zweber teaches you how to start your vegetable garden from scratch, including site selection and preparation, selecting seeds and transplants, planting and maximizing space, managing weeds and pests, harvesting, and extending the season. You will also learn about several different gardening options from traditional row garden, square foot gardening, no dig, raised bed gardens and how to get started with them. Also learn some advantages and disadvantages of each gardening method.
Lake-Friendly Lawn Care
Maggie Reiter’s presentation “Lake-Friendly Lawn Care” is a lawn class about shifting from traditional lawn management to protecting water quality and enhance biodiversity, all while maintaining the functions of a green carpet used for recreation. Responsible lawn care requires a thoughtful approach to limit routine applications of pesticides and reduce watering. This presentation will outline new methods to increase the ecological sustainability of lawns, like low-maintenance grasses, flowering bee lawns, and water conservation strategies.
Smarty Plants: How Plants Communicate
In “Smarty Plants: How Plants Communicate,” learn what plants do all day with a presentation by Faith Appelquist. She will describe eye opening research that makes it more clear how remarkable our fellow inhabitants on this planet really are.
Did you know plants can see you? Not only that, but plants can also hear, smell, taste, communicate, count, remember and manipulate animals. Contrary to the long-held idea that plants are just “vegetating,” recent research has made it clear that plants, despite not having brains or central nervous systems, perceive their surroundings with ever greater sensitivity than animals. They efficiently explore and react promptly to potentially damaging external events without any internal command centers and can remember prior catastrophic events and actively adapt to new ones.
Edible Landscaping
Gorgeous plants and delicious food both have a place in gardens. In “Edible Landscaping,” University of Minnesota Extension horticulturist Julie Weisenhorn will show how to make good plant choices, and how to creatively mix and match for your desired garden look, and plant for sustainability and healthy plants.
Managing Invasive Insects
In her presentation “Managing Invasive Insects,” Dr. Vera Krischik teaches us that insects can be categorized as native, exotic, invasive, endangered, threatened, or disease vectors. She will discuss the top 10 insect pests in gardens and landscapes for native and exotic insects, and you will learn how the life history of an insect makes it invasive, whether a native or exotic. Attendees will learn how an understanding of life history is necessary to develop a successful IPM (Integrated Pest Management) program. If rusty-patched bumblebee is found in an area, then an endangered species IPM program must be implemented through the MN DNR. The discussion will include insecticide use, compatible with conserving bees, butterflies, and beneficial insects.
11:45 Break
Visit with other gardeners, shop the Garden Marketplace and get your questions answered at the Ask a MG table.
Noon Lunch
Catered by Morning Glory Bakery Cafe in Rosemount, MN. Vegetarian and GF options are available.
1:00 Keynote Speaker
Landscaping for Pollinators
Presented by: Julie Weisenhorn
Julie Weisenhorn, covers basic information about pollinators and how to encourage them in our landscapes. Pollinators are responsible for pollinating much of the food we enjoy, and gardeners of all levels can help encourage pollinators to thrive. Choosing plants that provide food and shelter, creating transitional landscapes, and considering bee lawns all help lessen “bee sterile” landscapes. Join University of Minnesota Extension horticulturist Julie Weisenhorn as she tells the story of pollinators from a landscaping standpoint and presents some options for gardeners to help make this world a better place for these valuable insects.
Minnesota native Julie Weisenhorn holds master’s degrees in visual communication and horticulture from the University of Minnesota where she taught landscape design and served as State Director of the Extension Master Gardener Program. As an Extension educator, Julie has statewide responsibility for horticulture teaching, research and outreach with special focus on plant selection and sustainable residential landscape design. Most recently, she has conducted studies on Flowers for Pollinators, a study assessing annual flowers’ attractiveness to insect pollinators; and Pollinators for Food studying insect pollination of bell peppers. Julie coordinates and regularly appears on the popular WCCO Radio program Smart Gardens (Saturdays, 8-9 a.m., AM 830), and edits the Plant Elements of Design plant selection database. Julie lives in Mound, MN, with her husband Karl and uses her own yard and garden to test ideas, research and plants. In her own words, “This is the best job I have ever had.”
2:00 Silent Auction Winners
Don’t miss out! Silent auction winners will be announced. Must be present to win so stick around.
Registration
Sign-up to receive the Dakota County Master Gardener newsletter and event updates and follow us on facebook. You can also download a complete list of sessions and speakers.