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California’s extensive network of volunteer Master Gardeners will have a statewide coordinator for the first time beginning in July, when Fresno County UC Cooperative Extension environmental horticulture advisor Pamela Geisel assumes the new position in Davis.

Master Gardeners are gardening enthusiasts who have undergone training by UC Cooperative Extension advisors and specialists in plant selection, pest control, irrigation, composting and many other topics related to landscaping and gardening. In exchange for the training, Master Gardeners share the information with their county’s residents by holding plant clinics, conducting gardening classes, managing demonstration gardens and answering calls to Cooperative Extension with gardening questions.

Geisel established the Fresno County Master Gardener program in 1981. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in plant science from California State University, Fresno, and was named to her academic position with UC Cooperative Extension in 1980.

The Fresno County Master Gardener program’s annual training sessions are so popular, volunteers are selected through an application and interview process. Geisel coordinated the Master Gardeners’ establishment of “The Garden of the Sun” on a one-acre portion of the Discovery Center, at Winery and McKinley avenues in Fresno. The garden includes a variety of distinct sections, such as a 75-variety tomato garden, a children’s garden, an All American Selections demonstration garden, turf grass, fruit trees, a perennial garden, a garden for the disabled and a covered outdoor classroom facility. The budget for garden maintenance is generated by fees for weekly workshops presented by the Master Gardeners on composting, pruning, turf management, pest control and garden crafts. Fundraisers, such as a spring garden tour and mid-summer tomato tasting event, also help meet garden funding needs. All labor is volunteered.

Geisel and Fresno County Master Gardener coordinator Leslie Feathers conducted a survey from 1997 to 2001 to estimate the value of the volunteers’ cumulative contribution statewide. During the four-year period, Master Gardeners donated 890,238 hours of service to the public. If these volunteers had been paid $12 an hour, the value of their contributions would have amounted to $10.6 million.

The new coordinator position gives statewide continuity to a program that has unique characteristics in each of the 32 California counties where it is offered. Geisel will facilitate the distribution of research-based information and knowledge to the Master Gardener programs statewide. She will identify training needs, develop programs for the volunteers and coordinate the development of a new Web site to compile Master Gardener information and ideas for more efficient collaboration.

“I am very excited about taking on this new role in my extension career,” Giesel said. “Master Gardener volunteers have waited 25 years for cohesive statewide leadership.  One of my goals as the statewide coordinator is to facilitate a unified voice on issues important to the university and to the residents of California. When the approximately 3,000 Master Gardeners speak with one voice, we can have a greater impact on society and on our outreach to our clientele.”

Fresno County gardeners will miss Geisel’s weekly gardening column “Growing Things,” which has been published in the Fresno Bee for more than 18 years. The county’s Master Gardener program will continue under the direction of Master Gardener coordinator Feathers.

Media contact:

Pamela Geisel

(current)

UC Cooperative Extension in Fresno County

pmelam@ucdavis.edu

(559) 456-7554

(after July 1)

UC Agricultural and Natural Resources building at UC Davis

pgeisel@ucdavis.edu