All the Dirt on Gardening

The Flower Garden and Nature Society of NorthWest Arkansas welcomes Susan Young  Topic “Fields Red with Strawberries in Northwest Arkansas”  Day Saturday, March 18, 2017  Time 9:30 am Social Time - 10:00 am Program Location Northwest Technical Institute - Springdale Arkansas Susan Young is the outreach coordinator at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, a position she has held since 1994.  Susan is a lifelong resident of Fayetteville and a fifth-generation Ozarker.  She is the author of "So Big, This Little Place," a history of the founding of Tontitown, Arkansas, and the editor of “Memories I Can't Let Go Of”, a collection of life stories from Tontitown, Arkansas.  In 2014, Susan received the Washington County Historical Society's Distinguished Citizen Award.  Susan serves on the boards of the Arkansas Historical Association and the Ozark Folk Cultural Center Commission. Her Ozark history interests include traditional folkwa...

Sustainable gardening is the term used for gardening with the least. Instead of blasting the garden with chemical fertilizers and bug sprays, use the least possible. Rather than using a timed system to irrigate lawn and gardens on a schedule, wait until plants signal a need for water. Gardeners who use a sustainable approach make an effort to add back to the earth. Simple changes can make a difference. Examples include: Use sheets of newspaper under mulch instead of plastic, make a compost pile, dig a basin in the garden to collect rainwater or switch to wildlife friendly fertilizers such as composted animal waste or seaweed. Last Saturday when Dr. Gerald Klingaman spoke at the Northwest Arkansas Flower and Garden Club in Fayetteville, he added his own twist to the whole topic of sustainable gardening. Klingaman chose The Quest for a Sustainable Garden as the topic for his talk knowing that gardeners cannot resist a few high maintenance plants. Any garden we plant is destined to be sho...