Master Gardeners Celebrate Retirement and Welcome New Coordinator

Dr. Burrows, along with Extension Horticulture Educator Tom Butzler, was instrumental in the success of the local program and helped it reach its current size of more than 20 Extension-certified Master Gardeners. During the past 15 years, she contributed over 5800 volunteer hours to the Master Gardener Program. Dr. Burrows was thanked by her fellow Master Gardeners with a gift and the announcement that one of the items on her "wish list," a handicapped-accessible sensory garden, was being designed by the Department of Landscape Architecture at Penn State and would be named in her honor. Dr. Burrows expressed her appreciation to those in attendance and said, "If I was a good coordinator, it was because I had the privilege of working with so many outstanding volunteers."

The new Master Gardener Coordinator for Clinton County is Virginia "Ginny" Counsil. She has been a certified Master Gardener since 2016 and has been very active as a volunteer. Ginny was responsible for the very popular Garden Sense symposium, held annually in January and for coordinating Master Gardener activities for Kids' Day at the Clinton County Fair. She was a teacher in the Keystone Central School district prior to her retirement in 2022. Ginny plans to continue many of the Master Gardener activities the local gardening community has come to know, as well as add some new initiatives that are being introduced statewide. These include Home Garden Vegetable Trials (HGVT) with a focus on growing new varieties of vegetables and collecting and comparing data to determine if these new varieties would be viable options for commercial growers and Grow, Save, Repeat (GSR), which teaches home gardeners how to save vegetable seeds from their own gardens and cross breed fruits and vegetables to grow their own unique varieties. Ginny is also interested in the Seed to Supper program, which provides beginning gardeners with the knowledge and tools needed to successfully grow their own vegetables and hopefully reduce their grocery bills.

The picnic was followed by a meeting, during which the group discussed plans for their Clinton County Fair exhibit and the Fall Plant Sale, which is scheduled for September 30, 2023. Recruitment for the next Master Gardener Basic Training class, which will begin in October, is already underway. Those interested in learning more about training to become Master Gardeners are encouraged to contact Ginny Counsil at 570-858-0192 or vlc125@psu.edu.