Posted: February 18, 2021
Penn State Master Gardeners are volunteers who complete an educational and research program to provide care for and education about horticulture for the general public. A master gardener who has been active for at least 10 years and has completed a minimum of 1500 hours of volunteer service to the Master Gardener Program can retire and receive the honorary title of Master Gardener Emerita or Emeritus.
Peggy Milliron at her greenhouse. Photo credit: Peggy Milliron's daughter.
Margaret "Peggy" Milliron may have retired from her 22-year career as an active Master Gardener volunteer, but she has not retired from a lifetime of gardening. Peggy was introduced to gardening by her dad, who sold seeds in the grocery store he owned. He taught Peggy and her brother about seed starting and backyard gardening. Peggy earned a degree in Biology from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. After marrying she and her husband grew vegetables and fruit in their very large home garden --- enough food for their family of four children. She remembers how helpful it was to have all those hands available when she and her husband bought an 8' x 10' greenhouse and had to put it together and place it on a foundation. That greenhouse was expected to last 10 to 12 years, but is still working for her 25 years later. Of course, she was also actively canning and freezing a lot of the harvest when the children were young.
Peggy didn't become a Master Gardener until she retired from her career selling advertising for The Laurel Group Press. She spent many years hustling in person to find advertisers for the Mount Pleasant Journal, the Ligonier Echo, the Scottdale Independent Observer, the West Newton Times Sun, and the Youngwood Adviser. When she retired her friends encouraged her to become a Master Gardener, and thus started her second career as a volunteer for the Master Gardeners of Westmoreland County where she was active for 22 years.
"It was great to get back into the books after years in the workforce," Peggy recalls, referring to the 6-month educational program required for aspiring Master Gardeners. "And then I especially enjoyed working in the perennial garden and the Old Fashioned Garden at the center on Donohoe Road." She also liked helping the public with their gardening questions as she volunteered on the Garden Hotline. Peggy would accept speaking engagements on many garden subjects, but one of her favorite topics was the Master Gardener program itself.
"I still do a lot of gardening and especially enjoy spending time in the greenhouse with my daughter who comes up from Washington, D.C. She lives in a high-rise apartment there, so coming to Mount Pleasant to garden with me is a treat for us both!" And Peggy still reads a lot, often about gardening!
By Deb Christopher, Penn State Extension Master Gardener
