It certainly is an understatement to say that this year was an unusual gardening year! There are so many reasons why: too much rain in early spring and almost no rain in August, September and part of October; the extremely hot weather starting in July and lasting through August and into September; the pandemic which affected our visits to our garden plots and the restrictions on gathering in groups! The Master Gardeners’ trial garden is located at the Adams County Agricultural and Natural Resources Center at 670 Old Harrisburg Road, Gettysburg. Visitors are always welcome to stroll through the gardens.

Gardening is great as a solitary endeavor but it's also good as a group activity. We gardeners like to get together to compare notes on what grew, what failed, what new plant thrived, which plants were affected by too much water or too little water. This year we were basically on our own to figure things out! But gardeners are a determined bunch--we visited our plots as often as we could, pulled weeds and made our plots look good. Most of our plants were just as determined to grow and thrive in the erratic weather and difficult conditions.

By September and October we are ready to evaluate our plots and start to think about next year's garden. Some of the results follow:

Liz Miller is one of our faithful gardeners who has cared for a plot for a number of years. She has grown many varieties of daisies (a member of the Asteraceae family). There are many choices of daisies; they include the Shasta daisy with its familiar yellow center and white rays which bloom in early summer and daisies that bloom until frost such as fall asters. The flowers are long-lasting, good as cut flowers and can be planted in a variety of soils with part or full sun. Liz stated that no supplemental watering occurred but the plants thrived anyway and she is hoping that in 2021 the plants will return and be even more robust.

Possibly our gardeners are able to see the future because two more gardeners (Noemi Halbrendt and Nina Miller) had good success with their herbs and plants of the Mediterranean. If you see the word Mediterranean you should surmise that the plants like hot, dry weather and that's what we had a lot of! They planted several varieties of oregano plus Dittany of Crete. This plant produces soft and tender leaves and tiny pink flowers. It looks delicate, but it is not. It likes well-drained soil and full sun. Wooly creeping thyme also is a delicate-looking plant that hugs the soil with fuzzy greyish-green leaves. Another successful plant in their plot is Goodwin Creek Lavender, a lavender that loves hot/dry weather. Pennsylvania is not always kind to lavender plants--too much humidity and rain and not enough sun can do it in. This was their first garden and their first year as Penn State Master Gardeners--they have learned their lessons well.

Goldenrod is a plant that has been in the Trial Garden for several years. The plot contains several different varieties of goldenrod--and with one exception, the plants do well. The exception is Solidago rigida or stiff goldenrod. Every year that it has been in this garden it has gotten lace bugs on its leaves. This makes the leaves turn brown/black because of the piercing sucking mouthparts of the lace bug. My remedy is to cut these stems down early in the summer and hope that new stems and leaves will be produced and be less infected. This year the plants did not respond as quickly so the plant never produced flowers. Goldenrod does not usually have pests and it is extremely beneficial in fall and late fall because of the pollinators that visit--the most numerous visitors are the various wasps and yellow jackets that need sugar to get through the winter and they all love goldenrod. You, as a visitor, don't need to worry because the insects are so focused on nectaring on the yellow blossoms that they seldom bother humans. The most attractive goldenrod in the plot is Seaside Goldenrod. Usually the plant can get to be 6 feet tall with soft green leaves and full blooms at the ends of the stems. This year the plant was only about 3 to 4 feet tall. The goldenrod plot does not get any supplemental water and some of the goldenrod may be blooming into November.

There are six plots with pollinators as their main theme (actually we hope all our plantings attract pollinators). The pollinators we hope to attract are birds, butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, flies and other beneficial insects. Pollination is the central theme of gardening; without pollination and pollinators we would have far less food to eat because we would have far fewer fruits and vegetables. In our plots we never use pesticides so we can be sure that we are going to attract pollinators--not kill them. For several years we counted bees to be reported to York County's Master Gardener program and this year we are counting butterflies on goldenrod and Joe Pye Weed.

The plants we are growing to attract pollinators are in the milkweed family--common milkweed that grows in farm fields and edges of fields, Asclepias tuberosa or butterfly weed--that bright orange flower that blooms around July, swamp milkweed which produces a pink or white flower and Gomphocarpus physocarpus, commonly known as balloon plant. This plant is an annual milkweed. Our hope is that all these plants will attract Monarch butterflies and other pollinators. One other garden we planted this year was a bulb pollinator garden planted with early spring bulbs such as crocus, grape hyacinth, aconite and snowdrops. Don't assume there are no pollinators in early spring--if flowers are blooming there are pollinators using them for nectar and pollen. There are early bees, flies and tiny insects--if there were no pollinators we would not have witch hazel or most deciduous trees such as maple that produce tiny flowers in early spring. All plants must be fertilized to reproduce and so there are pollinators to do this necessary work

To close--our gardens did as well as could be expected considering all the handicaps this summer. And as all gardeners think--next year will be perfect!