High desert towns and communities offer their own unique challenge to gardening and landscaping. Learn about native plants that are available in the nursery trade and where these plants grow around northern Arizona in this week’s Gila County Cooperative Extension free online webinar at 11 a.m. Thursday, Nov 18.
Special guest speaker is Gayle Gratop, Instructional Specialist Coordinator for the Master Gardener Program, Coconino Cooperative Extension, University of Arizona. Her topic? Native plants best suited for landscaping at upper elevations in Arizona. Matching the microclimates in your garden with where native plants are found naturally in the environment will help you become a better native plant gardener by providing your plants with the best conditions to thrive. Discussion will include where buyers can find native plants for sale and learn about resources for obtaining seed for growing your own plants that are hard to find in the nursery trade.
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Gila County presents these ‘Garden and Country’ free Thursday webinars online via Zoom, lasting 60 minutes or less, and featuring a variety of horticultural and natural resource topics relevant to the environmental conditions and residential concerns of Gila County. Free weekly online forums hosted by University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Gila County don’t require pre-registration. Guests are welcome to log in up to 10 minutes before the forum begins at arizona.zoom.us/j/85646234693.
Featured speaker Gayle Gratop has been working with native plants in northern Arizona for over 15 years. She learned the importance of gardening with native plants as an intern at The Arboretum at Flagstaff in the early 2000s after earning her degree from Northern Arizona University. Since then, she has worked as a horticulturist in the native plant nursery for Grand Canyon National Park, served as the greenhouse manager for The Arboretum at Flagstaff and recently began her own backyard nursery to provide the community of Flagstaff with locally adapted native plants. Gayle holds a Master’s degree in Agricultural Education from the University of Arizona, a certificate of Production Horticulture from Yavapai College and a recently earned certificate of Horticultural Therapy from the Horticultural Therapy Institute in Denver, Colorado.
Once again, the link for Thursday’s webinar is arizona.zoom.us/j/85646234693, and an easy, convenient way to connect is via ‘click here’ direct hotlinks at extension.arizona.edu/gila, where you can also view dozens of prior Thursday webinar topics from over the past year -- ranging from soil preparation to winter gardening, container gardening, pest management and many more.
University of Arizona Gila County Cooperative Extension Agent Chris Jones hosts this popular series, and Cooperative Extension’s website has an array of links to programs, talks and resources. Links are also conveniently posted each week on Facebook, where you can join Jones and a network of Gila County gardeners at facebook.com/gilaextension. Want to be added to an email invite list for these gardening and horticulture workshops? Call Chris Jones, Extension Agent, University of Arizona Gila County Cooperative Extension at (928) 402 -8586 or email ckjones@ email.arizona.edu.
