Last year, almost 3,500 people worked for the University of
Georgia for 102,810 hours and never drew paychecks. They are all
members of the Georgia Master Gardener Program’s volunteer
force.

The Master Gardener program is volunteer training for people
who love gardening and community service.

An Ever-Growing Volunteer
Force

“Our program trains volunteers who want to work in their
county extension office assisting with horticulture
projects,”
said Bob Westerfield, who manages Georgia’s program with the help
of part-time assistant Krissy Slagle.

Westerfield is an Extension Service consumer horticulturist
with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and
Environmental
Sciences.

“The hidden motive to become a Master Gardener,”
he said, “shouldn’t be to learn gardening information. You
have to want to be a volunteer.”

The international program originated in Washington State.
“Along
with Texas, Georgia is considered a leader in the Master Gardener
program,” Westerfield said.

How Do I Join?

To become a Master Gardener, you have to:

* Apply and be accepted.

* Complete three months of training.

* Volunteer for at least 50 hours within one year of the
training.

“Most of our Master Gardeners either don’t work outside
the home or are retired,” Westerfield said. “You have
to have a flexible schedule.”

Everything You Need to Know About
Horticulture

The program costs around $75, which covers the textbook,
visual
and hands-on training and a 500-page manual. The training is
taught
by county agents, UGA extension specialists and greenhouse or
nursery operators.

“We want good volunteers first. We can teach them
horticulture
skills,” Westerfield said. “It actually helps us if
they don’t know a lot about gardening because we have to teach
the university’s research-based recommendations.”

The course isn’t just about planting flowers and vegetables.
“It’s about plant selection, design, pathology, nuisance
wildlife — the whole gamut,” he said.

Why train volunteers so thoroughly?

“Many of our Master Gardeners represent the county agent
when people call county offices,” Westerfield said.
“They
have to know how to answer a consumer’s question
correctly.”

Helping Agents in the Office and in the
Community

Master Gardeners are often asked to answer phone calls and
e-mails at county extension offices, especially in metro areas.
“In Atlanta, county agents get 150 to 170 horticulture calls
per day,” Westerfield said. “They often need two or
three Master Gardeners to answer calls so the agents can focus
on their other responsibilities.”

Master Gardeners work with county agents on community service
projects, too, such as composting demonstrations, beautification
programs and horticulture therapy gardens.

“In one county, our Master Gardeners visit a hospice
center
to provide horticulture therapy,” he said. “They also
work with the Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens to present ‘Roots
and Shoots,’ an educational program for school
children.”

Whether they were writing articles for the newspaper, making
presentations to civic clubs or presenting garden clinics,
Georgia
Master Gardeners made more than 220,000 contacts in 1999.

Westerfield says the volunteers are dedicated. “Some of
our most active Master Gardeners are from the first class back
in 1979 when the Georgia program began,” he said. “They
have continued to give at least 25 hours of their time each year
to remain active volunteers.”

The program also includes advanced training to provide updated
and in-depth information.

115 County Programs and
Growing

Even though the program is more than 20 years old, its
popularity
continues to grow. “We had 593 Master Gardeners join the
program in 1999,” Westerfield said. “Each new year
seems
to shatter the old record.”

Of Georgia’s 159 counties, 115 offer the Master Gardeners
program.
“The agents coordinate the programs and decide whether they
need Master Gardeners in their counties,” Westerfield said.
“In the Atlanta area, the program is extremely competitive,
with more people applying than openings each year. We really get
the cream of the crop in the metro areas.”

To apply to the Master Gardeners Program, contact your county
extension office. To learn more about the Georgia program, check
their Web site at www.ces.uga.edu/Agriculture/hortic
ulture/horthome.htm.