Master gardeners practice pruning
Berl Tiskus
Master gardener Arlyn Amundson prunes a tree during a hands-on field day.
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POLSON — It was a field trip, but the participants were adults, armed with pruning clippers and saws. The master gardener students from Jack Stivers’ class pruned the maple and ash trees along the east side of the sewer lagoons on Kerr Dam Road.
The master gardener class is an eight-week horticulture/gardening class offered by Montana State University Lake County Extension in conjunction with Polson High School Adult Education, and the group is going into its field trip phase. The trees need pruning, and the gardeners need the practice, according to Stivers, MSU Extension Agent, who teaches the class.
Also, as part of their master gardener certification, students must complete 20 hours of community service, and the hands-on pruning activity counted towards their hours. This is the third year the class members have pruned the sewer lagoon trees.
One master-gardener-in-training, Jane Mansfield, said this is her first time taking the class, and there are three levels to advance through.
Master gardener Cheryl Kendall said she moved to Montana only a year ago and needed to figure out how things grow here.
The gardeners talked about pruning options for each tree, trimmed “suckers,” or new growth branches, off the bottom of the trees and opened the trees so all the leaves could get light.
The pruning, Stivers said, gives structural strength to the tree.
“You don’t want a heavy grouping of leaves in the middle of a tree,” he said. Wind should be able to blow through the tree.
Last week, the gardeners started flowers in the Ronan High School greenhouse, and next they may visit a vegetable farm near Bigfork.
