College of Agricultural Sciences

Spotlight

Berks County Master Gardeners Honored for Tree Identification Project

If a tree falls in a cemetery, will anyone know what kind it is? If the burial ground happens to be in Reading, Pa., there’s a good chance people will know, thanks to local Master Gardeners.

An innovative project developed by the Berks County Master Gardener Program is helping to teach local residents, educators and youth about the trees in Reading’s Charles Evans Cemetery. The project will be recognized with a Search for Excellence Award in the innovative program category at the Northeast Regional Master Gardener Conference in Newport, R.I., in June.

Beth Finlay, Master Gardener coordinator for Penn State Cooperative Extension in Berks County, says this project began in 1999 when officials at the 119-acre Charles Evans Cemetery requested help in identifying numerous old tree specimens.

It quickly became clear that the Master Gardeners would need advanced training to get the task done. “We decided to use the cemetery as a classroom to build Master Gardeners’ skills,” Finlay said.

The Master Gardeners wanted to include a strong public-education component in their work at the cemetery. First they designed a 20-minute, self-guided tree tour in a section where many interesting trees had been identified. The volunteers created a hand-illustrated brochure of 29 significant trees for the tour.

The brochure was expanded into an 80-page Teacher’s Guide to the Trees of Charles Evans Cemetery, which is available to teachers and 4-H leaders. The Berks County 4-H staff uses the guide in conjunction with its forestry curriculum to train educators, who in turn may use the cemetery as an outdoor classroom.

Finlay considers the project an example of a collaborative partnership that produces multiple benefits from a creative effort.

Richard Kauffman, Berks County extension director and interim Southeast Region director, says he is proud of the Master Gardener volunteers because they put in a lot of extra hours and represent Berks County and Penn State in a professional manner.

“ While it is an honor to win this award, it is not a surprise to me because I know the Master Gardeners set high standards for themselves and stick to those standards,” Kauffman says.

The Master Gardener program is administered within each county through Penn State Cooperative Extension. It provides more than 30 hours of horticultural education to interested volunteers, who then commit to 50 hours of volunteer service. Master Gardener activities may include answering gardening questions from the public, presenting workshops, lectures and presentations, and preparing educational leaflets and displays. To maintain their certification after their first year, Master Gardeners must receive eight hours of update training and complete 20 volunteer hours annually.

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