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MG History - Prince George's County

by Barbara Hopkins, 2007-2008 Historian, Prince George’s County Master Gardener Program

The Master Gardener program is thriving in Prince George's County. Volunteers work in community and historic gardens; do joint projects with the 4-H after school program and other 4-H programs; hold plant clinics, give talks to gardening groups and the general public; participate in state, regional and international conferences and programs; create and maintain demonstration gardens at the Cooperative Extension Office in Clinton,  hold open houses at the Clinton Extension Office; and are involved in various county programs such as the Gorgeous Prince George's event and exhibiting and judging at the Prince George’s County Fair and other Maryland County and State Fairs.

In the spring of 2007, ten Prince George's County Master Gardeners became certified in the Baywise Program and have been actively inspecting and certifying properties for the public since then.

In the fall of 2007, there are 46 active Master Gardeners in the county and 26 interns working on their first 40 hours of volunteer time.

The Master Gardener program in Prince George's County is going strong, despite a hiatus of over 10 years when the program was dropped due to lack of staffing to support it.  It is our goal to increase membership diversity and representation in all area of Prince George’s County.

State and County Beginnings
The year 2007 marks the 30th anniversary of the Maryland Master Gardener program.  In Maryland, the program began in 1978 and was modeled after a program of volunteer horticulture educators established in Seattle, Washington in 1972.

Prince George's County began a Master Gardener program in 1980 when the Extension Service office was in Upper Marlboro. Up until the mid to late 1960’s all gardening questions and samples were handled by the Cooperative Extension Service agricultural agent. While the number of inquiries were small this wasn’t a problem, but in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties the non farm populations were growing so large they were swamping the agricultural (farm) agent with home gardening work. 

The decision was made to place agents in these offices to deal with these gardening (horticultural) inquiries.  Sometime in the mid sixties, Thomas McCubbin was hired as a horticultural extension agent. As people discovered a source of gardening information for free the inquiries grew much larger. Within a year or two, probably around 1968, Caroline Beane was hired as a second horticultural agent. In 1972 Thomas McCubbin left and went to work for the extension service in Florida and Maryland hired Raymond Bosmans in 1973.  Late in 1973 Caroline Beane left and  Bob Stewart was hired to replace her in 1974.

By 1975 the Prince George’s County Extension Horticulture Office was receiving approximately 10,000 phone calls, 3,000 plant and insect samples, and 1,000 office visitors each year. These are very large numbers for a small office. If you consider there are about 260 working days each year, 12,000 phone calls is almost 40 each day!  We were swamped with business.  By the late 1970’s two part time horticulture consultants were hired providing the office with two full time agents and two part time consultants. However, with a county of 700,000 people the horticulture consultants still couldn’t handled the work load and looked for another answer. 

The first Master Gardener training program was held in the Bowie Public Library meeting room in early 1980.

In the 1980s, the state increased publicity for the Extension Service and there were approximately 15,000 calls and about 5,000 visitors a year to the Prince George's County extension office, according to former Extension Agent Bob Stewart. The county had two full-time agents for horticulture and two part-time consultants, so the Extension Service programs were apparently thriving and popular.

Shift of Location & Purpose
The Prince George's County Extension Office moved in 1986 from Upper Marlboro to Clinton. At that time about half the Master Gardeners in the county were from the Bowie area and the move altered the source locale of the county's Master Gardener base.
From its inception up until around 1990, the primary purpose of the Master Gardener program was to handle day-to-day inquiries about horticulture.  There were approximately 10 to 15 plant clinics per year held at local libraries.  The Prince George’s Master Gardeners answered phone calls in the office, helped office visitors with questions and plant and insect samples, and staffed a large display each year at the County Fair.  This was all accomplished without a HGIC for guidance and advanced training.  All training was provided by the Prince George’s County horticulture staff.      

This changed when in the early 1990s when home gardening programs were transferred from Extension Offices to the newly created HGIC (Home and Garden Information Center) located in Ellicott City.  The focus of the program then shifted from answering public needs to maintaining the office landscape, general office tasks and working on commercially oriented projects. 

Since 2001, the Master Gardener Program has reverted back to its original mission of educating the gardening public about sustainable, responsible and environmentally sound horticultural practices.

County Program Eliminated
Although the Master Gardener program began as a means of training volunteers to help meet the increasing demand for services coupled with diminishing state resources for meeting these needs, it was budget cuts that led to the demise of the Master Gardener Program in Prince George's County.  In 1990, the Maryland state legislature cut the budget allocation for the Extension Service.  By 1992 this budget was reduced by more than 15 percent.  Horticultural extension agents assigned to each county were eliminated. Instead, agents were assigned to new areas. Horticultural programs for the home gardener were eliminated to emphasize commercial horticulture programs.

Montgomery County's Extension Agent, Stanton Gill, was made regional specialist, leaving a vacancy for the extension agent. Ray Bosmans had left the Prince George’s County office in 1983 to transfer to Howard County and later to the HGIC.  He was replaced by Tim Warman. Tim remained until mid 1986 when he left. By this time the budget had become worrisome and Tim was not quickly replaced. By the late 1980’s it was clear Tim was not going to be replaced. Complaints abound but there was no way Montgomery County was going to be without some type of horticulture agent support and there was no way the State was going to come up with the money to hire a new agent.  The answer was to give an existing agent a split assignment – covering two counties.  The closest agent to Montgomery County with urban horticulture experience was Bob Stewart and the logical choice to plug the gap until the budget problems eased up. 
     The agriculture/gardening populace complained loudly, so state officials went to Bob Stewart, the agent in Prince George's County, and asked him to cover both Prince George's and Montgomery Counties. To make this feasible, his duties needed to be curtailed, so the Master Gardener program in Prince George's County was eliminated. The last training program was run in 1992.

By 2003, Bob Stewart was covering both Prince George's and Anne Arundel Counties.  Montgomery County had replaced its Extension Agent and also funded a part-time employee to be the Master Gardener coordinator.  After 4 years of no Horticulture Extension Agent in the County, in 2007,  Prince George’s County finally hired Brian Clarke as the County horticulture agent replacing the vacant position left by Bob Stewart retirement in 2003. 

New Beginnings
In early 2001, Marie Mikulak, who has worked extensively in the horticulture field, approached Bob Stewart, Jon Traunfeld of the HGIC, and  Dr. Leon Brooks, Extension Director of Prince George’s County about re-establishing the county's Master Gardener program.  Marie volunteered to be the volunteer coordinator and get the program rolling.  Her idea was to provide the training during evening hours instead of the usual day-time schedules prevalent at that time in other counties with programs.  There was much skepticism about the feasibility of this approach.  Some suggested it would be difficult to obtain instructors for the training outside of normal working hours.

Thanks to the optimism and perseverance of Marie Mikulak and the generosity and dedication to the  Master Gardener program of those who were qualified to teach the subject matter, the program got off the ground again and a class of 25 interns graduated in the fall of 2001.

There have been at least one, if not two, training classes held in the county each year since that time. 

In 2005, Prince George’s County shared a Master Gardener Coordinator, Mike Ensor, with Ann Arundel County.  This was short lived and once again the Master Gardener Program was without a paid Coordinator.  In July 2006, the current President,  Esther Mitchell, also assumed the role as a volunteer coordinator to keep the Program informed and growing until a paid Coordinator is recruited.

Highlights of Accomplishments
In 1984, the Royal Horticultural Society in England sent greetings and best wishes to the Maryland Master Gardeners in connection with their work in celebrating the 350th Anniversary of Maryland and commended the work of the Prince George’s County Master Gardeners Program.

Current major accomplishments include:
The beautification of the County Extension Office in Clinton. The overgrown and weedy front gardens have been cleaned up and replanted to showcase the tremendous contribution of volunteer efforts. 

Created 3 demonstration gardens at Clinton to demonstrate techniques in vegetable, butterflies and herbs gardening, composting, water conservation using rain barrels;

These demonstrations gardens have been showcased in an annual Open House held in spring for the past 3 years. Prospective volunteers, neighbors, friends and family of Master Gardeners, and county officials are invited to attend to learn more about the Master Gardener program in the county;

Master Gardeners are working with the Maryland Department of Agriculture to help eradicate the emerald ash borer in this county by identifying ash trees and helping to set-up traps.

Master Gardeners worked with Apple Grove and John Bayne and Arrowhead Elementary Schools and in Oxon Hill and Upper Marlboro during an after-school program to create gardens on the schools’ campuses. An after-school program on Household Hazardous Waste, part of the Baywise program, was offered to fifth- and sixth-graders at the school.
Volunteers have ongoing projects that include:


For more information, contact Robin Hessey

Last updated: 04/8/2008