Lessons Learned to Create a Beautiful, Resilient Garden
Your Southeast Pinal County Master Gardeners are pleased to invite you to our Community Education Presentation on Wednesday, April 2 at 1 p.m. at SaddleBrooke Ranch Sol Ballroom, 31143 S. Amenity Dr., Oracle AZ 85623. This topic this month is Lessons Learned to Create a Beautiful, Resilient Garden.
Our speaker, Larry Lynam, will discuss the lessons he learned as he prepared his Tucson home garden that was featured on the Pima County Master Gardeners Home Garden tour. After eight months of intensive gardening and landscape preparation for the April tour, he and his partner hosted over 1,200 guests viewing their home garden.
Larry learned a lot as he prepared his yard. He will share the best practices developed or vetted by the University of Arizona agricultural and climate research that he has incorporated in his own gardens to help make them more resilient and resistant to our changing desert climate. He wants participants to leave the session with ideas for helping to create an efficient, attractive, and inviting landscape that brings year-round enjoyment. Participants will learn ideas about how to make a garden that is more satisfying and less of a frustrating chore.
After a 30+ year career as an infectious diseases microbiologist, Larry left the biopharmaceutical industry and established a freelance science writing and teaching business. His work took him to assignments in 69 countries and all 50 U.S. states. Although a scientist by training, Larry has long been a garden enthusiast. For generations his family has been involved in farming, plant development, and gardening.
Throughout his travels, Larry always made time to explore the local flora, gardening practices, and gathered ideas he could adopt for his own garden. In 2010, Larry took the University of Florida Broward County Master Gardener Course in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and developed a lush and inviting tropical garden. When he relocated to the Sonoran Desert in 2021, he took the University of Arizona Pima County Master Gardener program in Tucson to learn how to garden properly in our distinctly different and challenging desert climate.
Larry is an active member of the Pima County Master Gardeners serving on their Plant Clinic team, New Master Gardener Training Program, and the University of Arizona Campus Arboretum tour team. He also volunteers as a docent at Tohono Chul where he is a speaker in their educational and public enrichment programs as well as a docent rover and tour leader.
Make Room for the ‘Shroom! Farm-to-Table Mushroom Cultivation and Propagation
Your Southeast Pinal County Master Gardeners are pleased to invite you to our Community Education Presentation on Wednesday, May 7 at 1 p.m. at SaddleBrooke Ranch Sol Ballroom, 31143 S. Amenity Dr., Oracle AZ 85623. The topic this month is “Make Room for the ‘Shroom!
Farm-to-Table Mushroom Cultivation & Propagation.”
Mushrooms bring a savory flavor and meaty texture to meals without adding much fat, calories, or sodium. Research continues to uncover how mushrooms can ward off chronic disease and improve your everyday health. Coupled with the farm-to-table movement that emphasizes the use of locally sourced ingredients through direct acquisition from the producer, products are fresher, more nutritious, and more sustainable.
Our speaker, Eric Harmon, a local owner and operator of “FungusUmungUs,” a gourmet mushroom company in Oracle, will be here to show us how mushrooms are cultivated and how to use them in our everyday life. Eric is a retired educator and worked in northern Arizona for more than 16 years. His mushrooms can be found at the Oracle Patio Cafe, in the market, and in use on the menu, as well as the Oracle Farmers Market on Wednesdays, the SaddleBrooke Ranch Farmers Market on Thursday mornings, and the SaddleBrooke Farmers Market on Friday mornings.
“I cannot think of a more versatile food than the mushroom.”—Julia Child
We hope you can join us!