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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2011)
outdoor living january25 2011 Diggin’ In The Dirt: More Winter Notes By Chip Bubl, Oregon State University/Columbia County Extension Service Grafting Workshop We will have our annual grafting workshop on Saturday, February 12 th from 9:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M. at the Extension Office in St. Helens. Space is limited. Call for reservations (503 397- 3462). Cost will be $15 and will include five dwarf apple rootstocks. If you have a favorite apple tree that you want to make “copies” of, take some 12-inch cuttings from last season’s growth (about pencil thickness), using the middle third of the shoots. Bundle and label the cuttings and place them in plastic bags and store them in the refrigerator until the workshop. Free cuttings will be available of several varieties. Fertilize evergreen shrubs this month Most tree roots start to take up nutrients a long time before we see new shoot growth. Evergreens (and this includes rhododendrons, azaleas, arborvitae, Pieris, etc.) tend to get a light-green washed out look over the winter. This can be corrected by giving them a fertilizer containing slow- release nitrogen. Applications made now will give much improved color by late March. Sulfur-coated urea, which is found in a number of compounded fertilizers, would be a good choice, as would an organic material like blood meal. Remember, arborvitaes tend to discolor naturally (some varieties worse than others) in the winter and regain their color just as naturally in the spring. Arborvitaes also routinely shed their inner needles, giving a brownish center appearance. Routine shearing of arborvitaes will keep them dense and reduce bare interior wood. Dormant sprays and moss and lichens on trees After an earlier column, I had several calls about whether the dormant sprays like lime sulfur or copper will eliminate moss and lichens. The answer is that they will, but it is a slow process. Both types of sprays will kill the moss/lichens but it can take a long time for them to weather away, often up to several years. Some people pull off the mosses and lichens prior to spraying, which speeds the process. It is worth noting that mosses and lichens do not hurt the tree. They are not parasitic. Rather, they use the tree to hang on. They extract nutrients from 7 hours on community horticultural projects. For more information or to register, contact the OSU Extension Office in St. Helens at (503) 397-3462 or email either Chip Bubl (chip.bubl@ oregonstate.edu) or Vicki Krenz at (vicki.krenz@oregonstate.edu). rainwater and photosynthesize sugars from sunlight. Many birds look for insects within the lichen and moss colonies. Hummingbirds and others use mosses and lichens for nesting materials. So, you can make a good argument for not worrying about moss/ lichens on landscape trees that don’t need a dormant spray. But don’t hesitate to spray your fruit trees. Dormant sprays are a key part of home orchard disease management. Master Gardener™ classes to be offered in Clatskanie this spring The OSU Master Gardener™ class will be offered in Clatskanie, starting on Tuesday, March 8 th and meeting every Tuesday through May 31 st . The classes will meet from 9:30 A.M. until 3:00 P.M. with a thirty-minute break for lunch. The programs will be held at the Faith Lutheran Church in Clatskanie. Topics to be covered will include vegetable gardening, insect identification, botany for gardeners, plant problem diagnosis, growing fruits and berries, lawn management, weed identification and management, pesticide safety, and plant propagation. Cost of the series will be $75.00. Students completing the class will be expected to pay back about 50 Free newsletter The Oregon State University Extension office in Columbia County publishes a monthly newsletter on gardening and farming topics (called County Living) written/edited by yours truly. All you need to do is ask for it and it will be mailed to you. Call (503) 397- 3462 to be put on the list. Alternatively, you can find it on the web at http:// extension.oregonstate.edu/columbia/ and click on newsletters. Contact information for the Extension office: Oregon State University Extension Service – Columbia County 505 N. Columbia River Highway (across from the Legacy clinic) St. Helens, OR 97051 (503) 397-3462 Email: chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu Geography Matters: The Power of GIS Layers By Sean Pickner GIS software has been de- signed to perform sophisticated analy- sis with a variety of tools that are cre- ated by software companies like ESRI. Though without data sets called layers, a GIS Analyst cannot use these tools for analysis. When a GIS Analyst begins using a GIS, one of the first things that they do is to load a layer that contains information about a specific geographic feature. The two types of layers that are loaded into a GIS are either Vector mod- els or Raster models. Vector models are features that are represented by Points, Lines, or Polygons. Streets are a good example of the Vector model because they are lines that contain information like the name of a street. Raster mod- els are like digital images where there are many cells that all contain different information such as color, and when all these cells are viewed together, a digital image can be interpreted. Digital pho- tographs are one of the most common Raster layers, but elevation and many other features can be rep- resented through the Raster model. I would like to dis- cuss three major Vector lay- ers that Vernonia GIS has either created with the as- sistance of city staff, or has acquired from an outside agency. The city’s Storm, Sanitary and Municipal Water system have been a major focus of Vernonia’s GIS. The development of this layer began by having surveyors go around the city taking GPS points of all the known utilities, such as manholes and storm drains. As we go about figuring out how these utility systems tie into the larger network, we can then begin to model how those ers are also used by insurance agencies utilities function as a whole. to evaluate flood insurance costs. Our goal with this data set is to help improve A second major layer that we the public’s understanding of flood dan- created was city’s Land Use Zoning. ger by providing maps through Verno- We used historical maps and records nia’s GIS website, which can be found as a basis for the creation of this data at gis.vernonia-or.gov. set, and with the help of Vernonia’s City Planner, Carole Connell, we updated A major benefit to a GIS is these records to represent changes that the information that is used and cre- had occurred as a result of changes that ated with it. We have talked in the past occurred in the city like the city limits. about improving institutional memory, Owned and Operated by and providing the public with informa- Don & Kim Wallace The final layer that I tion that has historically been difficult wanted to bring attention to was the ac- to acquire. We hope to do this with quisition of flood data. This data was the development of these layers, and acquired from both FEMA and Ore- through a continued effort towards ac- gon’s Department of Geology and Min- quiring new information about the City eral Industry. Unlike the previous two of Vernonia. We strive to help the city layers, Vernonia GIS was not involved make more informed man- in the creation of this layer. FEMA and agement decisions through Oregon’s Department of Geology and GIS tools, and as we do, Save your local economy... Mineral Industry working together to we invite you to visit gis. three stores at a time. create this layer was a way to improve vernonia-or.gov to see what Oregon’s Flood Insurance Rate Maps. types of maps and informa- The improved flood layers were devel- tion we have developed to oped to help homeowners evaluate the improve the public’s access need for flood insurance, and these lay- to information. v the 3/50 prodect b ® saving the brick and mortars our nation is built on Mariolino’s Pizza & Grill Serving breakfast, lunch, dinner & ice cream Family owned and operated for over 40 years. 721 Madison Avenue, Vernonia (503) 429-5018 v s 3 50 Think about which three independently owned businesses you’d miss most if they were gone. Stop in and say hello. Pick up a little something that will make someone smile. Your contribution is what keeps those businesses around. If dust half the employed U.S. population spent $50 each month in independently owned businesses, their purchases would generate more than $42.6 billion in revenue.* Imagine the positive impact if 3/4 of the employed population did that. 5 68 1 For every $100 spent in independently owned stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that in a national chain, only $43 stays here. Spend it online and nothing comes home. 6 oi The number of people it takes to start the trend...you. [ Pick 3. Spend 50. Save your local economy. Visit the350project.net © ® Cinda Baxter 2010; all rights reserved. Proudly supporting RetailSpeaks and independent retailers everywhere. * Employment statistics courtesy U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2/6/2009; 68/43 courtesy Civic Economics study, 2008. ®
