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
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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
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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.
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The number of people it takes to start the trend...you.
[
Pick 3. Spend 50. Save your local economy.
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© ® 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.
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