8
outdoor living
february22
2011
Diggin’ In The Dirt: Dreaming of Spring
By Chip Bubl,
Oregon State University/Columbia
County Extension Service
Pruning workshop set for February
26th
The Columbia County Master
Gardeners are putting on a pruning
workshop on Saturday, February 26 th
from 10:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. at the
Columbia County Fairgrounds. Topics
will include pruning fruit trees, small
fruits (grapes, blueberries, trailing
berries, etc.), roses, and other woody
plants. There will be a brief discussion
of fruit tree diseases and insects. Also
included is a demonstration of pruning
tool sharpening and maintenance. The
event is free and open to the public.
Dress for the weather and bring pruning
tools if so inclined.
Oregonian Garden Columnist to
speak in St. Helens
Vern Nelson has written the
“Edible Landscaping” column for the
Oregonian for going on twenty years.
Vern is an expert in producing an
immense variety of fruits and vegetables
in an urban setting. He will speak at a
meeting of the OSU Master Gardeners
on Thursday, February 24 th at 6:30 P.M.
at the Extension office in St. Helens. His
talks are always engaging and filled with
new ideas for things to grow and ways
of growing them. The general public is
welcome.
Columbia County Small Woodlands
Association Tree Sale March 12 th
The thirteenth annual tree sale
sponsored by the Columbia County
Small Woodlands Association will be
held at the Lawrence Oil parking lot
on Highway 30 on the north edge of St.
Helens on Saturday, March 12 th from
9:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. The group started
out selling mainly trees for reforestation
and native plantings including bundles
of Douglas fir, Western Red Cedar,
Oregon Ash and other native species.
They still do that, but have branched out
(pun intended) to include a number of
ornamental varieties as well. This is a
very popular sale. Get there early for the
best selection. For more information,
call (503) 556-8800 or (503) 556-2014.
Rose Pruning
Roses, along with much of
the rest of the woody landscape, need
attention this month. The first cut on a
rose is to remove dead wood. If a rose
has been limping along for years, prune
at the roots and plant something better.
Rose rejuvenation usually involves
tough love. A small cane cannot produce
a bigger one. In most cases, it is wise
to remove all canes smaller than your
little finger. Generally, four well-spaced
canes are left, but you may only have two
that are suitable to build the rejuvenated
rose on. Dip your pruning shears in a
disinfectant solution between each rose.
Fertilize in the spring and
control black spot to give the plant the
leaves to build a new life.
Soaked Soils
We average about 60-70-inches
of rain in the Vernonia area. Most of
that comes from late October to mid-
May. This year has been wet... very
wet. Many of our clay-based soil types
are quite wet. And there are still several
months of rainy weather to come.
Soil scientists know that when
soil pore spaces fill with water for
extended periods of time, the air is driven
out. Some plants are quite tolerant of
prolonged flooding where others are
very stressed.
It is not uncommon to see an
increase in soil-borne diseases like
Phytophthora root rot after a damp
winter. In most cases, infected plants
won’t recover.
The best long-term solutions
involve drainage improvements. It
might be an extensive tile drain system
installed when a new house is being
constructed. In some cases, shallow
ditches can be installed to divert water
away from the planted landscape.
Berms can be created and planted,
which gets the bulk of plant root systems
out of the surface water. Soils can be
amended routinely with organic matter,
which opens up drainage pores. Finally,
and perhaps the best option, landscape
plant species can be chosen that will
stand moist conditions. For vegetable
gardening, raised beds are the preferred
solution on very wet sites.
Mason Bees
If you somehow missed all the
hubbub about mason bees the last couple
of years, don’t be left behind again. Get
an untreated 4x4 or 4x6 piece of wood
and drill 5/16 inch holes (spaced about
an inch apart) into the block. Drill as
deep as you can, but don’t go through
the block. Place it in a protected place
that gets some morning sun. Those
clever mason bees will find it and pack
the holes with brood, pollen, and mud.
Then next year, you will have more
mason bees that can’t wait to pollinate
your fruit trees, even if the weather is
cloudy and cold. What a deal!!
The Extension Service offers its
programs and materials equally to all
people.
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: Public Utilities and GIS - The Value of Details
By Sean Pickner
For the last couple of months, Vernonia GIS
has been focused on modeling the city’s public utility
system. We are modeling the utilities in a GIS to help
improve the general management and accessibility of
information related to these utilities.
One major responsibility is to insure that all
utilities are accounted for, so that our model is accu-
rately depicting the system and how it functions. Pro-
ducing the most accurate and complete records of the
utilities is essential in assisting those who work on the
utilities, because they need to be able to evaluate how
things are connected, and identify barriers that could
impact how the systems works.
The development of the public utility system
was a four-step process. We initially began this pro-
cess by using GPS units to take accurate locational
measurements of all the utilities. We brought all the
GPS points into a GIS, and evaluated the accuracy.
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The next step was to compare all the GIS
points to the city’s historical engineering plans so we
could evaluate what utilities were accounted for and
what features were missing. From these points, we
connected the networks of pipes and drainages that
made up the utilities, which gave us a more detailed
understanding of the utility system as a whole.
The next step involved evaluating the system
for errors in representation, and improving the accu-
racy of our model. It is essential that every utility is
accounted for, because we are aiming to improve the
management of the utilities, and missing utilities skews
results and disrupts tools used for analysis.
The final step is an ongoing process and it
involves identifying details that describe these utili-
ties. We want to be able to use these utilities for analy-
sis purposes, and so, by recording information that de-
scribes these utilities, we can perform analysis on them.
There are many details involved in this pro-
cess, but the basic idea is that we have tried to be very
thorough in our development so that any user of this in-
formation can benefit from the accuracy and complete-
ness of these records.
It’s surprising how complex the utility system
in a town like Vernonia can be, and to make things more
difficult, we are trying to model nearly every detail that
makes up the utility system. If there are inaccuracies
in its representation, all evaluation and analysis done
on these data sets adopt those errors. It takes time and
energy on the front end to make sure that these data sets
are correct, but by doing this, it improves all projects
that utilize this information afterwards.
The advantage of the GIS doesn’t only come
from the tools that help you evaluate the system, but it
also comes from the management of the data. We are
trying to replicate the actual utility system within the
GIS, and so it is imperative that we account for every-
thing that makes up the utility system.
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