Malia Riggs
Elmore Autauga News
For over 29 years the Autauga County Master Gardeners Association has offered a world of community behind the shrubbery and greenery within the confines of Autauga County. It is the members that enrich the community through two gardens growing lush landscapes, flowers and vegetables.
Autauga County and central Alabama sees an average 230-day growing season which makes up the two gardens. The Autauga County Master Gardeners are under the Extension Office for the state and through Auburn University. Their mission is to enable citizens in Autauga County to garden successfully.
The annual Autauga Master Gardeners Plant Sale is April 27 at the Prattvillage Garden, 139 1st Street in Prattville from 8 a.m. to noon.
“These are plants that we have either raised ourselves or dug and divided and everything is labeled. Jane McCarthy, our horticulturist, she’s great at that because she really helps us to have a very professional sale. We have all kinds of things and at a price that you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else,” President of the Autauga Master Gardeners Sondra Henley said.
The Master Gardeners Association is strictly volunteers who have tested and trained with the Alabama Extension in horticulture and in turn the volunteers give back to the community.
“One of our gardeners is a chemist, one’s a leadership speaker, two of them were in the armed services and so much more. We just have so many talented people that come to Master Gardeners,” Henley said.
One way that the Autauga County Master Gardeners give back is by donating all that the Prattville-Autauga Demonstration Garden produces to the Autauga Interfaith Care Center, kown as AICC, a local food bank. Henley confirmed that last year over 1,600 pounds of produce from the Demo Garden was donated to AICC.
“We have a very generous team that works at the Demonstration Garden. They’re always looking to better their gardening with things like companion planting or a cover crop. All of these things that they try or attempt is in their research which is based from Auburn,” Henley said.
The other garden that the Master Gardeners keep within Autauga County is the historic Prattvillage Garden. This garden houses a circa 1840 chapel and is one of the most photographed buildings within Autauga County.
The Gardeners keep the garden period appropriate by enhancing the gothic-style chapel and keeping the garden true to design containing herbs for medicinal use and cooking. Other plants include hardy perennials, native plants, nectar sources and host plants for pollinators as well as trees that flourish in the River Region.
Not only is this an historic part of Prattville, many weddings and other celebrations take place within the garden that the Master Gardeners keep era correct and picture perfect ready.
Some members, Henley explained, don’t get their hands in the soil and if someone is interested there is a job for everyone. This can be through outreach and talking to people at Home Depot for the Ask a Master Gardener on Saturday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon or being a treasurer for the local organization.
“You’re not expected to do everything and there’s some people that don’t even get into the soil or plant because maybe they have a handicap. So, we find places, jobs or things that other people can do that they might not necessarily do in the soil,” Henley said.
The Autauga Master Gardeners have numerous other outreach programs including the Ask a Master Gardener at Home Depot Saturday mornings, Lunch & Learn, community education programs, youth programs, a helpline for gardening issues March- November, and many more.
One thing the Autauga Master Gardeners is known for is their booklet called The Gardening Buzz for Autauga County, which actually received the Reach for the Stars Excellence Award at the 2024 conference, Henley confirmed. The Gardening Buzz will be available for a purchase of $5 at the annual Autauga Master Gardeners Plant Sale on April 27.
“I love to help people find something that they like to do and are happy doing. I love finding that niche that just kind of places them in something that makes them happy. I also like to challenge people, because I don’t want it to be my association, I don’t want it to be the clique of four officers association. I have a very broad board and I think there’s 15 people all together, because I want to know what they think,” Henley said.
