Public garden projects on hold

    Murphy – Tom Benecke is working from home like many people – his work, though, is taking care of more than 100 plants meant for the River Walk and Cherokee County Historical Museum.
    Benecke is project coordinator for the county’s Master Gardeners program. He had planned to spend this month leading the group’s volunteers in preparing and planting gardens full of native plants at the footbridge of the River Walk and in front the museum by the bear statue. But when the state Extension office asked program participants to eliminate in-person contact, it put those plans on hold.
    So plants for those projects were delivered to his house, where he’s spending about 15 minutes each day making sure they stay healthy and are watered. For the River Walk, there are 82 plants, including black-eyed Susans, goldenrod and beard tongues. For the museum, there are 30 plants, including false indigo, butterfly weed, and coneflower. Some plants for the museum were used by the Cherokee, Benecke said.
    He’s not the only volunteer from the group taking care of plants; others are taking care of seedlings the group planned to sell at the Andrews Spring Fling and Murphy Spring Festival. Gloria Edwards is tending to 94 plants, including herbs, fruits and vegetable seedlings. The group’s president, Nola Cooper, said they may still have a plant sale in late May or early June, if allowed.
    Even though all their projects are on hold, the Master Gardeners have continued meeting through Zoom, voting on items by using forms on their website.
    For the gardens, they were planning to start the preparation work in late March, but will be doing it either late this month or early May, probably with one big work day. Benecke said they usually get an early start because April has high potential for rain.
    Fortunately, some work – the removal of shrubs – was completed by town employees. For details, visit ccmastergardeners.com.