Members work in the Darden Mill Pollinator Garden, Randolph County

ELKINS — Members of the Randolph-Tucker County Master Gardeners (MG) stay quite busy spring through fall, both learning and gardening throughout their communities. The original Master Gardeners from Randolph and Tucker joined together in 2001.

Members from surrounding counties who do not have an organized MG association have been included to give them contact to the state association. They can do their volunteer work in their home counties, as well as, attend group meetings and projects in Randolph or Tucker. Thus, Master Gardeners are found working in the counties of Randolph, Tucker, Upshur and Pendelton.

Tucker County

Master Gardeners

This summer the Master Gardeners of Tucker County completed a refresh of the plantings around the sign that welcomes visitors to the town of Davis. Additionally they continued leading the “Edible Plant Hikes” popular in area state parks.

Entrance to Davis Sign

Another project was to maintain, update and add new perennials and annuals to the flower beds at the Fire Hall and the Barney Goodwillis Senior Center in Thomas. Pea gravel was added as a guide to the flagpole.

Master Gardeners led sessions for the grade school children of Energy Express at Tucker County High, including planting and cooking with strawberries, ramps, potatoes, corn basil and hardnecked garlic. The children participated in preparing and eating the food. These same sessions are also taught at nearby state parks and at the WV State Fair Master Gardener Demonstration Garden.

An ongoing project, the rehabilitation of the Canaan Valley Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center Native Gardens is currently in its third year. This year’s growing session has been successful in that a diversity of native flowers, grasses and shrubs have taken hold.

Upshur County

Master Gardeners

Welcome to Historic Sign in Downtown Elkins

In most counties there is often crossover of members from local garden clubs and Master Gardeners that team together for projects and outreach. This is so in Upshur County, where the Master Gardeners and the Fred Brooks Garden Club provide many gardening activities that engage children.

One such activity this year was the children of the Camp Buccaneer Garden Club were guided in planting beds of vegetables in the Community Garden of Buckhannon which will be later donated to the Upshur Parish House, a safe place where neighbors-in-need can get access to necessities they deserve.

Randolph County Master Gardeners

Randolph County Masters gardeners have taken on a variety of projects, which include a pollinator garden at the Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area/Darden Mill, another pollinator/wetlands garden at Glendale Park, reconfiguring a garden area around the Welcome to Elkins sign in front of the Frontier building at the north end of Davis Avenue and another welcome area along a major incoming highway to Elkins, working with students and staff of the Randolph County Youth Center to refresh and continue the garden at their facility and removing invasive plants and harvesting autumn olive at the picturesque area in Gladwin.

Master Gardeners also team with the GFWC Woman’s Club of Elkins to maintain a flower garden at the triangle plot on Route 33 East across from McDonalds. In addition, members were present at the local Farmers’ Market to sell plants and answer questions regarding gardening issues.

Sites Homestead

at Seneca Rocks

The Sites Homestead is at the base of picturesque Seneca Rocks. It is there that a small team, including the WVU Master Gardeners, work to to preserve the pioneer garden.

Always a work in progress, the heirloom plants being the focus, the WVU Master Gardener program has spent hours growing a nurturing everything from seed. The ultimate goal is is to preserve the past garden, and give visitors a sense of what is would be like to live in a remote and beautiful place, fully dependent upon the success of hard work.

Master Gardener Learning Experiences

All Master Gardeners of the area had the opportunity to learn by onsite field trips through the spring, summer and early fall of 2025. At each location the resident gardeners/farmers/professionals presented information pertinent to that location visited.

Field trips included the following: two trips to Tilly Beans Garden with Adam Kramer to see beautiful presentations of hooded iris and day lilies and learn about Hugelkultur, a German technique for creating raised bed; a visit to the George Myles Experimental Forest, a teaching area created by Davis and Elkins College, led by Davis and Elkins College Professors, Melissa Shockey and Dr. Crystal Krause; native plant identification on the Riffee farm at Cherry Fork with specialist John Burkhart; Shady Grove Botanicals with Ed and Carol Daniels, a small, family business that grow wild native ginseng and select forest botanicals; Highland Fungi Farm with Davis Metlock where step by step instructions were demonstrated how to grow fungi such as shiitake, lion’s mane, king oyster and blue oyster; the Charm Farm where tour guide and co-owner, Mike Kwasniewski, revealed the processes used as they produce organically grown vegetables in outside gardens and high tunnel greenhouses on Georgetown Road providing farm to table fresh products; and Melissa Thomas-VanGundy led Master Gardeners through the Fernow Experimental Forest where research has been conducted on the presence of running buffalo clover and the early trails of bison in WV.

Jody Carpenter, WVU Extension Agent, also provided a class on grafting apple trees and the scarecrow creation, Dinah Devine, stood tall in downtown Elkins Scarecrow event to represent all Master Gardeners.

GETTING INVOLVED

WITH THE PROGRAM

The Master Gardener program is a horticulture training and volunteer program run by university extension services throughout the nation. The Randolph-Tucker County Master Gardener Program is run and supervised by the Randolph County Extension Office located in Elkins. The program consists of online training classes that cover such areas as botany, diagnosis of plant problems, soils, ornamentals, pest management, fruits, vegetables and plant propagation. After the training program is completed and a test is passed, the individual becomes a certified Master Gardener. The Master Gardener then commits to a required number of volunteer hours of ongoing learning, teaching, mentoring and maintaining community gardens. If interested in becoming a Master Gardener you may call the WVU Extension Randolph County Office at 304-636-2455