Everyone has a story, and Carol Brown is no exception. I was fortunate enough to spend an hour with her recently and learned that she not only has stories, she has sage advice to share with new trainees. Carol\u2019s garden journey began almost three decades earlier when she purchased her first home in Hillsboro, Oregon. Her mother moved up from Texas, and together they set out to tackle the landscaping. They worked together on the project, beginning with a simple hardscape plan, plant selection,and layout. Removing all the grass to make way for drought tolerant native plants was her number one priority. Carol\u2019s mother grew up in Germany and nannied in Great Britain, enrolling in horticultural training along the way. Carol, too, wanted to learn more about gardening, but like many new MGs decided to defer that dream until retirement. She achieved that dream, becoming certified in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carol joined the Air Force right out of high school and served for eight years as an air traffic controller. Afterward, she returned to school at Embry Riddle Aeronautic University and was recruited to work for Evergreen Airlines headquartered in McMinnville. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She worked overseas in Hong Kong and was able to travel to many countries that the airline served, further broadening her perspectives. She returned to school to study GIS and transitioned into software development and large enterprise software implementation<\/p>\n\n\n\n
as a project manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast forward 25 years. While they were still working, she and her husband Doug designed and built a new home on a steeply-sloped half acre in White Salmon. Driving home on weekends<\/p>\n\n\n\n
but not living there full-time made landscaping a daunting task. The garden had to be designed and built from the compacted bare ground up, which offered plenty of freedom but also challenges and a steep learning curve. Since she didn\u2019t want to spend every weekend weeding, she used a lot of landscape fabric to deter the weeds. She worked with a knowledgeable local landscape designer to select the foundation plants for the garden. As the project progressed, she \u201ccarved out\u201d barrier-free islands for more native and regionally-specific plantings with the goal of eventually eliminating the landscape cloth altogether. The back area is largely xeriscaped with rock and native plants and is continually evolving. Carol and Doug also built<\/p>\n\n\n\n
an enclosed vegetable garden and have 4 raised beds and two ground level beds which, unfortunately, turned out to be located in a \u201cwind tunnel\u201d, cementing her desire to join CGMGA and learn more about microclimates, sun availability, and all things garden-oriented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their home was the last built in the neighborhood and the empty lot provided the main thoroughfare for the daily roamings of deer, raccoons and the occasional bear. She dreams of their next home and landscape project where she can apply all the information learned<\/p>\n\n\n\n
over the years from her current and previous home. Carol is a lifelong learner who embraces any opportunity to learn and discover new things. She describes the Master Garden program as one that\u2019s steeped in learning opportunities, but at the same time offers camaraderie and a sense of community. She loves being engaged in something bigger than herself, which may explain her dedication to the FISH food bank garden. As a newly-minted MG, she dabbled in various garden projects before settling with FISH, finding it to be a natural fit for her. She came to the garden with experience acquired from working at the White Salmon food bank and food banks in other locations. Carol enjoys helping others\u2013 folks who are disenfranchised, experiencing food insecurity, or who don\u2019t have the opportunities with which she is blessed. She puts in long hours at FISH and is the driving force behind the compost and vermiculture programs there. Like her garden, they are constantly evolving and offer opportunities for personal growth and knowledge. When she\u2019s not participating in MG activities and projects, Carol and Doug enjoy most human-powered activities like mountain, road, and gravel biking, biking, backpacking, and water sports. She says water is her \u201chappy place\u201d and she enjoys kayaking and SUP. Recently the couple decided to pursue yet another activity: golf. In recent years, many golf courses have made strides in sustainability, and in many locations provide a sanctuary for birds and wildlife, softening her initial opinion of the sport. Asked what advice she had for new trainees, Carol offered the following: When you have a full-time job and a family, it can be difficult to put in the time and energy needed to fulfill the program requirements. The volunteer time commitments are significant, but the rewards and opportunities for new friendships made are priceless if you allow it to happen. The growth and benefits really start to happen after certification. As you continue the program year after year, the fun really begins. You\u2019re no longer a newbie. You\u2019re not just a certified Master Gardener, you\u2019re a certified \u201clearner, curiosity-seeker, and giver of time\u2013the most important gift of all\u201d. Everyone<\/p>\n\n\n\n
has a story. Take Carol\u2019s advice and get to know someone better. Learn their story. Who knows? You may find it to be a bestseller!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written by Anne Gehrig<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Everyone has a story, and Carol Brown is no exception. I was fortunate enough to spend an hour with her recently and learned that she not only has stories, she has sage advice to share with new trainees. Carol\u2019s garden journey began almost three decades earlier when she purchased her first home in Hillsboro, Oregon. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlights"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1235,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/1235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}