Growing Ornamental Grasses in Your Garden -Aug 3 Meeting

• Display Theme: Gorgeous Grasses, people’s choice award
• 50/50 draw
• Show and Tell ( share the delights and challenges of your garden )
• Workshop: sign up for paper making from plant material
• Canada 150 Commemorative Tulips -
• Last chance to order and pay for your tulips at the August meeting at a rate of $0.40 each. If you cannot attend the meeting, please contact Pat McGill to make alternate arrangements ( 849-4353 orpat.mcgill@bellaliant.net ).

Guest Speaker -

Jeff Morton, professor; grounds co‑manager

I have a great job because I just go out and do fun stuff all the time. I get to take care of the environment and build new things and work on research projects with students.

Back to his roots

 

Jeff Morton grew up across the street from Dal’s Agricultural Campus, then the Nova Scotia Agricultural College (NSAC). As a kid in the 70s, he watched as new buildings went up in the area.

“I learned to skateboard on the hills over at the Cox Institute. I played road hockey in those parking lots,” he remembers. “Where the Haley building is was…where we tobogganed. That whole thing was a beautiful slope, and it was a sheep pasture so we called it Sheep Hill.

“This was quite a place to have right beside you.”

Prof. Morton teaches in the Environmental Landscape Horticulture and Managed Landscapes programs. He’s also the campus grounds co-manager. At one time, he was an NSAC student.

After completing his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Ontario, Prof. Morton returned to Nova Scotia with his wife and three daughters in 1992. He’s worked in the public and private sectors, and he’s been with Dal’s Faculty of Agriculture for four years.

“I have a great job because I just go out and do fun stuff all the time. I get to…take care of the environment and build new things and work on research projects with students,” he says. “There’s such a student connection to what we do (with the grounds).”

One of Prof. Morton’s favourite courses to teach is Project Management, because it gives students the opportunity to create things that will become permanent features of the campus. He also enjoys teaching Plant ID, because he gets to turn otherwise dry material into something exciting for students.

“When you see the students’ eyes begin to open about something, that’s what makes it really great,” he says.

Students come into the Environmental Landscape Horticulture and Managed Landscapes programs conscious of the environmental aspect, Prof. Morton adds.

“They’re easy converts to…that whole side of what the landscape gives back to the environment or (how it) helps protect it,” he says. “This is all becoming really important today, managing water and things. We’re the interface between agriculture and the city…so that’s kind of an exciting place to be.”

The Faculty of Agriculture has a good relationship with Atlantic Canada’s horticulture industry, Prof. Morton says.

“My want is to raise the level of our horticulture…for the community, as well as the students. I think we have a lot of really interesting things here, and our next step (should) be to create a more formal botanical garden approach.

“What we’re about is…the natural environment…being more positive in what we leave there."