Clinton County OSUE Master Gardeners have been partnered with Habitat for Humanity Clinton County since 2010, when we first established a program for foundation planting for each new Habitat home established. Clinton County Master Gardeners are a part of The Ohio State and County Extension program.

Habitat Home recipients are required to invest many hours working on other’s homes and on their own, as well as attend mandatory classes deemed necessary to qualify to start their build. They purchase the home and have a mortgage paid to Habitat for Humanity of Clinton County. This is all managed by the Habitat for Humanity organization. They invite the Clinton County Master Gardeners annually to their Fall Harvest Dinner.

Clinton County Master Gardeners felt that a great volunteer community service opportunity existed in the education of outdoor gardening and assisting in planning and planting a new owner’s front foundation.

Each Habitat homeowner sometimes is new to outdoor gardening and are given the opportunity to communicate their vision and desires for their outdoor space prior to design and plant selection. Clinton County OSUE Master Gardeners work with each new owner and discuss home vegetable gardening, home fruit trees and shrubs, front landscaping and maintenance and care of the plants chosen though owner meetings, landscape layout drawings and care instructions.

Because it works best to install landscape after final grading, sidewalk, and driveway installation is accomplished, many plantings are late in the fall. The benefit of this is that the fall plantings are in the ground and have a greater growth success. Though there are also successful spring plantings.

This volunteer program is covered by fund raisers like our annual community spring vegetable plant sale and plant discounts by our local plant garden centers, as Lowe’s and other great local garden centers.

We have just finished planting one of the newly-completed HH homes and the picture with the article is of some of our great MG volunteers. The new home owners are also hands-on in assisting in their new plantings. It has been an honor to serve the Clinton County community for the last 13 years and continue to assist in establishing our Habitat for Humanity families.

We are volunteers…. here to serve and give educated advice. Moving forward, we may make changes to how we implement this process. It will always be successful if one thing is kept in mind:

“Nothing would be done at all if we waited until we could do it so well no one could find fault with it.” — John Hancock