Besides staffing booths at farmers’ markets, conducting free garden workshops, producing a cable television show, writing newspaper articles, and staffing a help desk to answer garden problems, Napa County Master Gardeners care for two small demonstration gardens.

One is at Logvy Park in Calistoga, the other at Connolly Ranch in Napa. These gardens are for the public to enjoy and to learn about gardening in our valley.

The Logvy Park garden is at the entrance to the Calistoga community park, so you can’t miss it. Work on the garden began in 2002, when two industrious Master Gardeners created a beautiful little garden where previously there had been hardpan soil and weeds. Hardpan really does mean that the dirt is as hard as a pan. That didn’t discourage Betty Wells, an expert at composting and vegetable gardening, or Ray Sittig. They literally dug right in and spent months preparing the beds.

Ray has a full-time career and a sizable garden of his own, but he spends a lot of time at Logvy Park, mending sprinkler lines, weeding, planting and grooming. Many of the plants come from his home garden, and he has an inventive way of finding tools and watering materials for little or nothing.

It was at the Logvy Park garden that I first discovered Verbena bonariensis. I call it the no-see-um perennial. Its low basal growth has tall slender stems topped by umbels of tiny lavender flowers. These flowers growing up through roses make a nice surprise for the visitor, and they attract honeybees.

These gardens were designed to familiarize the public with what grows well in Napa Valley, and to illustrate what these plants need in terms of light, space, water and type of soil. Because pesticides and herbicides are used as a last resort, most of the plants are pest and disease resistant.

Connolly Ranch is a perfect setting for our Napa public garden. Perched on a slight rise, the garden is open to the public on the first Thursday of every month, from 10 a.m. to noon, until October. It is located at the corner of Browns Valley Road and Thompson Avenue. Master Gardener volunteers are always present on these open-door Thursdays to answer your gardening questions. They work in the garden at other times, too, especially if the ever-present chickens, gophers and deer have helped themselves to breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Master Gardener Lance Mowrey, who took over head shovel duties from Master Gardeners Frank Spinelli and Floyd Loomis, oversees a small, devoted group of volunteers who have executed and expanded on the original plans. In 2002, my Master Gardener class donated rose bushes to the garden. Now they are tended by Lynne Andresen, a certified rosarian, and the roses are beautiful this year.

Other classes created an herb garden, a field testing plot, a butterfly garden, a Mediterranean garden, a lavender plot and more. One volunteer, Sloane Thomas, comes all the way from Gordon Valley each week to plant or pull weeds. Jodie Young, Shiela Brock, Ted Schoenberger and Paul Rogers round out the Connolly crew. Many of the plants have been donated or propagated by these volunteers.

Because this past spring was so beautifully fair, with only three or four days of rain, all the plants are looking incredibly healthy. There are no signs of rust or fungi, unlike last spring when we had more than 40 straight days of rain and the challenges that go with that.

Fertilizers, if needed, are usually organic, and compost is liberally mixed into the soil. The group has built an arbor to sit under to admire their hard work or to welcome the public. Garden art makes the venue even more inviting, and the presence of Connolly Ranch’s farm animals is an added bonus. Bring your morning coffee, come enjoy the garden with us, and learn about the right plants for your garden situation.

Contact Master Gardeners at the UC Cooperative Extension office, 1710 Soscol Ave., Suite 4, Napa, 253-4221, or toll-free at 877-279-3065. E-mail your garden questions by following the guidelines on their Web site www. master gardeners.org. Click on Napa, then on Have Garden Questions?