Gardener Offers Bumper Crop of Info
By Lou Ann Ruark, Special Features Writer
Tulsa World

Remember the Mother Goose rhyme that asks "Mary Mary, quite contrary...?" how her garden grows?

Though she's not contrary, Mary Bolack can tell you how her garden grows-and much more. The Tulsa horticulturist has systematically unearthed and filed information covering practically every conceivable gardening situation, ranging from integrated pest management to topiary trimming.

Now, she is ready to offer that bumper harvest of knowledge to those who seek it.

During and after training in the Tulsa County Extension Service's Master Gardener program a few years ago, Bolack decided there was a need for accessible, complete garden information, all in one place. So she proceeded to do something about it.

She spent nearly three years searching out and collecting a database of horticultural documents from thoughout the United States and parts of Canada. The result is a ready-to-market compact disc called "The Ultimate Gardening Tool."

"Something like this will fill a real need. We are happy to have it," said Christine Scheck, manager of Tulsa Garden Center's Gallery of Gifts.

The CD backs up Bolack's conviction that "the ultimate gardening tool is good information, so you can do the job right the first time."

Subtitled "A Searchable Reference Collection," the program contains more than I2,000 pages of horticultural information. It includes 3,000 documents from more than 60 sources Bolack said her goal was to build a broad, practical collection of horticultural information of the highest quality.

Her "ultimate" source, she said, was the nationwide Cooperative Extension Service and the land grant institutions-such as the Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension Office here - that are a part of it.

"We all owe thanks to the Cooperative Extension Service," she said. "Nearly every county in this country has a county agent, or several agents. They are really the unsung heroes of the agriculture community.

"They are a remarkable breed of public servant. I hope this (CD) will get a lot more of their documents into the hands of the people for whom they were written."

She said that other documents she used were from internet servers of private foundations, plant societies and various other government and private entities.

Although equipped with an agriculture degree in horticulture from Kansas State University, the divorced mother of two has earned her living the past 13 years selling insurance through Benefit Specialists, an agency she owns with partner Janet Coatney.

Privately, she satisfied her garden itch by building a small greenhouse on the back of her home, and by raising a variety of flowers and vegetables.

"My interest in gardening was reawakened when I took the Master Gardener's program through the extension service in Tulsa," Bolack said. She was an active member of the Tulsa group for five years. During that time. she happened to see a gardening CD put out by the University of Florida.

"I wanted to put together a horticulture reference that not only contained a really broad base of high quality information, but also was organized in such a way you could get to it fast" she said. The Master Gardener Foundation here helped Bolack get started. "Otherwise, I might never have done it," she said

When the foundation dropped the project, Bolack said she started it over on her own.

Along with sources such as the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Park Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she also gathered information from specialty groups such as the Baltimore Bird Club, the Vancouver (B.C.) City Farmer Program, The Lawn Institute, various botanical societies and wildflower study centers.

"Many of them (federal government information bulletins and pamphlets) were on-line," Bolack said. "The internet is a feast for a gardener."

Inputing the information took about two hours per page, Bolack said and before arriving at the final form for "The Ultimate Garden Tool," she went through nine versions. She plans to update with a new-version every year. She boasts a justly-earned callus on her "mouse" finger.

Bolack credits many Oklahomans, including the reference librarians at the Tulsa City-County Library, who helped her learn document management of programs, and Margie Cooper of OSU, who put the cooperative fact sheets on line.

"Oklahoma (OSU) has terrific fact sheets," Bolack said. "The most fun part of the project was getting to know the people I met during this process. The gardeners who do this kind of work are particularly eager to share their knowledge."

Bolack said that as far as she knows, no one else has compiled this type of reference from the kind of material she used to create "The Ultimate Garden Tool."

"The Ultimate Gardening Tool" is categorized in digital folders and databased into the PageKeeper document management program. Documents can be viewed in their original form. Roughly half of the documents were imput with a scanner, so those can be seen either in text or their image format. The other half is in text form only. Once the needed information has been located -- via a search word -- all or part of the information can be printed or faxed directly out of the program.

"You just can't mess it up," Bolack said.

The software she used is copyrighted by the Caere Corp. Bolack's son, David, is in charge of marketing the CD.

For more information, call Bolack at 438-6569 or visit the website at http://www.hortsoft.com. For e-mail support: mbolack@hortsoft.com with SUPPORT in subject line.


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