Even though Hurley Park is a park, we consistently get questions from the public about hours, plant information, and how to book the park for events. Of course, those are the easy questions but we also get additional ones when visitors want to gain more knowledge. Here are a few that we received recently that may help answer some questions other readers are thinking about.

Question: I am not a very good gardener, but I love seeing all of the plants and blooms at Hurley Park. Do you provide any training for the public?

Answer: We will sometimes host tours of the park and give general horticulture information to the public. If you would like to schedule a tour/program, please contact our office at 704-638-4459. However, if you want to learn more, there are some great programs that are held in the county that can help teach you more about horticulture such as the Extension Master Gardener program. To find out more information, please visit their website at www.rowan.ces.ncsu.edu or call their office at 704-216-8970.

Question: Where do you get your horticulture training, and how do you stay up to date on diseases and plant problems?

Answer: We are always asked what kind of education or experience do we need to run the park. Although I have a degree from N.C. State University, many do not realize how many changes happen in the horticulture world. It seems like one minute a pest/disease is wreaking havoc on the plant world and then the next minute, it is a new hot topic. In botany, it can be ever-changing as well; one year you have a specific class of plants and then within five years, that class has been broken up or changed into a new classification. Science is constantly evolving and new pests/plants are being discovered, so you never know what is going to be the new thing from year to year.

To stay up to date with all of this, you have to attend training. A really good program that happens every year in January is the Green and Growing Show in Greensboro. This is a great way to see what is going on in the horticulture world, and our office tries to attend it every year. Another great program that is fairly close is the Davidson Horticulture Symposium that happens in March.

Question: What do you all do during the winter? It doesn’t seem like a lot needs to be done during that time, so I wondered what you do all day.

Answer: Contrary to the belief that there is no gardening in the winter, Hurley Park is active throughout all of the seasons. Winter is the perfect time to prune, weed and plant spring blooming bulbs (planting them preferably in late fall, early winter). Just because the park consists of plants, shrubs and trees, we still have routine maintenance that happens every day such as clean up, picking up trash and then our regular gardening chores. We will also occasionally have a major project throughout the seasons. We have some key tasks coming up that we will write about that are significant for the park in the next month or so.

If you have questions about Hurley Park, please contact us by email, phone or through our social media. For more information and to donate to Hurley Park, please visit: https://salisburync.gov/Government/Parks-and-Recreation/Parks/Hurley-Park, like us on Facebook and Instagram @HurleyParkSalisbury. or call us at 704-638-4459.