Q&A with new extension agent Matthew McKernan
Matthew McKernan – or Matt, he doesn’t care which – is the new county extension horticulture agent for ornamental plants and turf, taking the place of Bob Neier, who retired this week. McKernan is 22 years old. A Wichita native who just graduated from Kansas State University, he grew up in horticulture, the son of Botanica garden supervisor Pat McKernan.
What’s your favorite garden spot in Wichita?
I would probably have to say it’s Botanica. It’s where I grew up and where I got a lot of my experience and first was introduced to horticulture. It’s a special place to me. There are many out there that I love to visit. Next to Botanica, a couple of the clients that I worked for have amazing backyards. Those are really cool to me too. A couple of them I built from the ground up. There’s one in my neighborhood in particular, she has over an acre backyard, so when I was doing landscaping we sprayed the grass and turned over half her yard into mulched flower beds and things like that and did all kinds of stonework.
You’ve traveled, too. Is there any specific spot in the world you’ve particularly loved?
I love the tulip fields of Holland and the Netherlands – that was so cool to get to visit. They grow plants like we grow crops like wheat. There’s a greenhouse there I’ll never forget: It was fully automated. Humans touch the plants like four to five times in the entire lifespan of the the plant in the greenhouse. Otherwise it flies by on conveyor belts or is picked up by claws, and each plant has a bar code and so the computer tracks it every step of its life so they can tell you what point in the greenhouse it’s in. The horticulture world is so much bigger than we know.
Is there anything that is unique to Wichita horticulturally: We have this that you don’t see anywhere else?
Again, Botanica. I always come back to that but … since I grew up in a horticulture family, our vacations when I was young was going to visit another botanical garden in a different state. So I’ve seen quite a few. To be able to get the amount of annual color and tulip color, you don’t see that in a lot of the gardens across the world. …
I really like the natural, native kind of prairie plants, coneflowers, things like that, so it’s really interesting to go to all these places and see how the plant material relates back to here in Wichita, and kind of the Midwest prairie region. So I went to New York a couple weeks before I started (the new job), and they have a park there called High Line Park, and it’s three stories up, and so much of that is prairie plants. And so it’s really cool to see three stories up in New York City that has the plants of Kansas growing out there. I think sometimes it’s underappreciated the plants we have here in Wichita.
What is your favorite area of horticulture?
Irrigation is one of the areas of horticulture that really interests me … I feel within my lifetime and the generations to come that that’s going to be the biggest topic in horticulture is water and water conservation, water quality, because not only are we going to have more water restrictions that require us to be more water-wise and water-conservative, but there are so many brand-new technologies out there to help more efficiently apply water. … So many people now can control their systems from their smartphones. The landscape companies that manage them can watch them from their smartphones. It’s incredible really to see how far we’ve come.
Is there a particular flower you like?
For an annual, lantana is one of my favorites. I love how well it does in the heat and the drought here, and it’s always full of color, and there’s so many colors you can go with.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I still love to be outdoors, anything outdoorsy. I love photography, especially nature photos. I do some photography for my family for senior pictures and stuff like that, so that keeps me busy. I like hunting and fishing, pheasant hunting.
Family’s really important to me. I have a big extended family and so love to spend time with them, and we play cards and board games and that kind of stuff.
Has your dad given you any advice?
He’s just excited for me, proud of me that I’ve got a position like this.
What most excites you about your new job?
The opportunity to make new network connections, to be able to meet all these new people, not only the master gardeners that I’ll be working with but the horticulture agents across state, all the landscape businesses … horticulture businesses in Sedgwick County. … There’s so much we can learn from other people and new ideas we can bounce off of people and get inspiration from.
Anything surprised you yet that you’ve learned?
It’s been really rewarding to work with some of the people that come in with questions about their trees or things like that and they’re so relieved to find their tree is not gonna die, it just has oak vein gall disease or something like that. That it’s OK. They don’t need to cut down their tree.
Is there anything you most want to teach people or convey to them about gardening that you particularly appreciate or value?
Mulching is one of those things that I think is very important because it not only helps conserve water but helps to reduce weeds, so if it’s done right it can be very helpful to gardeners.
What’s your favorite mulch?
I just like the good old wood chip mulch.
Like cedar?
Cedar. I’m not really a fan of the painted mulches.
Reach Annie Calovich at 316-268-6596 or acalovich@wichitaeagle.com. Follow her on Twitter: @anniecalovich.
Bob Neier’s last official look at the landscape
Extension agent Bob Neier retired this week, so we asked him for one last check-up of the collective landscape beforehand, especially as it relates to the rapid drop in temperatures that threatened to hurt so many plants last November.
“It hasn’t taken out as many as we thought it might,” Neier said. The things most at risk were things that were tender anyhow, he said. Crape myrtles, butterfly bushes and blue mist spireas often froze to the ground, but most have bounced back fine after having their dead wood taken off down to the ground.
We’re on the northern edge of where Chinese pistache do well, and a few of them died from the cold snap, Neier said. Many roses and golden privets and Japanese maples also froze back. Where privets were cut down to the ground, they’re growing like weeds now; where they were not, only half the plant may have leafed out, Neier said.
At this point, remove the dead areas of any plant back to where the plant is growing well. “You’re not going to get something brown to leaf back now. Go ahead and get it cut. Then ask yourself, do I still like the shape of the plant.” If not, it’s time to try something new. Just like Neier is doing.
The Japanese maples that froze back generally are ones that had been fertilized late into the season last year and were lush with all their leaves on them when the sudden freeze hit, Neier said. It’s a reminder to stop fertilizing in August so that plants start going dormant and losing their leaves naturally heading into winter.
This story was originally published July 2, 2015 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Q&A with new extension agent Matthew McKernan."