BRISTOL, R.I. -- June 21, 2002 -- Homeowners and gardeners in the East Bay now have a convenient way of diagnosing their diseased plants or identifying pest insects in their gardens. The University of Rhode Island’s Plant Protection Clinic has just opened a satellite facility at the Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum in Bristol.

Funded by a grant from the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, the URI and Blithewold collaboration will serve as a model for future efforts to establish additional satellite facilities around the state.

URI’s Plant Protection Clinic was established in 1975 to provide expert advice to gardeners and green industry professionals in diagnosing diseased plants, shrubs and turf and identifying pest insects. Because of its location on URI’s Kingston Campus, it was inconvenient for East Bay residents to deliver plant samples for diagnosis. The new Blithewold facility resolves that issue and allows URI to disseminate information about disease and pest management to a much wider audience.

The URI-Blithewold satellite Plant Protection Clinic is housed in the Carriage House, a newly dedicated educational facility on the Blithewold grounds. The clinic includes a dissecting microscope, a reference library, a computer with high-speed Internet access, and a web camera and digital camera for transmitting images of clinic specimens to the URI main campus. Blithewold Interpretive Horticulturist Marion Murray staffs the clinic with the guidance of David Wallace, director of URI’s clinic in Kingston.

Samples may be mailed to the clinic anytime, along with a $10 fee per sample, or they can be delivered during Blithewold’s open hours, Wednesday-Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The clinic is staffed on Tuesday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon. For additional information, call Murray at 401-253-2707 ext. 16 or visit the Blithewold website at www.blithewold.org/plantclinic.htm.

For Information: Marion Murray 401-253-2707, David Wallace 401-874-2967, Todd McLeish 401-874-7892