The Seedling November-December 2015

The Seedling
The Gainesville
Garden Club
Volume 3, Number 2
In This Issue
President’s Message
State of the Garden Center
Fall Dist. V Meeting Dist. 9 Flower Show
State of the Garden Center
GGC Can Make a Difference
Circle News
Horticulture
Fun with Flowers
Camellia Garden Day
BOD Action
In Our Thoughts
Florida Federation
of Garden Clubs
November/December 2015
Jasmine Circle Hosts GGC Combined Meeting:
2
2
2
2
2
3
4
5
6
6
6
6
Looking Ahead at GGC
•
BOD Meeting
9:30 AM Thursday, November 12
•
Fun with Flowers
10:00 AM Tuesday, November 17
•
Circle Meetings
Thursday, November 19
•
Combined Circle Meeting
Thursday, November 19
6:00 PM for dinner; 6:15 PM for program
•
BOD Meeting
9:30 AM Thursday, December10
•
Fun with Flowers
10:00 AM Tuesday, December 15
•
Circle Meetings December 17
GGC Mission Statement
Members of the Gainesville Garden Club are
special people who appreciate the importance of friendships while they promote the
beauty in nature, stimulate a knowledge and
love of gardening and design, aid in the protection of birds, butterflies and native plant
material, and participate in civic and environmental responsibilities.
Our Florida Springs
Thursday November 19 at 6:00 PM
Florida contains over 1,000 artesian springs. Most of these springs suffer
from reduced water flow and nitrogen pollution, which is detrimental not
t
only to Florida’s beautiful springs, but also to the rivers where they discharge
and to Florida’s drinking water supply - the Floridan Aquifer - which is their
source of water. Debbie’s presentation will discuss the environmental and
economic benefits of springs, the factors
that affect them, and ways in which
springs can be protected.
Our speaker, Debbie Segal is an environmental scientist who has worked on wetlands, water quality improvement, and
habitat restoration projects throughout
Florida. She has a BS degree in Soil Sciences and a MS degree in Environmental Engineering Sciences, both from the
University of Florida. She has worked
as environmental scientist for over 25
years. Debbie recently helped design the
City of Gainesville’s newest environmental park - the Sweetwater Wetlands Park.
Now open to the public, the Sweetwater
Wetlands Park improves water quality of treated wastewater and stormwater
before discharging the water to Paynes Prairie. Debbie is active in the Alachua Audubon Society. She is also a volunteer for the non-profit, Howard
T. Odum Florida Springs Institute, where she advocates for protection and
restoration of Florida’s springs.
RSVP to :
Carol Livingood if attending for dinner - $7.00 may be paid at the door
Dinner will be served at 6:00PM.
If only attending the presentation-arrive no later than 6:15PM.
Holiday Greetings to All
1
President’s Message
District V Fall Meeting
It was my pleasure to attend the gardenia
circle’s fundraising event “sisterhood of the
traveling plants” on november 5th. The
gardenia ladies did a wonderful job planning every aspect of
the event and the speakers were informative and funny. It
was so nice to see over 80 members and friends supporting
the event and enjoying each other’s company.
Nine GGC members attended the District V meeting on Thursday, October 22nd which was hosted by
the Garden Club of Crystal River. We learned about a
number of programs and projects from FFGC leadership and Garden Club presidents. GGC was presented
the FFGC president’s pin for community service work
with Habitat Women Build and a certificate for participating in the NGC’s “Making A World of Difference”
photography contest.
As i drove home, i could not help but think how nice
it would be if ggc had as good an attendance at its club
meetings. Why aren’t members attending ggc events? Is
it because many ggc members are getting older and are not
able to attend as many as they would like to? Does ggc offer
programs and workshops that interest members? Or, are
members choosing to be more involved in their circles than
in the club?
Northern Florida Flower Show
On September 25th, the Bartow Public Library was the site
of a standard flower show billed as All We Need.
The two catagories being judged were Artistic and Horticulture. All entries were made by Florida Garden Club judges
and they were also the judges. We have our own Margaret
Chodosh to congratulate having received a blue ribbon in
the Artistic Division for Class 1 Start ‘Em Young Children’s
Programs at the Library. We are proud of the work Margaret
does.
Though it is important for members to support their circles,
it is just as important that they support the club and its
meetings. Supporting club fundraising activities is also vital
to help raise funds to maintain the facilities and grounds as
well as to pay for utilities, equipment, general upkeep, insurance and the community service projects ggc supports.
I encourage each circle chairman discuss with their members
ways that the club can get members interested, motivated
and excited about the various club activities. We welcome
suggestions and opportunities to improve.
— Sandra arnold, President
The State of the Garden Center
Financial Report
For September and October, rental income was $6,508 and
net proceeds from the Garage Sale and the Garden Tour
was $5,159. Operating expenses totaled $7,562 resulting in
net operating income of $4,105 for the two month period.
(Dues and donations are excluded.)
Building
Bob Kline has agreed to help Clubhouse Committee members
with rental set up. clean up and general upkeep a custodian is
hired. Carl Cline has agreed to do this when Bob is not available.
The Clubhouse Committee is gathering bids on work to update the Main Building such as new lighting fixtures & changing over to LED lighting, painting the ceiling and the sound
system, etc. Members are encouraged to attend the November
18th Membership Meeting at 10 AM to hear more about the
proposed changes and provide their input and ideas.
The Clubhouse Committee, chaired by Betty Anderson,
reports that rentals have increased 35% since June. Committee members have also volunteered over 750 hours setting up,
cleaning up and covering most rentals since September and
have saved the club over $2,000.00 in custodian fees.
2
Grounds
Special thanks to those who help us keep the grounds, we
continue to get compliments.
We would like to put in new plants to give us winter color
in some areas (that the deer won’t eat). If you have any ideas
let us know.
Our fall work day is planned for Monday November 30
from 9 until noon. Join us (bring your hand tools).
We will have coffee and muffins.
Thank you for all you do for us!!!
— Lorene Junkin
Gainesville Garden Club Can Make A Difference
We have the opportunity to make a significant positive influence in our community. Jasmine Circle has set the mark, provided
leadership and welcomed other circles to contribute their time, energy and funds to these various projects. Let’s do all we can!
Ronald McDonald House
Secret Garden Tour
Members of Jasmine Circle conquered the task of renovating
the front entrance of the Ronald McDonald House on behalf
of the GGC. It was a hot day in November and required
heavy physical labor to plant 30 large aloe donated from
the Schoellhorn’s beautiful yard and 180 pansies purchased
by all club circles. Begonia’s
were moved to another area
frequented by RMH families
for their enjoyment. Finally
two yards of fresh mulch were
carefully spread amongst the
new plantings. Thanks to
Blooming House Nursery
for donating one yard and to
Jasmine Circle for donating
the remaining mulch. Circles
should continue to visit the
area on your specified month
preferably around the 15th to pull weeds and water if necessary.
Please let the front desk know you are there so they can
document hours and ask for Gerald to get you the hose!
Many thanks go to the following volunteers without whom
this could not have been done:
• Gardens on the tour – Leslie Roseman and Michelle
Jensen and for their friends who also allowed us to tour
their gardens.
• Hostesses – headed up by Fran Maris – Margaret Chodosh, Judy McCullough, Nancy Loeper, Anne Marie Mattison, Kathy Concannon, Nicole Levy, Carol Binello.
• Publicity and food – Sandra Arnold. Baskets – Cydney
Wade and Ruby Parker and all the Circles for contribuing.
• Plant sale – Alan and Ellen Shapiro of Grandiflora for
providing plants at wholesale and to Florence Cline.
• Linda Schoelhorn and Inez Brooker for sales.
• Betty Anderson and the Clubhouse Committee and to all
who assisted in setting up and cleaning afterwards.
• Special thanks to Ellen Shapiro for coordinating everything and making this a successful tour!
This very succesful project was held on Oct 17, 2015. Net
proceeds were $2,340 which will be split 75% for Women
Build-Habitat for Humanity and 25% for Garden Club building improvements.
Another opportunity to benefit Ronald McDonald House, is
the Gingerbread House Event, Friday, Dec. 4 11:30AM-3PM.
GGC will have a table in the registration area to represent
the club. Each circle could decorate two wreaths for sale. All
embellishments would be donated by the circle. Sale prices
would actually be just a donation to the RMH. All proceeds
benefit ongoing front entrance beautification. Will need a few
club members to help on that day.
Habitat Women’s Build
Habitat Women’s Build is breaking ground on a new house . If
your circle is interested in volunteering to make some lunches
for the construction volunteers contact Ellen Shapiro. Lunch
usually serves an average of 20 people each Saturday and can
consist of asandwich, fruit, chips and cookies. Some people
order pizza and sub sandwiches for them. It’s up to you. More
details when the lunch schedule is drawn up. By the end of our
club year there will be the installation of plants again for the
house by Jasmine Circle. If your circle would like to supply
any of the tools the homeowner will need such as hoses, rakes,
and gloves that would be great too.
3
Enthusiastic participants on tour.
Lunch provided at the Garden Center
NEWS
program by The Sisterhood of the
Traveling Plants. The Sisterhood,
Marilyn Smith and Cathy Snyder,
who demonstrate floral designs,
were enthusiastically received
by the guests. The Language of
Flowers, the theme of the program,
was taken from the book by the
same name. Their designs were
raffled off to 8 lucky people.
Butterfly Garden:
Gardenia Circle in November
Wildflower Circle in December
Amaryllis - Pauline Schochet.
Amaryllis circle annual pecan sale is coming to an end. We
expect the pecans to be available for pick-up on November
18th between 10:00AM and 2:00PM. We do have a few extra
pounds if you are interested please call Dotty. Thanks to
everyone who supported our fund raiser. We use the money to
support some of our community services.
Jasmine - Fran Maris.
The circle held it’s October meeting at the Veteran’s
Honor Center with a garden tour and speaker Erin Alvarez
elaborating on the topic of “Gardening like a Super Hero”.
Several Vets attended the talk and were inspired by Erin’s
words! Bill Copenhaver sold plants represented in the clubs
recent Garden Tour and donated a Clerodendrum wallichii
(Bridal’s Veil) to beautify the centers garden. Forty eight jars
used for horticultural therapy were donated on behalf of circle
members.
Fran Maris and Margaret Chodosh represented Jasmine at
the Florida Federation of Flower Show Judges meeting held
at the clubhouse. Speaker and Designer Mary Silas provided a
great demonstration using practical garden varieties of plants.
During the
month of October,
members beautified
the therapy garden
at Shands Rehab
Hospital.
Member Gail
Cook allocates her
time to deliver the
children’s and young
adult books donated
by all GGC circles
to the Acorn Clinic.
Please continue to bring them to your circle meetings through
December. Thanks Gail!
A huge thank you, as always, to Ellen and Alan Shapiro for
helping us with all of our club sponsored projects in providing
the most lovely plants. We just could not provide the level of
horticultural commitment to our community without them!!!
Seated left to right Charlotte Jeffrey, Alicia Churchill, Juanita
Harrison, Dorothy Maurer, Shirley Billings, Paula Strawn, Barbara Nunnery, Martha Gormally, Jackie Griffin, Sharon Sullivan,
Mary Jane Bizon
Begonia -. Lynnette Worley
Begonia Circle has had a busy fall season. We started in
September with a salad luncheon at the home of Inez Brooker.
In October we did service projects attending to the Butterfly
garden and Ronald McDonald house gardens. Lorene Junkin
led us in our upkeep of the Begonia Circle plot with new
Bubblegum petunias. Our circle meeting met at the home of
Mary Schindler with a program on wildflowers led by Lois
McNamara. November plans include a circle meeting with
Florence Cline presenting “Hyper-Tufa Pots” at her home. We
are also planning to decorate the Hope Lodge sitting area for
the holiday season.Lois McNamara organized putting 65 bags
of daffodil bulbs together for our upcoming fundraiser.
Our December meeting will be at the home of Lynnette
Worley for a Christmas lunch, followed by a plant gift
exchange. We will also each be bringing a wrapped toy which
we will be donating to an area Christmas toy drive.
Daisy - Peggy Billings
On October 29th. members visited the Veterans Honor Center
and were given a tour of the facilities (Building and Garden).
After learning of a need for a new printer and outdoor
barbecue grill, Daisy Circle will be donating $500.00 for the
purchase of these two items. What a meaningful endeavor has
been accomplished by Vianne Marquesa, (Daughter of our
member, Nancy Kirkland) we met at the Honors Center with
six members present. After a very informative tour, we had a
short business meeting and then we met for lunch at the Red
Onion with another member joining us.
Gardenia Circle - Fairlie Bagley.
Gardenia Circle has just completed a successful fund raiser
held at the Garden Center, it was a brunch with floral design
Mimosa Report - Janet Greene.
Mimosa members toured the new Sweetwater Wetlands Park
recently. We had an excellent ranger and naturalist that explained
the development of natural wetlands to treat the water that flows
into Paynes Prairie and the aquifer. We were all very impressed
with this city park and saw lots of interesting wildlife and aquatic
plants. Our business meeting was held at Peach Valley Cafe. A
donation was made to the city park’s departmentt. for the Invader
Raider Rally in Jan.
We voted to add a leaf on the memorial tree for our honorary
member, Jim Hentges. Jim hosted our Nov. meeting for the past
several years and was a dear friend to Mimosa Circle.
4
What’s Crawling in Your Yard?
At our Nov. meeting, we will be making poinsettia napkin holders
to be given to Hospice, Ronald McDonald House, and Alz’s Place.
They will also be used for our annual family holiday dinner..
We will be decorating wreaths and donating premie clothes to
Ronald McDonald House in Dec.
Wildflower - Lani Kirk
Wild!ower Circle visited the Honor Center and we had our
frst meeting of the year there. What a wonderful facility! We
had a fantastic tour and our circle noticed that new composters
were needed. As the Gainesville Garden Club had funds
specically set aside for the Honor Center, our Circle requested
some of the funds for two brand new composters. They are in
place and are very appreciated. Next, we had 3 members attend
the District V meeting.
Our second meeting took place at Peggy Caswell’s home.
We made stepping stones and at our meeting we decided to
purchase a membership in Forage Farms.
If you’re a vegetable gardener, chances are you’ve sometimes
seen holes on the leaves of your cabbages, Brussels sprouts,
broccoli or other plants in this family of brassicas. Almost
certainly, these holes are being made by some kind of caterpillar. The most common caterpillar on the brassicas is the
larva stage of the diamondback moth. There are some small
green cabbage worms that chew on these vegetable. Cabbage
loopers are another type of caterpillar that tries to make our
vegetables look lacy! What can you do?
1. Scout your garden daily. Once you see holes, look carefully on the underside of the leaves and hand pick any eggs or
caterpillars you find. Handpick – that means picking them
off with your fingers and squooshing them under your foot or
between your fingers! If you’re too squeamish, drop them into
a bucket of soapy water. That too will finish them off.
2, If there are too many caterpillars to limit damage, you can
use the biological treatment of Bt (Bacillus thurengensis). Bt
is a particular bacteria that only affects insects in their larval
(caterpillar) stage. Thus, it is organic. It is sold under the
names of Dipel or Thuridcide. It does not harm other insects
or animals and does not delay eating the vegetable
3. Another option that some gardeners report having success
with is using mulch around the vegetable plants; the mulch
hinders the caterpillars who may have spent the daylight hours
in the cool earth.
4. Row covers (very thin white cloth) can also be used. They
work by preventing the moths or butterflies from being able
to land and lay their eggs on the vegetable crop. Rain and sunshine can still make its way through the gauzy cloth.
What’s Blooming in Your Garden?
A few months ago, that talented Garden Club member Sharon
Curran gave me a lipstick plant (Aeschynanthus radicans) I
hung it in a dogwood trees and left it alone, possibly fertilizing
it once. It’s blooming now and the blooms are spectacular!
Its waxy green leaves cascade beautifully over the edge of the
pot. To me, the flowers look more like baby birds with their
mouths open squawking for food than they do a tube of
lipstick. I cut one sprig of flowers for an it lasted perfectly for a
week. So there’s another specimen for our floral designers to
use.
Finally, don’t fret over every little hole. Quite often, predators
such as trichogramma wasps arrive; they parasitize the eggs of
the caterpillar, but they do not sting. If the damage is limited,
the outer leaves of a can be discarded. Or once you’ve washed
them, a few holes on the leaves won’t cause the vegetable to
taste any worse than the intact leaves.
— Lois McNamara
By reading on line, I’ve learned that this plant will not tolerate
freezing temperatures, which is to be expected since it originated on the Malay Peninsula. It likes bright indirect light
and humidity. So I will be bringing this beautiful plant into
the pool area for the winter and covering it whenever we have
a frost predicted. For such beauty, I’ll be happy to do that.
Please note: If you have a prize plant in bloom or know of
some Garden Club member who does, please notify Mo
Dawson or Lois McNamara so we can feature that plant at its
Garden Club grower in an upcoming issue of The Seedling
— Lois McNamara
5
Fun with Flowers
BOARD
November 17th session of Fun with Flowers will feature Barbara Crevasse of Crevasses Florist Thornbrook Village. We
have 22 signed up for the day.
Next month’s designer will be Liz Shaw (the immediate past
state chairman for Fun with Flowers and nationally credited
flower show judge). It will be held on Tuesday, December
15th at 10:00AM. The fee remains $17.00.
— Lee Kline
•
•
Camellia Garden Day is Back
•
The response to last year’s Private Camellia Garden Day was so
great, that our hosts, Chuck and Bev Ritter, have invited the
Melrose Library Association to hold another garden visit on
December 13. The event is from noon to 4 p.m. Chuck , one
of the top camellia exhibitors in the nation, and his wife Bev
are growing almost 1500 camellias.
Linda Schoellhorn made a motion that the Board approve
75% of proceeds from the October 2015 Secret Garden
Tour be donated to Habitat for Humanity - Women Build
and 25% to Garden Club building improvements.Motion
was seconded and passed – 8 voting for and 7 against.
A motion was made and seconded to add a leaf with the
name of Camila Weems to the Memorial Tree. The fee to
be paid by GGC.
Appointments: President Sandra Arnold appointed Linda
Schoellhorn to the position of Parliamentarian and Rosalie Bond to By-Laws Chairman.
In Our Thoughts:
Betty Anderson is recovering from and facing multiple
medical proceedures but still manages to attend to our
club house rentals and maintanance.
Lucille Little is recovering from a serious fall sustained
while visiting her grandson.
Larry Rahme will again be selling camellia plants including
many hard-to-find varieties.
Besides touring the garden, there will be talks and demonstrations, silent auction, and cookie sale. This will be an opportunity to see varieties not in commerce and grown only a few
places. Entry is $5 per person. Golf carts will be available for
those needing assistance. Proceeds will support programs and
activities at the library.
The Seedling is the bi-monthly newsletter of the Gainesville
Garden Club in Gainesville Florida.
The Ritter’s address is 202 Mason Road. Mason Road is two
miles east of Melrose off State Road 26.
— Jean Giesel
Volume 3, Number 2
November/December 2015
Executive Board
President: Sandra Arnoold
First Vice President: Fran Maris
Second Vice President: Ruby Parker
Recording Secretary: Rose Kimlinger
Corresponding Secretary: Sue Peppers
Treasurer: Linda Schoellhorn
Are you a Super Sleuth
Will you be the first to find a typo or error in
dates, etc. in this issue? You could be the Super
Sleuth of the month. Please call or email <modawson898@
gmail.com>with your findings.
Newsletter Committee
Editor/layout: Maureen Dawson, Chair
Editors/readers: Sandra Arnold, Janet Greene, Lani Kirk,
Lucille Little, Lois McNamara
Deadlines will be announced in the Board Minutes. Articles
and photos with identification may be sent to any committee
member.
Email [email protected]
Phone 352.333.9661
6