Dear Garden Club Members,
It’s beautiful, almost-spring-like today, and thanks to our March speaker, Christine Cook, I have been peering in my garden trying to identify various mosses. I’m not sure how correct I am but I do know that Christine has given me a new appreciation for the magical and other-worldly atmosphere mosses can lend to the garden.
I have many people to thank this month, starting with our gifted flower arrangers. Lisa Lovejoy put together a terrific floral challenge right before our March meeting. It was so much fun - it is simply astonishing how arrangements made with exactly the same components can be so very different. I hope this challenge is something we can look forward to again in the future. In addition, Lisa, Vicki Arkins and Betsy Hartmayer brought the club a red ribbon for their vignette in the class entitled “Bobber Bob’s Diner” at the Hartford Flower show. Also at the Harford show, Betsy won an honorable mention for her lovely tablescape. Finally, Lisa and Vicki, working together, won a blue ribbon at Green Finger’s Greenwich flower show, for a very creative design based on Sudoku. Thank you, Lisa, Vicki and Betsy, for representing our club so splendidly.
Also, many of our committees have been working hard behind the scenes. Jody Bush and her Membership Committee hope to have five new Provisionals to present at our annual meeting. The Nominating Committee, ably led by Nancy Ahlstrom, has finalized the slate and filled all positions for the upcoming year. Congratulations and a round of applause to both committees.
Although I will admit it is still a bit too early to start haunting local nurseries, I slake my plant-buying thirst by a little on-line and catalog shopping. I mentioned Brent and Becky’s in my last letter, but I also look for bulbs for spring and fall planting from the Old House Gardens, http://www.oldhousegardens.com, John Scheepers, http://www.johnscheepers.com, (and when I’m planning for large numbers, their whole-sale division Van Engelen, http://www.vanengelen.com) I turn to Select Seeds, http://www.selectseeds.com, in Union, Connecticut for unusual annuals and old-fashioned (i.e. scented) perennials and Brushwood Nursery, http://www.gardenvines.com/shop, for their vast selection of clematis and other climbers. For hard-to-find plants, I often turn to Forest Farm, http://www.forestfarm.com, and Plant Delights Nursery, http://www.plantdelights.com, but be aware the postage rates are somewhat daunting. And finally, whenever I receive a new catalog or see a site from which I’m thinking about ordering, I always check Dave’s Garden, http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd. The section of the site called Garden Watchdog rates mail order nurseries and has comments from other gardeners- I’ve found from checking Garden Watchdog that if an offer sounds too good to be true, it often is!
Hope to see you at The Trash Museum field trip on the 14th and maybe at a committee meeting or two.
Warm regards,
Susan
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