2011 Awards Banquet. Published Monthly By The Garden Club of Austin. Austin Gardener

Transcription

1 1 n i t s u A r e n e d r Ga 2011 Awards Banquet December 2011 Published Monthly By The Garden Club of Austin Volume 48 Number 12

2 2 President s Message O Christmas Tree By the time you are reading this newsletter, we will already have had our Christmas Banquet on Thursday, December 1, and the Awards program. All who attended enjoyed an evening with wonderful food, visitation, reminiscing about the past year (and how fast it went), the really bad drought conditions for over a year now, and what a devastating affect it has had on our lawns, gardens, trees, and shrubs. Also on the program, was the installation of Officers and Board of Directors members for the New Year, Barry Lovelace, one of our past club presidents, did an impressive job of installing all the officers and new board members. Joe Colwell, awards chairperson, was in charge of the Awards Program. Certificates of Honor were given to Johanna Dickhut & Adam Preble, Laura Joseph, Christie Rodgers, Sandi Schmidt and Barry Lovelace. Certificates of Appreciation were given to Savanna Feyereisen Fraire,, Liz Stansfeld, Barry Lovelace, Dick Peterson and Norman Wagner. Awards were also presented to the June Flower & Vegetable Show winners. Sweepstakes-Sandi Schmidt Horticultural Excellence-Sandi Schmidt Queen of Show-Joe Colwell Princess of Show-Joe Colwell King of Show-Norman Wagner Club Cultivar Division I-Laura Joseph Club Cultivar Division II-Russell Kohlert The Bronze Plaque for Horticulture was awarded to Johanna Dickhut and the Bronze Plaque for Service was awarded to Wilburn F. Hackebeil. The beautiful poinsettias that were the table decorations were raffled off as door prizes. Another great year of gardening experiences for the Garden Club of Austin has ended. As we face the New Year, we know it also will hold many challenges, but hopefully we can all, working together, rise to the occasion and make it one of the best in our history! Happy New Year! Sincerely, Wilburn Awards Banquet photos are compliments of Carol Kay Johnson That time of year has rolled around and I had the pleasure this year to decorate the club s Christmas tree. For years, Barbara and Norman Wagner have had that enjoyment, and have done a beautiful job every year making the tree festive. Last year, they asked me if I would take that over. I thought, What fun! This will be easy and quick! I picked up few new ornaments to add to the existing ones. I had decided to use Sandi Schmidt s keen ornament design idea. The Fun part: Taking clear glass ornament balls and filing them with natural items from the yard. I made mine (club s) simply by filling them with different types of seeds and ball moss. The Easy: Had all the decorations from the Wagners and new ones boxed and ready to go. I had the correct dates and times for the setup. The Quick: It turned out it took a little longer than I thought it would. The green room was booked the day I went. I only had an hour to finish the tree and get out of the building. I quickly ran out of time, so I threw it all together and boy did it look like it! After thinking about it the next day, I went back to Zilker and spent a little more time finishing it. It looks a lot better, but next year I ll plan my time better and wish for elf Sandi s help. Marry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. Christie Note: Christie did a beautiful job of decorating our tree and she certainly didn t need anyone s help! (Editor) You re encouraged to submit articles of gardening interest for the newsletter. Send articles or news to brsch07@gmail.com. Submissions should be received by the first Monday after the last monthly meeting. Remember to give credit to your sources both in text and photos.

3 3 Club Awards Presented at December Banquet Bronze Plaque for Service Wilburn F. Hackebeil Bronze Plaque for Horticulture Johanna Dickhut Certificates of Honor Johanna Dickhut & Adam Preble Laura Joseph Sandi Schmidt Barry Lovelace Certificates of Appreciation Liz Stansfeld Barry Lovelace Dick Peterson Norman Wagner Savanna Feyereisen Fraire Awards from June Show Sweepstakes Sandi Schmidt Horticultural Excellence Sandi Schmidt Queen of Show Joe Colwell Princess of Show Joe Colwell King of Show Norman Wagner Club Officers Installed At the October meeting, the nomination committee offered the following slate of candidates for These people were unanimously elected at our November meeting and were installed during the December Banquet. President Wilburn Hackebeil 1 st Vice Presidents Laura Joseph Marjorie Tractenburg Robert Day 2 nd Vice Presidents John and Joyce Fox 3 rd Vice president Elizabeth Wong Secretary Liz Stansfeld Treasurer Annie Hackebeil Historian Carol Kay Johnson Newsletter Editor Sandi Schmidt AAGC Representative: Wilburn Hackebeil Directors: Billie Passmore Rainee Freeman Joe Defoe Marilyn Metcalf Editor s notes I wanted to thank everyone for supporting the transition to receiving the newsletter electronically. As you will know after reading this month s copy, the sky s the limit on pages and photos when sending it as an attachment. We have shrunken our mail outs to less than twenty now, including out of town and lifetime members. Those of you who still need a paper copy will continue to receive one. I d especially like to thank Norman Wagner for helping me by graciously offering all of his files and articles from his seventeen years of publishing the newsletter. He continued to serve as coeditor for the first few months until I felt comfortable taking over. I still consider him to be my mentor. Most of all, I have to thank my husband, Bruce, for formatting our club s newsletter, printing mailing labels, and sending the mail out newsletter electronically to be printed each month. He has also become a great expeditor when I procrastinate. I literally could not do the newsletter without him. My wish is that some of you will step forward and write an article or two for our newsletter next year. It doesn t have to be long. Do you grow some exotic fruits or vegetables? When s the best time for you to start tomatoes? Have you a favorite gardening website? Just a few paragraphs on anything to do with gardening would be appreciated. Sandi

4 4 Dues Information Mark Your Calendars It is that time of year again! Dues for 2012 should be paid by January 1. Adding national and local dues together gives us the following: Individual- $25 ($18 national and $7 local) Additional members at the same address are $15 each ($5 national and $10 local) Spouses of national life members are $18 ($8 national and $10 local) To become a National life member you pay a one-time charge of $200 and then pay local dues of $10 per year To become a Local life member you pay a one-time charge of $100 (you must be a national life member to get local life membership) Notice that for $300 you will not have to worry about national or local dues again. You will have lifetime membership in both the national and local organizations. The above dues are due now and should be paid to our treasurer. Annie Hackebeil 652 S Monroe Street LaGrange, TX Please indicate any changes in address, telephone numbers, etc. Also, if you have an address, she would like to have that. If you have any questions, please give Annie a call at (if no one is home, leave a message and your call will be returned) or her at <awhackebeil@aol.com>. The following events are of direct interest to the membership of The Garden Club of Austin. All events are at the Austin Area Garden Center in Zilker Botanical Garden at 2220 Barton Springs Road unless otherwise noted. Additional gardening calendar information may be found every Saturday in the Life and Arts Section of the Austin American Statesman. Jan 23 -Monday: TGCoA Board of Directors meeting 7 PM Jan 26 - Thursday: Monthly meeting of TGCoA. Six of our past presidents were present at the December banquet. Left to right: Don Freeman, Norman Wagner, Barry Lovelace, Dick Peterson, Joe Colwell, Laura Joseph. The Garden Club of Austin President Wilburn Hackebeil 1 st Vice Presidents Laura Joseph, Robert Day, Marjorie Trachenburg 2 nd Vice Presidents John and Joyce Fox 3 rd Vice president Elizabeth Wong Secretary Liz Stansfeld Treasurer Annie Hackebeil Historian Carol Kay Johnson Newsletter Editor Sandi Schmidt AAGC Representative Wilburn Hackebeil Directors: Term extending through 2012 Billie Passmore Term extending through 2013 Joe Defoe Term extending through 2014 Rainee Freeman Marilyn Metcalf The Garden Club of Austin, Inc. was established in 1953 and is currently affiliated with The Gardeners of America/Men s Garden Clubs of America (TGOA/MGCA), the Southwest Region of MGCA and the Austin Area Garden Council. Meetings are open to the public and held in the Austin Area Garden Center on the fourth Thursday of the month except for November (the third Thursday) and December (an awards banquet on the second Thursday). Membership inquiries should be directed to our treasurer, Annie Hackebeil at Questions or comments concerning the newsletter should be sent to the editors at brsch07@gmail.com

5 5 December Climate for Austin The average daily maximum temperature varies from 66 at the beginning of the month to 61 at the end. The minimum varies from 44 at the beginning to 40 at the end of the month. Extremes are 90 observed in 1955 and 4 in l989. We average about 5 days with a minimum of 32 or below. Precipitation averages 1.88 inches but has ranged from a wet in 1991 to only a trace in A maximum 24-hour amount of 6.19 occurred in Snow is rare, however a trace was observed in 1993 and On average, precipitation is observed on 8 days during the month. We usually receive about 49% of the possible sunshine, and between sunrise and sunset have 10 clear days, 6 partly cloudy days and 15 days with overcast conditions. Dense fog with visibility of 1/4 mile or less is observed on 4 days. The time between sunrise and sunset varies from about10 hours 20 minutes at the beginning of the month to 10 hours 14 minutes at the end of the month. Some weather numbers for 2011 *The summer of 2011 was the hottest summer (June 1-August 31) ever recorded in Austin. During that time, the average temperature was The old record of 88.4 was set during the summer of * August 2011 was the hottest month ever recorded at Camp Mabry with an average temperature of 91.6, beating the old record set in 2009 (average temperatures are determined by adding up all of the daily highs and lows, dividing by two, then dividing by the number of days in the month). * On August 28, 2011, we tied the all-time record high at Camp Mabry of 112. * Austin set the record for consecutive number of 100 days at Camp Mabry at 27. That occurred from July 17-August 12, The old record was 21 days set from July 12-August 1, * For 2011, there were 90 days at or above 100 at Camp Mabry. The old record was 69 set back in * January to November 2011 was the 3 rd driest in Austin with inches of rain which is inches below normal. * Average date of the first 100 degree day: July 11 th, but this year it was May 25th * Average date of the last 100 degree day: August 20th, and this year it was September 29th. Gardening Checklist for December January Here are a few things you might consider during these cool days of late fall and early winter. * Select your Christmas tree early, cut off about an inch of the trunk and stand the tree in a bucket of water in a cool, shady area until ready to decorate. You may want to apply an anti-transpirant spray such as Wilt-Pruf or Cloud Cover to make your tree last even longer. * In mid-december, plant tulip bulbs that have been chilling in the refrigerator. * Apply dormant oil spray to control scale and other hard to control over-wintering insect pests. Follow label instructions to avoid damage to plants. * Keep the water hose handy or turn on the sprinklers occasionally. Soil can dry out, even when temperatures are cold. Trees and shrubbery are nearly dormant now, however, their roots are still quite active, and it may be necessary to do occasional watering in the absence of rain. * Plants growing in containers are especially vulnerable to freezes. Plants that normally would be hardy when growing in the ground may freeze badly when their roots and soil balls are exposed to freezing weather. * Remember, wet clay pots may crack if they freeze. * Rake fallen leaves or go over them with a mulching lawn mower. Do not allow them to accumulate and smother the lawn grass. Either put your leaves in your compost pile or use them to mulch your planting beds. Mulching will keep the soil from changing temperature rapidly, as well as help to retain moisture and protect shallow roots. * Clean up and sharpen your tools. Apply a thin coating of oil to protect against rust. Your tools will then be ready to go come springtime. * Start planning your spring garden. Try something new next year. Your local retailers and gardening catalogs give you lots of choices. That will do it for this month (and this year). Have a great holiday season! Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. Marcel Proust