Cassina Annual Brunch with James Farmer February 9th, 9:30 am

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1 Volume 29, Number 6 The Newsletter of the Cassina Garden Club St. Simons Island, GA February 2017 Calendar February 2 Cassina Board Meeting The Meeting Cabin 10:00 am February 9 9:30 am Cassina Annual Meeting AW Jones Heritage Center Guests Welcome February 17 Arbor Day in Georgia March 1 10:00-11:30 am New Members Cabins & Gardens Orientation March 4 Girl Scouts at the Cabins March 15 Field Trip to Gilliard Farms April 5-6 Field Trip to Savannah April 22 Earth Day April 29 10:00 am - 5:00 pm Tabby & Tillandsia Garden Walk 9:30 am THE CASSINA THYMES The Cassina Thymes is published 10 times a year and is distributed to members around the 1st of the month via and also by regular mail for those who request it. Articles must be submitted by the 20th of the month preceding the publication month. Please submit photos and articles to the Newsletter Editor: Carol Cudahy cwcdesign@me.com Cassina Annual Brunch with James Farmer February 9th, 9:30 am Cassina celebrates 89 years in What better way to honor our success than a beautiful seaside brunch! Join us for some Southern hospitality as we relax with mimosas and a breakfast spread from the talented chefs, Brian and Laura Justice of Tasteful Temptations. The incredibly charming and dapper James Farmer will entertain us with his Southern anecdotes, demonstrate an arrangement, and share his passion for gardening, decorating and cooking. James is an accomplished landscape architect and author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling garden book, A Time to Plant, as well as several other gardening, floral and cooking books. He has decorated show houses in Cashiers, New Orleans and in his own hometown of Perry, Georgia which was recently featured in Southern Living Magazine. An editor-at-large for several years at Southern Living, James is considered a lifestyle expert -- you won't want to miss this rising star. James will be available afterwards to sell and autograph his beautiful books. You should have already received your invitation for 9:30 a.m., February 9th in our usual meeting room at the Coastal Georgia Historical Society. Please return your Reservation Card and check made payable to Cassina Garden Club as soon as possible to secure your spot at our lovely brunch. Reservations are $30 per person. Guests are welcome and unlimited; in fact, this is the perfect opportunity to bring friends and neighbors who may be interested in joining Cassina! Each table seats ten guests. Guests Welcome! 1

2 Field Trips Limited Spaces Available All aboard for Savannah!!! April 5-6 The trip to Savannah has 33 members and guests reserved. Call Jennifer Broadus with questions. Tabby and Tillandsia Garden Walk It s a Southern Thing Start getting your straw hats off the shelf and your floral finery ready for the Cassina Garden Walk! This year we will be having a week-long celebration and with that we need all of our members to step in and be a part of the events! Please consider where you would like to help. Our week starts off on Saturday, April 22nd, with Earth Day and ispy events at the cabins geared for kids 8-11 years of age. image from GilliardFarms.com Tinctures, Tonics, Teas & Tour Carpool to Gilliard Farms and experience a working centennial family farm. Explore the garden with food alchemist & herbalist, Jovan Sage, who will give us handson learning on turning herbs into tasty, medicinal and healthy teas, tinctures & tonics. After, the group will gather at Farmer & Larder in Brunswick for a lunch featuring produce from Gilliard. March 15, Wednesday 9:45 Meet at cabins to carpool 10:30-12:15 Tour and Workshop 12:15 Depart for Farmer & Larder 12:30 Lunch at Farmer & Larder Min. 10 people. Max. 15 people $45 per person Including lunch & teas. We will have nature printmaking, a Cabin Fever fundraiser, Sip and Shop, a Marketplace with local vendors, and our annual Garden Party at the cabins. Our in-garden artists will be having a wet paint sale at the cabins, and we will raffle off the fabulous floral arrangements from each of the gardens. For the first time ever we have a whole neighborhood garden stop and a lovely new B&B on the tour. This means we need docents, docents, docents! So, it is important that each of you steps forward and lends a hand to make this the best Garden Walk ever. Please contact: JoAnn Frick frijoann@aol.com or Nancy Muldowney nanmuld@bellsouth.net Thanks Y all! Did you know? In 1937, Cassina Garden Club members served as the host chapter for the Garden Club of Georgia s first Pilgrimage. After a tour of St. Simons Island and Sea Island, Cassina hosted a tea at the cabins for all the guests. Watch for the Did you know? article and learn some little known fact about our club. Anyone with interesting history trivia about Cassina Garden Club, please submit it to Janis Rodriguez at Janisemr@aol.com and Janis will include your suggestions throughout the year. 2

3 100% Participation We would like to get 100% membership participation for our Cabin Fever fundraising. Whether you can give $5.00 or $100.00, we would love to see everyone contribute. This is particularly important when Cassina is applying for grant money to help with our restoration. Foundations look positively on groups that can say This project is supported by 100% of our membership. So what do you say - will you help us reach our goal? Cabin Fever I want to thank all of you for helping us complete the Hamilton Plantation tabby slave cabin. Note the new name- it is no longer the Tea Cabin. It will be ready for visitors this spring. Now we will focus our fundraising on the Meeting Cabin. Help us get to the 100% membership participation goal! Please put Thursday, April 27 from 5:30-7:30 on your calendar. We will celebrate the completion of this cabin with a PARTY at the Heritage Center. Invitations will be sent. It is open to members, friends and donors. This event will be part of the Garden Week activities beginning with Earth Day on Saturday, April 22 nd, and ending with our Tabby and Tillandsia Garden Walk on Saturday, April 29th. Don t forget, the funds raised from our Garden Walk benefit the restoration project. Girl Scouts in the Garden The Girl Scouts will return to the cabins on Saturday, March 4th at 9:00am! They will be with us for the whole day working on two badges, the Flowers Badge and the new Archeology/History Badge created by Janis Rodriguez. This is your chance to partner with the Girl Scouts and help them understand the flowers in our gardens and assist with explaining the history of our cabins. Volunteers will be needed! The girls will be bringing their lunches and picnicking on the lawn. Mark your calendars and save the date for a Saturday of fun with the Girl Scouts! 3

4 Cassina opens Garden Walk Week with a new Venture! Earth Day Saturday, April 22 nd, 9 am 12 noon at our Hamilton Plantation Slave Cabins for youth 3 rd 5 th grades, accompanied by an adult Interactive learning stations centered on the theme of reduce, reuse, recycle. Activities include a nature scavenger hunt, a butterfly release, beekeeping, a recycling sculpture, archaeology exploration, live reptiles, an obstacle course reusing materials. Member Birthdays Southern Spring Home & Garden Show Charlotte, NC February & March 3-5 Mark your calendars for February and March 3-5 for the 57 th annual Southern Spring Home & Garden Show at the Park Expo and Conference Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. This year s theme, America the Beautiful, reflects the wide variety of indoor and outdoor designs and décor in store for guests. There will be 22 landscaped gardens, lectures on the newest trends, garden vendors and a cooking expo featuring American comfort food such as Southern fried chicken and BBQ. Y'all come! southernshows.com Co-chairs Nancy Harper and Molly Macaulay ask all Cassina members to help: Volunteer that morning; Attend the event and/or bring a 3 rd -5 th grader with you; Collect and bring to the March meeting the following: Small to medium pinecones (3 inches or more in length) Toilet paper rolls Old/unwanted swimming noodles Hula hoops Orange utility cones Artificial flowers Empty water bottles (16.9 fl. oz.) Cases of bottled water image from southernshows.com February Mary Lynch 1st Lynda Bisher 2nd Susan Finn 4th Alice Barlow 6th Liz DeMato 7th BethThrift 7th Jennifer Kuja 8th Anne Ambrose 11th Gee Gee Adams 15th Sue Chambless 16th Martha Martin 24th Nan Weiss 26th Elizabeth LeSueur 28th 4

5 Cabin Update The new oyster shells were delivered and placed around the Tea Cabin foundation during December. The brick walkway that Aunt Nancy had installed will be replaced after the interior floor is restored. Landmark will schedule the floor restoration once all the archaeology is completed. Fred Ecker wanted further study done on the north unit floor to evaluate the process the slaves used in pouring the tabby floor. The archaeology will be scheduled as soon as possible. Myrna Crook has been busy with a Cannon s Point project but will work us into her schedule as soon as possible. In the meantime, Landmark Preservation will continue to complete items on our punch list. February should be an exciting month as we once again uncover more history of the cabins. The south unit of the Tea Cabin will be open for visitors during the next phases of the restoration. Membership Memos * Our Annual Brunch to be held on February 9 th is an Open Meeting and an excellent opportunity to introduce interested individuals to Cassina. Please include their names on your reservation list along with their payments for the meal. Reservations and prepayment are required. No money will be collected at the Membership Sign-in Table. * The April meeting on April 13 will be the last Open Meeting for guests and future members. This will be the last meeting for potential members to attend and complete the meeting attendance requirement necessary for membership in June Please note Membership Guidelines on pages 76, 77 and 78 in the Cassina Garden Club Yearbook. * If you have questions concerning any membership issue, please contact Laura Jackson or Lee Dillard. Cooking Demonstration at Simmer & Soak The cooking class at Simmer and Soak, Comfort Foods, was outstanding, and the 11 of us in attendance went away full and happy! Mary Schowe, owner/chef at Embers, prepared a delicious sampling of comfort foods - grilled bread slices with truffle butter, risotto with poached egg on top, herbs and cheese, melt in your mouth short ribs and roasted carrots and a fabulous chocolate mousse dessert. ~ Susie Salvatore 5

6 From the President It was a fabulous meeting in January and we accomplished a lot. We had wonderful attendance and there were many great and helpful ideas. You should have received an blast explaining most of the items and your responses. Your responses have been heard and will be acted on. A huge thank you to the facilitators who led each group and to the folks who helped tabulate your results! On Friday before our Board meeting our new Commissioner, Peter Murphy, met with a few of us, toured Cassina s property, visited the cabins and listened to our concerns and plans for the future. It was a very insightful visit. We were pleased to share with him our concerns for our property and our hope of sustaining our cabins for future generations. Now we are gearing up for our wonderful February brunch featuring James Farmer who is a writer with Southern Living magazine. I hear that he is an exciting and engaging speaker and I am looking forward to the day. I hope you have already made your reservations and are bringing a friend or two along to enjoy the brunch. With Tasteful Temptations doing the catering, how can we miss? It is going to be a great day and you will not want to miss out on all of the fun! Thanks to Elizabeth Powell for her hard work in getting all of the plans made for a very special day! Cassina continues to be a very busy club. We welcome several new members this month. I hope you will make every effort to meet them and make them feel at home with Cassina. In the meantime, we continue to work at the gardens every Wednesday morning and although I know you can t all be there every Wednesday, please make every effort to volunteer as often as you can. Martha Martin and Betty Young are there every week and will offer you guidance in what you can do. Everyone can pull a dollar weed! See you at the gardens and at our February brunch! 6

7 New Members In December, Cassina welcomed nine talented and eager new members to our ranks. Amy Bishop is a native of St. Simons and is currently the organist of St. Simons Presbyterian Church. Four of this group have been members of other Garden Clubs: Sandra Johanek past president of Live Oaks Garden Club, SSI Becky Thompson past president of Glennville, GA, Garden Club Susan Finn Linden Garden Club, Pittsburgh, PA & St. William Bloomer Alter Guild Jane White Rose Garden Club, Lazy Daisy Club, Decatur, AL & St. William Bloomer Alter Guild The following four ladies are outstanding volunteers, especially following their retirements from active careers: Pat Wehunt Gainesville College, CEO College Foundation, and is a nature & outdoor enthusiast Jeanne Barrett educator in the Long Island School System and current mentor at St. Simons Elementary School Anne Ambrose still working & traveling for IBM (for a while) and is an avid golfer and oil painter Lisa Martin President and owner of Acadia Fine Jewels and a member of Rotary, Symphony Society & Friends of CASA All of the new members have expressed interest in making new friends and becoming involved in Club activities. Please reach out to them and welcome them to Cassina! 7

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