Chippewa Garden Club Newsletter

Transcription

1 Gardens say, Slow down National Garden Club, Inc. President Sandra H. Robinson National Garden Clubs, Inc Magnolia Avenue St. Louis, MO Central Atlantic Region Director Mary Washauer Rumson, New Jersey Garden Club of Ohio, Inc. President Lynn Fronk 353 Pittsfield Drive Worthington, OH GCO Cleveland District Director Marilee Zarbock 170 E. 194th Street Euclid, OH Chippewa Garden Club Co-Presidents Kathy Habib 3490 Mark Drive Broadview Hts, OH Jo Ann Bartsch 7700 Fitzwater Road Brecksville, OH Vice-President-Kathy Ziemba 8207 Montridge Ct. North Royalton, OH Secretary-Christine Sparano 7443 Old Quarry Lane Brecksville, OH President s Message Greetings, members: Hope you have enjoyed your gardens so far this year (along with the wonderful sounds of the cicadas.) Although we are only half way through 2016, the board is already planning for 2017, and we need your help and feedback! When I attend meetings with other garden club representatives, one universal problem is finding programs that are of interest to members. Even though we are planning a flower show for next year which will account for several programs, we have other dates to fill. Send me ideas that you have for programs or field trips, and we will look into the possibility of presenting them in the future. What gardening topics would you like to learn more about? What have you liked (or disliked) about the programs this year? The plant exchange is very popular, but is there anything you would change? Kathy Habib Co-President Treasurer-Aggie Goss 8677 Hollis Lane Brecksville, OH Co-Finance-- Lynne Evans 9455 Woodchip Lane Broadview Hts., OH Laura Springer 3665 Meadow Gateway Broadview Hts Historian-Margaret DeWolf 7001 Crestview Drive Brecksville, OH 44141

2 Page 2 Dates To Remember Saturday, July 9 Field Trip to Miller Nature Preserve and Lakeview Park in Lorain County. For those interested in car-pooling, we ll meet at Broadview Hts. City Hall at 9:30 a.m. After visiting the Visitor Center and Conservatory, we ll have lunch at the Orchid Café where the food is prepared by Chef Mario G. Izzo and then tour the gift shop. If you plan to attend, please call or Kathy Ziemba. Tuesday, July 12 Board meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the Broadview Hts. Clubroom The clubroom is in the same building but next door to our previous location. Friday, August 26 GCO Day of Horticulture at the Brecksville Library, branch of the Cuyahoga Public Library instead of the location listed on page 23 of the summer issue of Garden Greetings. Garden Therapy April 2 Saturday, July 16 Garden therapy at the Pleasantview Care Center on Ridge Road in Parma at 10:00 a.m. Garden club members will help residents create paper lanterns to Light Your Way. Contact Lynne Evans if you can help. No membership meeting in July Tuesday, August 9 Board meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the Broadview Hts. Clubroom The clubroom is in the same building but next door to our previous location. Sunday, August 21 Brecksville Historical Association Corn Roast, 1:00-5:00. Garden club members will give tours of the Squire Rich Herb Garden. Tuesday, August 23 Membership Meeting at 7:00 p.m. at the Brecksville Human Services, Activity Room A. Rob Erick from the Cleveland Photographic Society will discuss how to take better photographs of our gardens and our designs. Come with your questions. Plant Exchange Despite the rain and the change in location, our May 21 annual plant exchange was well attended. Lynne Evans grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and the side dishes were plentiful and delicious. After lunch, members worked on their living wreaths or succulent containers as well as browsed the various plant babies members had potted to exchange.

3 Page 3 Chippewa Garden Club Proposed Revisions to the By-Laws The by-laws committee proposes the following revisions to our current by-laws which start on page 44 of your 2016 Yearbook. These changes do not include minor rewording of the content. Please review the proposed revisions listed below and refer to your 2016 handbook to compare the changes. We will discuss and vote on the revisions at the August Membership meeting. Article II Membership and Dues Section 1. Add: fundraising to the purpose of the club. Section 2. Remove: Senior Citizen discount of $5.00 for dues. Article III Officers: Duties and Election Section 1. Section 2. Section 3. Add: President-Elect to the title of Vice President. Add: The President shall mentor the Vice President/President Elect to prepare the VP to serve as President during the following term. Add: The president shall keep the VP/President Elect informed of all meetings and have the VP preside over at least two meetings. Add: The VP/President Elect shall work closely with the President to prepare to serve as President the following term. Section 7 Remove: the requirement of the Historian to attend all meetings or send a substitute and to record club history. Keep scrapbook and annual report duties. Article IV Executive Board Section 2. Add: Voting at Executive Board meetings is restricted to elected officers. Article V Standing Committees and Projects Section 1 Section 2 Add: Website Add: Community Gardens

4 Page 4 Chippewa Garden Club Newsletter Proposed Revisions to the By-laws cont. Article VIII Section 2. Reword to: by-laws should be reviewed at least every five years. Standing Rules Rule 2. Add: the retiring President is a voting member of the Executive Board. Rule 4. Remove: the entire section and Replace: Refreshments at all Membership meetings shall be provided by the monthly hostesses. Rule 6. Remove: all detail on how scholarships are selected. Keep: The Scholarship is given in recognition of Kathryn H. Seibel s love of design in nature and her enthusiasm for creative expression. Add: The Executive Board will determine the recipient(s.) Add Rule 7 The Executive Board shall determine the GCO scholarship contribution, including whether to determine an honoree and that individual s selection.

5 Chippewa Garden Club Newsletter Page 5 Central Monarch Waystation Dedicated As part of Chippewa s Community Garden project, we partner with the National Wildlife Federation (Mr. Albin Weiler) to run the Recess Gardening Team at Central School in Brecksville. (Central is the 100-year-old building on Rt. 82 across from the Square. All 4th and 5th graders in the BHHS System attend classes there.) Recess gardening began during the 2014/15 school year with the objective of exposing the students to nature by gardening, observing, and enjoying simple outdoor nature activities during recess. Our first project was restoring the Memorial Garden located in the school front yard and converting it to a Monarch Waystation. Cleanup began in the fall; the garden was planted last spring and slept peacefully over the winter. During the winter, Chippewa applied for certification of the Waystation through the University of Kansas Monarch Watch. We received a beautiful certificate of appreciation, as well as a sign proclaiming that the Memorial Garden was officially acknowledged for creating and maintaining the garden, contributing to monarch conservation, and assuring the continuation of the monarch migration in North America. On May 19, 2016, the students who helped throughout the school year planting, weeding, deadheading, and harvesting milkweed seeds (a messy business!) gathered by the garden to reveal the sign and celebrate all their hard work. We reviewed what host plants are, what nectar plants are, discussed what our favorite activities were, and chanted Asclepias syriaca, Asclepias syriaca, Asclepias syriaca as Assistant Principal Catherine Schwann revealed the newly installed sign. Chippewa is also helping the Recess Team with beautifying the school grounds by planting annuals around the sign and in containers in front of the gym. The students have learned very important soil handling techniques while helping construct a rain garden in the rear of the school our second big project. There s more work to be done there! If you are interested in helping us with the students, please let Jo Ann Bartsch know. We can always use extra adult hands! (more dedication pictures on page 10)

6 Page 6 Squire Rich Herb Garden Each year, Garden Club participates in the Brecksville Historical Association s Corn Roast by welcoming visitors to the Herb Garden and conducting tours. Sunday, August 21, from 1:00 to 5:00 is the Corn Roast. A list of herbs is available, books will be available, and a script can be available for information. Many people who attend the Corn Roast are surprised to see how beautiful and well tended our garden is! Once they see friendly faces and the gorgeous plants, they are enthused to walk through, and children love smelling the herbs! The house is open for tours as well, and Historical Association volunteers provide those. Please let me know if you can help out with this event. It s always a warm day but a fun day! An hour shift would be helpful, and you can also enjoy the corn roast. I ll be there with herb containers and my books. Judy Guinn home cell flower-fairy@att.net Gardening Stories Carol Burns and her friend Nancy read several delightful stories about gardens during their program at the Brecksville Library on June 25. Both the children and the adults in the room loved Carol s bee hat and her buzzing bees. The titles they read are: Whose Garden Is It? First Strawberries Bees in the Mud (in Mouse Soup) Muncha Muncha Yam Farmer Planting a Rainbow Following the story hour garden club members gave each child a plant to take home and nurture with water, sun, and good soil.

7 Page 7 Invasive Earthworms Earthworms are segmented worms called annelids. They breathe through their skin and need at least forty percent moisture in their environment to survive. They have a gizzard that grinds soil and organic matter to extract the microorganisms that they eat. Darwin spent thirty-nine years studying earthworms. There are up to sixteen species of earthworms in the Great Lakes region. Due to glaciation which killed off the native species, none of them are native. All are invaders from Europe, brought over with the first settlers. In unglaciated parts of the US, including southern Ohio, there are native earthworms. A new invasion of Asian earthworms is spreading from the East coast across the Great Lakes. The Asian earthworm has been discovered at Shaker Lakes in Shaker Hts. Are earthworms beneficial to our garden soil? They may aerate compact soil and their castings are nutrient rich. However, they make holes in garden soil which causes leaching of nutrients into the groundwater. Some studies show no improvement in agriculture with earthworms. Our hardwood forests which require deep layers of organic matter, do not benefit from earthworms. When earthworms are present, they eat the organic matter, making less nutrients available to young plants, causing compact soils and denuding the forests. As organic matter disappears, so do the insects, which results in loss of food for amphibians, millipedes, and small mammals. Loss of native species in forests increases invasive species such as buckthorn and garlic mustard. Invasive earthworms are moved via human transport: construction, fish bait, mulch and topsoil. The Asian earthworm can kill garden plants and forests and is brought in with mulch. Avoid spreading earthworms to forested areas. Don t dump fish bait or vermiculture worms or spread mulch or topsoil which may contain non-native earthworms, near forests. For more information: google: Great Lakes Worm Watch Kathy Habib Lumbricus terrestris, common European Earthworm

8 Page 8 Getting To Know You Marian Dougherty joined Chippewa Garden Club in 1975 and is a treasured member of our organization. Marian grew up on the east side of Cleveland. She married in 1949 and has two sons, Bill and Tom. She joined Aquilegia Garden Club and has been a member there for fifty years. Marian became a flower show judge in 1972 after attending Flower Show School, and she also joined West Shore Arrangers to further increase her knowledge of flower arranging. The family moved to Brecksville in 1974, and she joined Chippewa in Marian attended Landscape Design School, but her main interest has always been floral design. Marian s well known for her centerpiece creations and is often called upon to create centerpieces for the GCO conventions and OJC (Ohio Judges Council) Symposiums. A former National Garden Club president, Lois Schuster, was so impressed with one of Marian s centerpieces at a GCO convention that she copied it for a family wedding. Marian has been Awards Chairman for Garden Club of Ohio for many years. She is well known throughout the state and a jewel in our garden club. We are so fortunate to have her as or senior member. She continues to help with our flower shows and impress us with her beautiful designs. Aggie Goss When Diane Mele joined Chippewa Garden Club in the fall of 1986, she was a new stay-athome mom and happy to have more time to garden. Diane s neighbor Dori Mikus sponsored her into the garden club, and she was asked to hostess at the Prunty House in downtown Brecksville during the garden club s Home Tour. Diane has held many positions in the club: Publicity Chair, Historian, Finance, Secretary, Treasurer, Co-Vice President, and President in 1999 when the club celebrated its 50th Anniversary. She s was involved in the Home tours; the Squire Rich herb garden; and Cochaired the Pages & Petals Flower Show in 1991 which was held at the new Brecksville branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library. (The new library building was completed in 1990 and moved there from its previous location on Highland Drive, now the Center for the Arts.) When Diane first joined, the club was larger with about fifty members, and a prospective member had to be sponsored by a current member. Board meetings were held in homes (yay for the Club Room!) and we no longer sponsor home tours as our main fund raisers which Diane says were a lot of work. Her yard is mostly greenery now due to maturing trees which cast more shade and, of course, to the ever-present deer. Pachysandra and boxwood are her friends, and she loves herbs and has a special love of scented geraniums which do very well in pots on her deck where they get some sun. She used to do more in-ground planting, but due to health problems, she pots annuals on her deck and plants more deer-resistant perennials in her yard. Please turn to the next page.

9 Chippewa Garden Club Newsletter Page 9 Getting To Know You Diane Mele cont. Diane believes in planting, spraying with as many natural repellants as possible, and discovering what works. There s been a good deal of trial and error in her dry-shade yard. She finds floral design very difficult but always enters our flower shows. She describes her at-home arrangements and door swags at best as free form. Diane particularly likes the quotation from our 1987 Yearbook Friends learn, grow and blossom. The Complete Book of Herbs by Lesley Bremness has been a real go-to book for her, and she finds that the GCO Vision of Beauty calendars are excellent sources of floral design ideas. Her advice for new members? Get involved in committees, go to whatever classes are offered, talk to our own members who are such sources of information, and do go to a flower show, if you ve never seen one, PRIOR to ours. It is extremely helpful. For all members? Be open to new ideas, be welcoming to friends, and love the soil! (Diane says after you ve enhanced our good old clay, that is.) Pat Gabriel A big thank you to Marian Dougherty and Diane Mele for sharing their stories, and thank you to all the members we ve gotten to know through our Getting To Know You series. CGC Booth Brecksville Home Days 2016

10 Chippewa Garden Club Newsletter Page 10 Central Monarch Waystation Dedicated Albin Weiler and Jo Ann Bartsch Brecksville Central School Student Participants in Recess Gardening