Wasaga Beach Garden Club

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1 Wasaga Beach Garden Club February 2014 Please mark your calendar for these upcoming meetings and events Next Meeting Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at the Lighthouse Community Church on Sunnidale Road. The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. District 16 AGM The 2014 D16 AGM will be hosted by the Tottenham & District Horticultural Society on Saturday, April 26 at: The Tottenham Community & Fitness Centre 139 Queen St. N. Tottenham If you wish to attend, please contact Linda Marshall Plant Sale May 24, 2014 Oakview Woods Gazebo 8:00a.m. noon. Once again we will be making and selling hypertufa bowls for the 2014 WBHS Plant Sale. We need chicks and hens and dragon s blood sedum (red colour) if you have any extra you can donate them by contacting your executive at wasagabeachgardenclub@yahoo.ca

2 Two worthwhile workshops that may be of interest Garden Sayings There will be a sheet available for members to contribute garden sayings at each general meeting or Maureen with your saying. inthegardenmea@gmail.com Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle... a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream. Happy Valentine s Day 2

3 This is an event that Maureen enjoys. Any members of Wasaga Beach Garden Club who wish to attend this event can let Maureen know by March 26 th with payment in hand. (705)

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5 If you can t beat them, feed them Is Your Yard Going To The Squirrels? Are squirrels raiding your birdfeeders? Instead of fighting them, try feeding them to add another element of fun to your backyard wildlife antics. Squirrels enjoy corn and nuts. Place the food in a platform feeder or nut box. Two sharp incisors make it easy for them to gnaw through nuts, not to mention your favorite birdfeeder. To keep squirrels from bothering your existing birdfeeder setup, try these tips: To keep these critters from devouring your best bird food, buy one of the "squirrel-proof" feeders. Don't invite them to chew through your screens or doors. Place food away from windowsills and doorways. Keep food away from your bird feeding stations. Squirrels can jump 4 feet to 6 feet vertically and 8 feet to 10 feet between objects. They cling to birdfeeders with the toes on their back feet allowing them to hang upside down and use their hands to stuff their faces. Place a baffle on your feeder pole above or below the birdfeeder. Try a wire mesh cage around your existing feeders. Fill your bird feeders with safflower seeds. Many songbirds will eat safflower, but squirrels typically will not Forcing blooms from flowering branches If you can t wait for spring s return visit, you can taste a few of its pleasures before the snow melts and one early treat is to have tree blossoms blooming in your home. You can bring home branches of flowering trees and shrubs like forsythia, dogwood, magnolia, dwarf Russian almond, or just about any fruit tree, and force them into bloom. With the following method, and a little patience, you could be enjoying a display of fragrant blooms well before your garden wakes. You can start in February, when the trees will have gone through three months or so of dormancy. In the main, you can expect to have blooms in early March. Choose branches that you would have pruned anyway to keep the shape of your shrub or tree. Use sharp pruning shears to ensure you don t do any damage to branches left behind. To help the branches absorb water, cut a two- to three-inch slit at the base of each stem, or mash the stem ends with a hammer. Strip away any flower or leaf buds that will be under water in the vase. 5

6 Branches need to be tricked into thinking they have experienced heavy spring rains. Fill a large basin or your bathtub with water and soak the branches overnight. This will give them the burst of moisture they need to wake up. Place the branches in a large, deep vase filled with warm water. You want to duplicate the moist spring weather the branches would experience outside, so the branches should be misted with water every day. Alternatively, you can wrap the branches in moist newspaper. Keep the vase in a cool place where the temperature does not go below freezing. Re-cut the stems each week and change the vase water every second day. It will take two to six weeks for the buds to begin opening, depending on what you are forcing. Forsythia s tend to be the earliest to bloom, while apple and crabapple branches take longer. When the buds begin to open, set the vase out in a warm spot. Avoid direct sunlight so as not to dry out the buds. You should have flowers to enjoy for a good week to ten days. To keep flowers blooming longer, place the vase in a cool spot at night. Snacks We need a volunteer to provide cold drinks, on an ongoing basis, for our meetings. The cost of the drinks would be covered by the Garden Club. If you are able provide the cold drinks, please contact Maureen to let her know. (705) Archives We are looking for a member who loves scrapbooking and would be willing to continue to look after the Garden Club Archives that were started by Dan Edwards. Anyone who would like to volunteer for this position should contact Maureen. Club Banner We ve had a few ideas submitted for our banner but would like to have your ideas as well. If we have any talented designers or artists in our group, we are looking for more design ideas. If you have any ideas for a good design, please submit your ideas to Arlene Edwards or Maureen Andersen. Gardens of the Beach Garden Tour We ve had our first meeting to make plans for our first garden tour. Plans are coming together and our next big step is to select the gardens we want to highlight on our tour. If you know of any homeowners who have a spectacular garden that they would like to include in our tour, please contact Maureen or any one of the members of the executive. So far we re off to a great start. The next meeting of the Garden Tour committee will be on March 5 th at Maureen s home at 7:15. If you want to volunteer and can make it to the meeting we d love to see you there. Contributions to the Newsletter Including recipes, gardening tips should be forwarded to Eva Caulfield: Tel, or evacaulfield@gmail.com 6