the COMMUNITY GARDEN CLUB w ww.communitygardenclubofcohasset.org of Cohasset,MA 2 0 1 3 M A Y E D I T I O N! I have just come home from our President s Day where we had a good time together with our guests from the other South Shore Clubs. As I mentioned there, these recent days have been such a tough time as we lived through the terrible events of last week and it is at moments like this that our communities are so important to us. So too is Spring s renewal which calls to us and moves us on as we look around us and see new life burst forth. As the English poet, William Wordsworth, put it hosts of golden daffodils... toss their heads in sprightly dance... and my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils. So here we are about to enter the merry month of May.! May-day is the name given to the first day of the month in England, when people crowned their May Queens, generally made merry and danced around maypoles. I have a painting of my mother dressed as May Queen in a long gown and train when she was about seven years old. After the long winter everyone felt the need to be silly for a while. After the events of the last few days in Boston, we also need something to cheer our spirits.! Luckily, you can rely on your garden club to give you an opportunity to be silly and lift your spirits. We don t have any maypoles at hand (yet) but we have plenty of ladies who are well qualified to be queen for a day. As you know the month of May also marks the end of our club year and our Annual Meeting and Luncheon takes place on the 28th and we are going to have a fashion show with some of our own members as models and we re holding a decorated hat competition. We will have a great time at our last meeting of the year, so do plan to attend and feel free to bring a friend.! Several people have already said they re entering the hat competition and if you haven t yet signed-up, but would like to, don t worry there s still time - just let Jeanne Carroll or Claire Tinory know. There are also some members who want to wear a hat, but don t want to enter the competition. Let s all come wearing hats as silly or as gorgeous as we like. Let s be daft for a moment.! If April showers bring forth May flowers, then what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims!!!!!!! Linda ANNUAL MEETING/LUNCHEON at Cohasset Golf Club Come and enjoy a great day of flavors and styles as this year s luncheon will include a fashion show by some of our own members in clothes from Pink Tulip. Top off the occasion by bringing your own hat creation with personalized embellishment. Prizes will be given. Tuesday, May 28, 11 a.m., 175 Lambert Lane. 7th - Executive Board Meeting - Lightkeepers Cottage, 9:30 a.m. 8th - Garden Therapy - May Baskets at Golden Living Center, 2-3 p.m. 13th - Junior Gardeners - Pressed Flower Art, Deer Hill School Cafeteria, 2:30-3:30 p.m. 14th - Design & Horticulture - Attracting Pollinators to Your Garden with Eric Eisenhauer.! Lightkeepers Cottage, 9:30-11:30 a.m. 18th - Plant Sale - on the grounds of the Cohasset Historical Society, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. 21st - Craft Workshop - Hand Made Books with Debbie Jenks, Lightkeepers, 9:30-11:30 a.m. Our mission shall be to promote interest in gardens, their design and horticultural perfection; to promote interest in conservation of our natural resources; and to conduct formal programs for the advancement of these and related items. Newsletter Editor Pat Cammett pcamme@gmail.com
Announcements and Reminders Horticulture and Design Workshop - On Tuesday, May 14th, Eric Eisenhauer will talk to us about the importance of pollinators. In The Insectory, Eric will share his knowledge of getting pollinators into the garden and keeping them there. We will learn how to construct a garden designed to attract the right insects and what plants to choose for their enjoyment. The program will begin at 9:30 a.m. at the Lightkeepers Cottage. Join us for this unique look into the world of beneficial insects and their connection to keeping the garden alive. Junior Gardeners - In the fall of 2012 we asked that you collect flowers from your gardens, then dry and press them for the junior gardeners. This month they will use them to create a piece of art. Please contact Julie Hess at 383-1012 or julieandsimon@gmail.com if you have any flowers for the workshop. The workshop is on Monday, May 13th. Plant Sale - Saturday, May 18th from 9a.m. - 1 p.m. at the Historical Society, rain or shine. Linda Fraker, President, says, We offer this very popular event every year. It is a way of promoting the green way of life, provides a venue for lots of plant discussions, offers a great variety of plants at reasonable prices and helps us raise funds enabling us to run numerous programs that serve the Cohasset community. It s great fun come and join us! Much effort is put into the preparation during the months of April and May, but the benefit is that, if you help out, To start: Punch, Fresh Fruit, you get to socialize with your fellow members and Crackers, Imported Cheese meet newer members during a great part of the year to be outside. Also you get first choice of plant material being offered for sale. Be alert for emails with House Salad with Balsamic dates for potting, pricing and labeling. Contact Eric Vinaigrette Dressing, Rolls Eisenhauer at 781-923-1109 or erewin@aol.com and let him know how you can help. Entrée choices: Citrus Crusted The Annual Luncheon tickets are available for sale from Jeanne Carroll, 781-545-2243, scituated@comcast.net, or from Claire Tinory, 781-383-1595. Tickets for you and your guests are $28 each. Call with your choice of entree. There are changes of address for two of our members. Retta Dwyer now lives at 39 Wampatuck Avenue in Scituate, 02066. Her new phone number is 781-424-1093. Julie Guild now lives at 301 Linden Ponds Way, Unit 514, Hingham, 02043. Please make changes to your yearbook. Haddock, Lemon Couscous and Steamed Asparagus OR Parmesan Crusted Stuffed Chicken with Vegetable Ravioli and Fresh Plum Tomato Concasse Dessert: Berry Sorbet with Lemon Curd and Ladies Fingers
Conservation! If you missed the March general meeting, you missed a great presentation by Marie Stella on sustainable planting ideas to help us become more responsible gardeners in the 21 st century.! Environmental disruptions, such as climate change, and a growing scarcity of water now require us to make adaptations when we plant our gardens. Marie provided several useful suggestions, such as Dry Gardening (Beth Chatto); the use of swales along pathways; reduction in lawns, which require too much water and chemicals; the planting of grasses and/or low-grow grasses, which grow 1-2 inches a season and require less mowing; careful selection of native plants (Piet Oudolf and the New England Wildflower website); and the creation of buffer zones.! In order to help manage our water and its runoff, we can put down permeable pavers along walkways so that water can drain back into the aquifer, use more water-conserving mulches, and install rain barrels to collect water for plant irrigation. After the presentation, Carol Graham hosted a luncheon for Marie Stella and a few garden club members. The beautiful arrangement to the right was enhancing the hospitality table.!!!! by Adrienne Dubois New Members. were welcomed at the new member luncheon recently at the home of Mary Eisenhaure. From left: Lee Drew Melanie Lelio Sheila Toomey Susan Reagan Karen Aherne
Junior Gardeners In April the junior gardeners came together to make floral insects. What a hit it was!
Workshops A spring snow storm would not deter Lee Drew from leading this egg decorating workshop just in time for Easter Participants of a fun workshop, It s Not Easy Being Green, led by Judy Dickstein, produced all these beautiful arrangements. Such simple beauty from different shapes, textures and orientations exemplifies the vast talent in our club.
Craft Workshop Gorgeous creations from the Hand- Decorated Garden Hats workshop led by Maura Wholley Garden Therapy Spring Is In The Air
The Garden Club of Nagoya Activity Report of April 2013! Our April general meeting was a visit to four places famous for viewing cherry blossoms in Kyoto. Indian Summer-like warm weather in the last week of March was pressuring cherry flowers to bloom a littler earlier than usual, but suddenly a winter storm happened and prevented blooming as if to wait for our visits. Flower viewing is the centuries-old practice of enjoying under-blooming cherry or Japanese Plum trees. This custom dates back as early as the third century AD according to the chronicle of Nihon Shoki compiled in the eighth century. During the Nara Period (710-794) it was plum blossoms that people admired. By the Heian Period (794-1185), cherry blossoms came to attract more attention. This viewing custom was originally limited to the nobles of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to Samurai society, and by the Edo period (1603-1867) to the common people. After a two hour drive in our chartered bus we arrived in Kyoto. First we visited Kyoto Imperial Palace which is located in the spacious Kyoto Imperial Park in the center of the city. It was constructed in 1331 and used to be the residence of the Imperial Family until 1868 when the emperor and capital were moved from Kyoto to Tokyo. About thirty weeping cherry trees stood beside Konoe Pond at the northwest corner of the park and they had just bloomed. They had fine slim branches drooping down almost to the ground like those of a weeping willow, bearing cascades of pink flowers. Those popular landscape trees grow to 20-30 feet tall with a width of 15-20 feet across.! Then we headed for Arashiyama district, the western outskirts of Kyoto and visited Kurumazaki Shrine which was referred to as the cherry blossom shrine in the Heian Period. It has approximately 40 cherry trees of 15 varieties, many of them were familiar to us, such as Weeping Cherry, Yaezakura (double flowered cherry [Prunus, iannesiana],) Yamazakura [Prunus, jamasakura] and Somei Yoshino [Prunus, yedoensis.] The shrine deifies Kiyohara Yorinari, a Confucian scholar of the 12th century, and is now considered as a deity of commerce and learning. Visitors take away pebbles and then they return twice as many when their wishes are fulfilled. A performing arts shrine in the precinct has many devotees in the entertainment world and is thronged always by many pilgrims of various kinds of entertainers. This shrine received its name after the ox cart of Emperor Gosaga (1220-1272) broke down in front of the shrine.! Next we visited Matsuo Shrine which was constructed in 701 AD, 100 years before the founding of Kyoto. It was established by the head of the Hata clan, an immigrant clan that ruled the area before the capital was moved from Nara. They brought Sake brewing techniques from Korea; therefore, the shrine has since been associated with sake brewers. They still take water from the sacred well Kamenoi in the shrine. The shrine has three gardens constructed by a famous landscape designer, Mirei Shigemori Iwakura Garden in ancient style, the Horai Garden in Kamakura era style, and Kyokusui Gardern in Heian era style.
They are some of the best modern gardens in Japan.! At last we arrived at Jonangu Shrine built in 794 when the capital was transferred to Kyoto from Nara. Since then it has been used to protect the city against invasion from the south. There are five gardens which make up the Shin En ( Sacred Garden), called Rakusuien, with roughly a hundred types of trees and flowers such as plum trees, cherry trees, azaleas, and wisterias, all featured in the Tale of Genji. These gardens have waterfalls, ponds, and dry landscapes as well. We enjoyed not only the weeping cherry blossoms, but other types like Yaezakura and Yoshino cherries. It is astonishing to learn that this shrine has existed for more than 1,200 years. The emperor and nobles considered the southwest section of the Kyoto Imperial Palace to be a demon s gate based on Japanese geomancy (similar to Feng Shui); therefore, this shrine has been used to pray for protection of Kyoto since 794 by Emperor Kammu (737-806). Nowadays, many people visit this shrine to pray for a safe trip, safe construction work, or moving to new homes in auspicious directions.!!!!!!! Takako Kohri,!!!!!!! Recording Secretary CGCC 252 Old Oaken Bucket Road Norwell, MA! 02061