GET READY TO GARDEN!
and to
CELEBRATE our 100th YEAR with our
Thursday, April 18th Speaker:
DR. DOUG TALLAMY
-- IMPORTANT --
If you have a Concord Garden Club nametag, please would wear it to this event, as public attendees may have questions about Concord Garden Club activities. If you don't have yours yet, you can pick it up from Ellen at the event.
In honor of our Centennial Year, Concord Garden Club is very proud to present a talk by Doug Tallamy -- author, renowned entomologist and wildlife ecologist, and
Co-Founder with Michelle Alfandari of HOMEGROWN NATIONAL PARK®. (HNP)
Learn more at HNPARK.org.
In this new presentation, Dr Tallamy will address questions about ecological landscaping including ecology and evolution, biodiversity, invasive species, insect declines, native and non-native plants, conservation and restoration, residential and city landscapes, urban issues, oak biology, keystone plants, monarchs, supporting wildlife at home, and more. His goal is to motivate people to help restore ecosystem function where they live, work, play, worship, and farm.
Dr. Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 97 research publications and has taught insect-related courses for 40 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. Doug is also the author of Bringing Nature Home, Nature’s Best Hope, and The Nature of Oaks.
As a 100th anniversary initiative, Concord Garden Club's goal is, with your help, to put Concord on the Homegrown National Park map in a meaningful way. HNP is an initiative our Club is enthusiastically supporting throughout 2024 as a way to help local gardens become sustainable, and to support wildlife and diverse ecosystems. Along with the City of Concord, we'll also be providing opportunities to learn gardening techniques that support wildlife and diversity, which we hope will help us reach our goal of enrolling 100 Concord gardens with HNP during our 100th year!
This event will be held on
Thursday, April 18, 2024 at 6:45pm.
Doors will open at 6:30.
Concord City Auditorium
2 Prince Street,
Concord, NH
This event is open to the public, and all attendees must pre-register online.
Click here to rsvp.
Questions? Please contact Lauren Savage at lauren.Savage1971@gmail.com
Tallamy Follow-Up
Concord Parks & Rec will provide a low-cost class to complement Dr. Tallamy's lecture, helping participants to put theory into practice.
Class to be held May 1st, 6:00-8:00 pm. Sign up here
Hannah MacBride, environmental horticulturalist, will lead participants through the process of creating habitat at your own home, school or business. She will give easy to follow instructions in invasive species removal, native plant selection, landscaping for caterpillars and birds and other important topics. You will leave the workshop with concrete plans to add your yard to the Homegrown National Park.
Membership
We are happy to welcome two more new members in March:
Inez McDermott and Maureen Laflam. A warm welcome to you both!
Community Service
The Community Service Committee creates seasonal centerpieces for the Friendly Kitchen. If you have plastic flowers or greens that are just taking up space in your craft room, we will gladly take them! Contact Debbie Carley: Deborah.carley@comcast.net
SWAG!
Looking for a beautiful (yet useful) Mother's Day gift?
Or just want to show your Concord Garden Club pride?
Either way, celebrate our centenary with some cool new gear. On offer are an Eddie Bauer softshell vest, a Port Authority sunhat and gardening apron, Nike baseball cap, and a Carhartt bag with pockets for your gardening tools -- all sporting our beautiful Concord Garden Club logo. They can all be seen and ordered directly from our special website here. The CGC will earn a small profit on each sale.
Hospitality Request
In an effort to be green during our future social events, we have decided to collect plates to use and reuse as needed. We are looking for 6-8" plates which we will first use at our 100th anniversary cocktail party at Tricia Wentworth's house in September. (more about that below). Please look in your cupboards and donate whatever extra you have. We are looking to accumulate about one hundred plates. Gena (bgjam@comcast.net) and Tricia (plwentworth53@gmail.com) will be accepting donations through the spring. Thank you in advance.
Gardening in April
First, a caveat on timing: To support beneficial insects, “wait until after several 50-degree-Fahrenheit spring days to clean up again,” advised The Habitat Network (a former project from Cornell and the Nature Conservancy). Doug Tallamy of University of Delaware, author of “Nature’s Best Hope,” likewise stresses leaving leaf litter in place in fall, and not being too quick to tidy up in spring. Some overwintering insects, notably bees and certain butterflies and moths, are triggered by a stretch of 50-ish-degree days to get moving. Once they do, often after resting in leaf litter or under tree bark or even inside goldenrod galls, for example, such species are no longer as vulnerable to our spring-cleaning actions that might kill them, or move them away from their host plant. (Note: There’s no one precise formula for when every species awakens that will protect them all, so these are just guidelines in pursuit of the greater good.)
Ready to get started?
Start cleanup near the house. Tidying beds along the most-traveled front walkway early reminds me that I can do this, a little at a time. Walking past a mess every time I go out: not so inspiring. Work out from homebase.
“Spot clean” key areas–again, working on first things first. In the edible garden, why prep the tomato row when you haven’t even planted the peas or spinach? “Spot clean” targeted areas so that earliest crops can get sown, then double back later when all extra-early goals are met.
Similarly: Gently remove matted leaves to uncover early spring ornamentals first, such as emerging spring bulbs and ephemerals, even if you can’t stop to clean the whole bed. Start cutbacks by trimming battered leaves from semi-evergreen perennials, such as hellebores and epimedium and gingers—and with ornamental grasses.
Stay on track with seed-starting. Make a chart of what to sow when, indoors or out, or organize packets week-by-week, in an accordion file or recipe-card box. Move any packet that’s best sown a little at a time ahead two weeks in the filing system after you use it, to plan for a staggered supply of salads, carrots, radishes and such. (Don’t know when to sow what? The calculator tool will help you.)
Make space in the compost heap for incoming debris you’ll be generating fast. Extract (and preferably screen) finished material from the bottom to topdress beds as you clean them.
Order mulch now, preferably a bulk delivery—skipping all those plastic bags, and ideally choosing a locally produced material. What makes good mulch, and how to use it.
Empty nest boxes of old nests, and maybe add more birdhouses. I actually do that even earlier, even if it means trudging through the snow. My nestbox 101 is here, plus here’s how to be a good bluebird landlord.
Muck out water gardens, removing floating de-icers (remember my fall regimen for water-garden care?). Get pumps and filters going again, following these spring water-garden tips.
While doing all that: Never walk, or work, in mucky soil. I stay off soft and also semi-frozen lawns, too, delaying some chores. I can do the tasks in another week, but I can’t easily fix soil turned to concrete.
Treat yourself to a little color—again, for encouragement. I like big bowls of pansies or violas, for instance, to cheer me on in April, because the list can feel daunting, especially in years when winter sticks around a little too long (or your helper disappears).
Oh, and a couple of bonus tips, if it’s not the tidying up that’s got your overwhelmed, but perhaps the bigger challenge of aesthetics–of making the whole place hang together. In April I like to re-read this interview with Kathy Tracey of Avant Gardens, about fine-tuning your garden design, to help myself focus on key tactics. And get help developing your “signature style” from landscape designer Susan Morrison, who offers these tips for getting started: how each of us can look at our spaces with a designer’s eye; about breaking up too-boxy rectangular spaces to bring life into them; about use of color and other elements, and also when to call a friend in for a fresh set of eyes.
This information is excerpted from Margaret Roach's gardening website, "A Way to Garden". Margaret writes a weekly gardening column for the New York Times and, like us, gardens in Zone 5b.
We are lucky to have a wonderful local gardening resource in the UNH Extension, who provide a wide variety of education and services, from soil testing to tractor maintenance tips. You can check out some of their upcoming agriculture and gardens events here.
Blue Stem Native Nursery (Norwell, Mass) provide this very useful guide on techniques to eradicate the incredibly invasive and tenacious Garlic Mustard (we' ve all got it!) and the importance of doing so. Catch it early if you can!
If you're wondering, here's what it looks like:
Community Information
Guests are warmly welcomed to the next Amherst Garden Club meeting, when the Club is excited to welcome Missy Biagiotti for her presentation entitled “Field of Dreams: How to Start & Grow Lavender in New Hampshire”.
Come learn the art of growing lavender as Missy, owner of Lavender Fields at Pumpkin Blossom Farm in Warner, New Hampshire, shares her knowledge and experiences with us.
Messiah Lutheran Church
303 Route 101
Amherst
Thursday, April 4th
Missy begins her presentation at 10:30.
Concord Garden Club member Jocelyn Jerry-Wolcott will present a talk at the Women’s Club of Concord on April 16 at 5:30. Jocelyn will talk about climate change and the personal commitment required of each of us if we are to slow its progress. Jocelyn will cover the path she has walked over the past thirty five years. Her talk will focus on individual responsibility and how we can increase ours as we battle climate change. She has suggestions for the many resources that exist for Recycling and its partners Reduce and Reuse.
It is probably too late to book your trip to Holland’s Keukenhof Gardens, however you can get your tulip fix at The Farm at Wolf Pine Hollow and TulipFete, late April through early May in Hancock, NH. Go to their website for details: wolfpinehollow.com
If you love visiting beautiful gardens, The Garden Conservancy's Open Days are for you. The Open Days, which have already started for 2024, are held at private gardens all over the country and provide a rare opportunity to see spectacular gardens which are otherwise closed to the public.
To see the local schedule, visit The Garden Conservancy and select New Hew Hampshire from the "State" drop menu.
There will several NH gardens on show throughout this summer, but of particular interest to us is Michael and Betsy Gordon’s garden in Peterborough on the August 24th Open Day, as Michael will be our November program speaker, and his garden will be the topic of his presentation.
Also of interest on the 24th are the wonderful Fry Garden (also in Peterborough) and two other special gardens, Skatutakee Farm in Hancock and Nan Quick's in Jaffery, the creation of which is documented on nanquick.com
Tickets for this Open Day will be available on Monday, June 3.
LOOKING AHEAD:
May Meeting -
Sanborn Mills Farm Tour
May 16, 2024, 10:00 AM
Sanborn Mills Farm, 7097 Sanborn Rd, Loudon, NH 03307, USA
Sanborn Mills Farm is a working farm with a mission to sustain and teach traditional farming and craft skills while stewarding its agricultural landscape for social, environmental, and economic benefits.
Their many gardens include the following: ornamental gardens, stream garden, meadow garden, sally (basket willow) garden, dye garden, teaching/ vegetable garden, kitchen garden, as well as annuals for cut flowers. They offer CSA programs for both produce and flowers.
Sanborn Mills Farm also has a grist mill and a saw mill, and they offer many wonderful workshops including Farm & Garden, Blacksmithing, Woodworking, Fiber Arts, and Historic Craft!
Their web site (https://www.sanbornmills.org) shows why our tour there should be very fun and interesting.
This tour will be held Thursday, May 16th 2024 at 10am. In case of inclement weather, the tour will be rescheduled to the following Thursday, May 23rd.
Members only, no guests
Registration closes May 10, 2024, 10:00 AM
Questions? Contact Ruth Perencevich at rperence@comcast.net.
June - CGC Annual Meeting
As a treat for our 100th Concord Garden Club Annual Meeting luncheon, Author and Humorist Neal Sanders will entertain us with his presentation “Garden is Murder”.
Neal speaks from a ‘husband’s point of view’ of gardening. His presentation is filled with humor and insight from someone who gardens less from an abiding love of horticulture than for the love of a spouse. Good horticultural advice is dispensed, bad advice is debunked. Our members will leave with a better appreciation of what is going on in the mind of their helpmates.
Neal will talk about….
· Why it is impossible to do just one thing in the garden
· Why so much gardening information on the internet is awful
· Why you should never compute the value of your labor in gardening
· Evidence that the wildlife in your garden have never seen a Disney film
· Why it requires digging three holes to plant something
· And much more…
Neal is also an author of 15 mystery themed books, a number of them centered around the bond of members of the Garden Club Gang but also another, stronger bond: each book centers on strong, independent women. Some of those women solve crimes. Some of them commit them. Some did both. Neal will be bringing copies of his books to the luncheon to sell. To review titles and synopsis of the titles, go to: The Hardington Press – The home of mystery writer Neal Sanders
Thursday, June 6 2024
11:30am-2:00pm
Kimball Jenkins Estate
Members Only -- RSVP here
Registration Closes May 10th
September - Save the Date!
Plan to join the fun at our Centennial Celebration Cocktail Party!
Friday, September 6th
5-7:30pm
1 Auburn Street, Concord
The home of Tricia Wentworth and Mark Fagan
Details to follow
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