June 2025 UPDATES & EVENTS Concord Garden Club
- Jenny Robson - Communications
- Jun 3
- 6 min read
At least our gardens like the rain and cool temps..... have a wonderful summer --
see you at our fall party in September!
June -
Annual Meeting
Thursday, June 5, 2025
9:30-11:00am
Woman's Club of Concord
44 Pleasant Street
If you haven't already RSVP'd for this coming Thursday morning's Annual Meeting , please do so! It may too late to send in the card which accompanied your printed invitation, so please email Gena Cohen Moses (genacohenm@gmail.com).
We will have a brief, but very important, business meeting to elect the new slate of officers and introduce committee chairs, and to review our finances and the work of our committees over the past year.
There will be time to catch up with friends and to explore our “Give and Get” swap table. For the swap, we are encouraging everyone to bring garden related items from home: cuttings, extra pots, seeds, books, and other gardening items you no longer need and would like to see go to a loving home.
This is a great time to hand your Annual Dues check to Gretchen Coughlin. Please bring your checkbook (or a check made out to Concord Garden Club for $75).
Also, if you have your Garden Club name badge at home, please bring it along too!
Coffee and pastries will be provided.
Program Chair: Gena Cohen Moses
Later in June --
Field Trip
to the Gardens of Laura Trowbridge
Thursday, June 26, 2025
11:00am
PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATE FOR THIS PROGRAM WHICH WAS PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED FOR JUNE 19th.
29 Cornish Road
Peterborough, NH
Carpooling at the Clinton Street Park & Ride, 10am. Departure will be at 10:10
Laura Trowbridge is a garden designer who works primarily on the gardens of historic homes. Her own extensive gardens, developed over the past 35 years, have been featured on the Garden Conservancy Open Days tours. She has authored articles for Fine Gardening, and her work has been featured in Country Gardens, New Hampshire Home, and Living the Country Life.
She speaks regularly to garden clubs about garden design and how to incorporate more annuals and tropicals into your garden. Laura's passion for annuals leads her to change her gardens significantly from year to year. Every spring she drives to nurseries all over New England to buy new and exotic plants.
You can read more about Laura and her work at LauraTrowbridge.com
Program Chair -- Lauren Savage
RSVP here.
This program is for Members Only
September Party
Save the date for our Fall Gathering, to be held late afternoon/early evening on September 24th at Diane Wilson’s house on Stickney Hill Road - exact time TBD.
Full event information and RSVP will be up on our website some time this summer. At that time there will be a sign up sheet with appetizers listed to choose from, similar our 100th Anniversary party format last fall.
In Memoriam
CGC Member Pat Dahme, who was suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, passed away on Monday, May 26th. Services, open to everyone, will be held Sunday, June 15, at 2:00 PM at the Unitarian Church. Following the services there will be a church hall reception with light finger foods. An additional reception elsewhere later in the day is by invitation only.
Looking Ahead to Art & Bloom 2026!
All of you who have enjoyed our signature event know how beautifully it represents Concord Garden Club and brings inspiration in the coldest time of year. It may not take place until January, but the planning is well underway before then.
Of course we’ll be looking for designers eager to put their imaginations to work for the show, but we are also looking for volunteers to help prepare for it—starting now. Even if your time is limited, or you will be in and out of town with travel plans, we have a volunteer job for you that is doable in the time you have.
We’re looking for recruiters of designers, publicity assistants, fundraising assistants, and reception coordinators to be part of our planning kickoff later in September. Please contact me if I haven’t already approached you! Many hands make light work!
Millie LaFontaine, Art and Bloom Chair
603-491-6428
Gardening in MAY
One more program on the UNH Extension Spring schedule: -
June 14th - Tips for growing Tomatoes
For more information and to register, visit the UNH Extension site.
SAVE THE DATE:
NH Audubon Annual Native Plant Sale & Craft Fair
June 7, 10am-3pm at the McLane Center in Concord
Bagley Pond Perennials and Fassett Farms will be offering a wide selection of native plants and shrubs for purchase. Plus, local florist Erin Primiano of Wren and Raine will be selling sustainably grown and harvested fresh flower bouquets. At the craft fair, explore a wide variety of quality, handmade crafts by more than 15 local artisans. Visit our ambassador animals, explore the pollintor gardens, win raffle prizes, enjoy food from Greenhouse Pizza Truck, and more!
June Chores for Flower Gardens
SOME PERENNIALS (geranium groundcovers, bee balm, etc.) may be so tired they need a full cutback (aka The Chelsea Chop) now or soon. You sometimes have to make things worse for the garden to look better in the long run - you are aiming for a second blooming later this season.
LET ANNUAL GERANIUMS, which are technically in the genus Pelargonium, dry between waterings for best results.
SPEAKING OF ANNUALS, even the easiest familiar ones like zinnias or marigolds may poop out if you only sow once, in spring. Succession sowing of flowers, for ample blooms through till hard freeze.
SOME SPRING WILDFLOWERS can be multiplied by simple division around this time of year, including trilliums, and others can be divided in fall.
DEADHEAD ANY messy-looking bulbs as blooms fade, but continue to leave bulb foliage intact to wither and ripen the bulbs naturally. Deadhead spring-flowering perennials unless they have showy seedheads (same with bulbs), or you want to collect seed later (non-hybrids only).
TENDER BULBS like dahlias, cannas, caladiums, gladiolus and such should be in the ground, but with the glads, you can stagger flower harvest by planting a row every two weeks until the start of July.
ARE VINES getting the support they need, whether twine, wire, lattice?
PREPARE NEW BEDS by smothering grass or weeds with layers of recycled corrugated cardboard or thick layers of newspaper, then put mulch on top.
EDGE BEDS to make a clean line and define them, and keep edges clean with regular fine-tuning with grass shears. A well-cut edge (along with mulch touchups) makes a big difference in how the garden looks.
DON’T BAG OR RAKE clippings; let them lie on the lawn to return Nitrogen to the soil…unless you waited too long between mowings, that is. Mow frequently if grass is growing fast; never remove more than one-third of the blade of grass at any one mowing.
DON’T LET THE COMPOST HEAP dry out completely, or it will not “cook.” Turning the compost pile to aerate will also hasten decomposition, but things will rot eventually even if not turned.
BE ON THE LOOKOUT anytime for dead, damaged, diseased wood in trees and shrubs and prune them out as discovered. Ditto suckers and water sprouts.
SPRING-FLOWERING SHRUBS like lilacs get pruned now. Later pruning (after about July 4th in our Zone 5B Northeastern location) risks damage to emerging buds for next year’s blooms. Clean up unsightly deadheads of other big bloomers like rhododendron if you care to, and other things that don’t make showy fruit next–anything where leaving behind the faded blooms just looks messy. With fruiting things (roses that make nice hips, viburnums, you get the idea…) faded flowers are left intact to set beautiful, bird-feeding fruit.
MULCH AROUND WOODY PLANTS after cleaning away weeds and grass, but no volcano mulch (meaning no piling thick mulch up against trunks). Two inches depth or slightly less is plenty, starting several inches or so away from trunks.
THROUGH THE END OF JULY, softwood cuttings of Buddleia, Weigela, Rose-of-Sharon and roses, among other shrubs, can be taken to propagate more plants inexpensively.
Community Information & Volunteer Corner
NH Audubon acknowledged our membership payment and congratulated us on 35 consecutive years as members. A nice legacy of our support for them!!
Peace Pole Garden
Work continued at the Peace Pole Garden, which is starting to look cared for and maintained after many years of sub-par maintenance. We did some weeding, a little planting, and celebrated the return of the garden's newly lovely sign, all spruced up by Lucy Gentilhomme! Big thanks to her, and to the Peace Pole crew. Our garden visits rarely take more than an hour, and we always have a lot of fun. Many hands make light work! If you would like to be added to the list of Peace Pole Garden maintainers, contact Jenny Robson (jenrobson@mac.com) or Melissa Smart (lisbeetea.ms@gmail.com).
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