Garden clubs

Good for your club--that's the way it should be.

Gardenmart, sorry to hear bout the big c, hope you are recovering well still.

It sounds like you have a great garden club, Martha.....

I'd love to be part of club like yours, Martha. That's what I expected from a club!

We have had three members lose their husbands in the past year. Last Wednesday, we put on the after-funeral collation for the latest one as neither she nor her husband has very much family. We alerted our board members old and new as this lady is on the present board and was on the just past one, and members came together to bring food and hostess this event for her. all on only a couple days notice. Saugus is a small town. Nearly everybody knows everybody or is related to them. Our open meeting at Town Hall auditorium is getting to be a popular annual event. I am proud of our club because it is "our" club. We are going to The Garden in the Woods, home of the New England Wildflower Society for our June field trip. We do look at plants now and again!
Martha

Sounds very nice, Martha....a very supportive club.....

Ditto to all Marilyn said. I wish that had been the case down here but it wasn't.

Start your own club. they don't have to be federated.

I'm afraid I couldn't handle all that Martha's garden club does. Good thought though.

Start small with a spring tour & several winter lectures. You notice that I am not doing this myself. For irises you can read our local (eastern Mass) iris organization at www.massirises.org. newsletter which comes out twice a year. Perhaps other organizations have a similar posting.

If I could find people more serious about gardening, other than having the latest novelty plant and then allowing it to die from lack of care, I'd gladly start a little group. Most just aren't serious and all irises are the same to them and they do not want to learn there are more than the TBI's. The same goes for clematises, roses, hydrangeas and most other plants. Many just want "a splash of color" and loathe keeping names thinking it's putting on airs.

Thank you for your ideas and your help, Lucy.

If we want to know people's names is it 'putting on airs'? Sad.

Right on! Somehow they don't see it that way.

However, we have a good garden club going on this site.

The best, bar none. The people are all so helpful and we all seem so eager to learn.

I've learned amazing stuff on this site.....mostly from Victor...LOL

oops!!

I've seen names of things I hadn't heard of on this site. It's cool, cause it opens up one's bounderies.

All my life I've known what hostas looked like but until I joined DG I had no idea how vast the family of them was and then, thanks to trades and trading with my nursery guy here in Southold since 1993, I now have a very nice collection.

I love DG and the people who make it so interesting.

This has been a wonderful source of information, as well as much fun!!

Pirl, you always have so much to share, a true grower. Are you anywhere close to Brookhaven? http://www.shorehamgardenclub.org

Or maybe a nearby garden center or even a supermarket will have a bulletin board for like-minded growers.

The best clubs have a booth at local shows, are always welcoming new gardeners and have worthwhile programs.

We're lucky enough to have an arboretum in town that I believe works with the state agricultural extension program. I think Bartlett Arboretum has master gardener classes and similar workshops.

I joined the CT horticultural society, then promptly went out and ruptured some discs at work, meeting were too far and sitting was........uncomfortable at best so actually never made a meeting. Have hope in the future that I will be able to attend and enjoy it.

Thanks for the good thoughts, Cathy. Brookhaven is quite a drive for me and night driving is a horror for me. Other clubs are 90 minutes away and mostly meet at night so they are out as well. It's part of the penalty to be paid for living at the very eastern tip of Long Island, just 14 miles west of the ocean.

We actually have some neighbors who consider themselves to be gardeners but who know nothing of soil, have no idea (and couldn't care less) about names, can't distinguish lacecap from mophead hydrangeas, refuse to remove invasive plants as well as banned plants, and classify all roses as being just roses.

I have one local friend who is terrific with plants and has the most beautiful garden (even when covered by snow), so she and I talk plants quite often and that will have to satisfy me. My friend created this out of weeds and 60 year old overgrown shrubs along with a swimming pool she had filled in where you see the low wall. She is a delight to know.

You're lucky you have someone close, Pirl......my nearest gardening friend is 40 min. away.......

I am extremely lucky. Often she'll spot something new and buy it for me as I do the same for her. It's like having Christmas almost every week during the growing season.

Lynn is exactly a mile away and if she lived next door we'd both be gabbing, not gardening.

LOL.....that's for sure!

Nice to have a gardening buddy.

My gardening buddy is only a few blocks from here and married to my good friend. Unfortunately he has a lot of talent, and his designs are so nice despite his family of rabbits. My gardens on the other hand are kind of "cottagey," helter skelter. Everything grows and blooms beautifully, but my beads are somewhat scattered. Embarrassing.

While I enjoy the cottage look, formal looks and fields of daffodils or wildflowers, the only type I really don't like are the straight rows of any flower. Those soldier straight rows of plants leave me bored.

I guess you'd love my garden, Pirl......helter-skelter sort of describes it....one garden in particular is driving me crazy....I dug out most of the plants 2 summers ago....last year it was just ugly......hoping things fill in this summer....if anything is still alive!

I believe in variety and in odd numbers. Wish we had more property usable for gardening. One of the gardens is not more than 8 feet from the sidewalk and always has something blooming from April (tulips, daffodils, early irises, muscari, crocus, columbine) through the first frost (dahlias). In between we have lilies, centaurea, bee balm, baptisia, amsonia, allium, peonies and nasturtium. The early bulbs are not disturbed by the the later big bulbs, all in about 40-50 sq ft of garden.

Cathy that sounds wonderful. Why would you be embarrassed? As long as it makes you smile, it's a good design.

Marilyn and Cathy - I love helter-skelter and the sound of the continuous flowering seems so ideal.

One Southold gardener has straight rows of daylilies. I couldn't take it since it would never make me smile.

helter skelter is sometimes known as cottage gardens. Even they can be formal if you don't watch out. Pirl, you would not like most of our iris beds as for hybridizing you have to be able to get at them. the older spots where we had them mixed have become too shaded for irises. Tet MTB 'New Idea' was supposed to be moved out, but it refused to stop growing so it is left in the shady area.

I was a daylily hybridizer for many years and have 1,364 of our own daylilies in the garden, Lucy.

In the last few years, gardens that were shade have become sunny due to limb removal, and trees grew where there once was shade. It's always work to keep up with the changes and challenges gardens present.

I have hosta, daylilies, siberian and tall bearded iris all in my garden because I am at the top of a hill! I tend to garden with things that will hold the soil to this hillside as it is a thinner layer of soil on the hillside on top of rock! Sometimes you have to garden with what you've got. i love these plants because of the vast variety of them all. I have places where I can put bulbs in the bed along my driveway & it is straight rows of daffodils because that's where the soil depth is for them. However, I have tried to break up the straight rows of hosta on the other side by using different varieties with different colors and leaf textures. They still have to be in a straight row, but the differences fool the eye. I use a lot of containers at the top near the house because my husband won't let me dig up part of the driveway to make flower beds where all the sun is! I never understood that, never! I have my houseplant shelf out there along the house where my indoor plants go for their summer vacation, and other containers for annuals and what not. It has been fun and a challenge gardening here for the last 28 years.
Martha
here's a picture of the plant vacation shelf from a couple of years ago. Note the blacktop in the left of the picture.

That looks like a lot of work, Martha......and I can sympathize with the driveway....that's my sunniest spot, too!

Those pots look like a great deal of work, congratulations. Luckily DH is a better gardener than I am, since he has to do the heavy work. Our iris club (see www.massirises.org) will be having a sale in Concord on July 30. I will post information closer to the date.

Our driveway is also the sunniest spot. I prefer not to garden in full sun and the removal of a dime sized chunk of my leg near the shin bone, two days ago, due to "solar" issues, makes me love shade even more. Squamous cell carcinoma was the verdict.

Iris, couldn't open the link.