Jeff Goins has a 500 word a day challenge and I am going to give it a shot! Blogging counts so hang on!
My garden club, Pine Needle, met today at the Augusta Country Club. After a quick business meeting and a little socializing, the program chairman introduced the speaker, Judy Kirkland. Judy presented a PowerPoint presentation on Hellebores, commonly known as Lenten Rose. I had to scoot out early, but learned that Hellebores are poisonous and not attractive to deer. I will pass that along to cousin Kathy in Virginia. The deer eat everything in her landscape!
There are many, many varieties of Hellebore. I found myself wanting one of each! Â Hellebores are definitely a good investment as they make great cut flowers. The flowers dry beautifully, too, so you will have longer in vase and arrangements.
Are you a member of a garden club? I’ve been a member of Pine Needle for 15 years! I joined right after taking the Master Gardener class in 2000. Not everyone in a garden club is a true gardener, in fact, I would say 75 percent of the ladies in our group do not really put their hands in the dirt often! And that is ok!
Garden Club is like other groups, it gives us an outlet to socialize with other ladies who like to hear about gardening and topics related to gardening. Our club has a variety of ages and interests among our ladies. They are the nicest group of women though, all very supportive.
We meet on the first Tuesday of every month and our calendar year runs from September through May. We skip over April because of Masters week! Our program Chairman arranges to have someone speak each month on a topic related to gardening.
I have been a member of Pine Needle for 15 years! I have grown to love and respect many of our members. One in particular, Barbara Botts, was very special to me. she passed away a few years ago. I miss her very much. She was very straightforward in everything that she did. She shot from the hip! There wepas no mystery about Barbara. You always knew where she was coming from and what she was about. She owned The Green Thumb garden center for over 50 years. She would bring her newsletter in every month filled with ideas on what to plant, new plant varieties amped recipes. I think those really were the draw for us to pick up the newsletter! I recall that she was an expert on orchids, the in her later years she became very interested in hummingbirds. Barbara spoke to many groups about our little visitors. She was active in banding hummingbirds so that research information could be collected about their habits.
Barbara was very aware that her days were short. She passed away near the time of our big garden festival here in Augusta. i am sure her memorial service was delayed because she did not want to be the center of talk during the festival. Â I loved that woman and miss her strength very much,
So there you go, so many reasons to become involved in a garden club. Lifelong friends, learning and lunch! Go visit.
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