Visiting Jewell Myers' home

If you didn't have ideas for your yard before, you surely will have some now. This yard has seen a lot of love poured into it. What great ideas!

On August 26, 2008, our club went to the home of Jewell Myers who is the mother of one our members, Sandy Walston. As you can see from the pictures, her yard is unbelievable! It is truly beautiful and it seems there are unique areas everywhere you look. Thank you so much Jewell and Sandy for thinking of us!

Good way to start spring is to start seeds!

We kicked off the 2008 season with a presentation from Mac MacMahon and his wife Arrah, who talked about their hobby of starting plants from seeds. They gave us handouts with good info for all types of seeds and when to start them. Mac showed us pictures of his plant trays that he has built with adjustable fluorescent lighting to keep the light 1" above the starts. He also gave good tips on using planting medium instead of soil, keep the plants moist, give them 8 hours of darkness each day, and harden them when they are ready to take outside.

Everyone brought some seeds to share, so while we swapped seeds we gave out door prizes. Lynne supplied pencils that had "Germantown Hills Garden Club" imprinted on them.

Spring Flowers from North Carolina

I just wanted to share some of the flowers and bushes that have started blooming here in North Carolina.  Hope things brighten up in Illinois soon!

 

Dutch Garden Offers $25 off $50 orders through April 11th

Dutch Gardens is offering their $25 off $50 orders again this spring.  This year, the offer is only good through April 11th.

Take $25 off Dutch Gardens orders of $50 or more! Offer valid through 4.11.08.

Schedule of Events for 2008

The officers of our club met at Jane's house in January to do some planning for the coming year. It's going to be action packed! Here is a brief rundown:

We're going to kick off the season on March 25 by having 2 master gardeners come to our first meeting to prepare us for planting seeds. Members will be asked to bring any seeds they currently have to share and trade. We are also going to get some insight from Barb as to good herbs to plant this year. This is in preparation for making herbal wreaths this fall.

In April we'll be taking a road trip to Connie Ulrich's greenhouse and the Country Store close by. This is always a favorite and is becoming an annual trip for us.

Also, in April, we're going to meet in Laura's garage for a working meeting to make items to sell in May.

Two things are planned for May. The details aren't final yet, but we're pretty sure we can sponsor a sale at Jubilee in Germantown Hills on May 10, which falls right before Mother's Day. We'll have stepping stones we have made, hypertufas, etc., and plants. Proceeds will go to the local fire department.

A road trip is planned in May to visit the Seed Pod in Edwards, then go to Bishop Hill for lunch and then stop at the Galva greenhouse. This was a huge hit last year so we're repeating it.

In June we're planning a - you guessed it - road trip to Streator to visit the Weber House & Garden. This house is a must-see. It is very old and historical, having had many famous guests and beautiful gardens.

Barb will be hosting an herbal dinner at her home in July, where we will tour her gardens and talk about herbs.

Fairies will be our theme in August. We had so much fun last year creating fairy gardens that we wanted to do it again, especially since we know what it is all about now.

We are going to get creative in September, where we will hold our meeting at the local fire station. Barb is going to teach us how to make herbal wreaths, hopefully using herbs we planted this year.

This is just a brief run down of our plans. More details will come later. Should be lots of fun!

Growing Herbs in the Kitchen

I'm just curious if anyone has ever tried one of these indoor herb growing devices?

If so are they handy? Do they work better than just using other herb growing containers, such as a pot?

Grandma Look at this Baby Duck I found for You

Love Zoe

Our Annual Event

Saturday, September 8, we sponsored a booth at ICC's Landscape & Garden Days.  I was unable to attend, as I had a wedding to go to out of town.  Jane sent me the following pictures she took.

The stepping stones and gazing balls were made by us and the plants were donated to sell by club members.  The stars on the gazing balls glow in the dark!

Here's a customer at our booth!  We had 3 tables loaded with neat stuff!

Gerda and Melanie are ready for more customers.

Seeds are always a hot item.  We had a great variety of them.

 

 

This "kitty" stepping stone is just in time for Halloween!

 

 

 

The American flag stepping stone would be great in a country garden since it is a colonial flag.

 

The leaf was made from a real hosta leaf.  This was a very natural looking leaf, trimmed in warm brown.  It also had a hole in it should anyone decide to hang it.

Happy Birthday Mom! (Cindy)

Happy Birthday Mom!

I'd like to ask everyone to wish Cindy a happy birthday tomorrow!

Some of you may have noticed that the Garden Clubs of Central Illinois blog has changed slightly overnight.

I just finished upgrading and updating the site for Mom's birthday. The pages are laid out a little wider so that larger pictures can be published and viewed more easily. The website address has also changed (the old one will still work).

Old - http://gardenclubsofcentralil.blogspot.com
New - http://www.GardenClubsofCentralIllinois.com


I've added labels for the different categories of articles to include:

• Crafts and Projects
• Events
• Meetings
• Gardening Resources
• Gardens
• Member Gardens
• Nurseries
• Tips

* Any mistake in categorization are mine and not Cindy's.

Mom (Cindy's) birthday is September 3 (Labor Day - of all the days for her mom to go into labor . . . . ;) )

I won't reveal Mom's age, but the blog has 50 articles in it now.

I hope everyone is having fun with their gardens. I've just moved from the Atlanta area to the Gastonia North Carolina area and basically moved from one drought to the next!

Also, you can now subscribe to this blog through your email accounts. Just enter your email in the upper right hand corner and complete the steps and you will receive copies of all Garden Club of Central Illinois Articles straight to your email account so that you will never miss anything!




Anyway, I'd like to ask everyone to wish Cindy a happy birthday tomorrow!

Best Regards,
Brett Bumeter

~her son :)

Last meeting of the season

September 25, (my son's bday and my mom's bday) will be the date for our last meeting this year. We have a guest speaker, Glenn Herold, Professor of Horticulture at ICC, who will give a presentation from 7:00 - 8:00 on "Minor Bulbs", what they are and how to use them in your landscaping.

We will then have a brief business meeting. There will be some games that Jane, our president, is going to surprise us with and a gift exchange: either bring a $5 gift or something from your garden to share.

Location: Germantown Hills Community Center
Time: 7:00 pm
Date: September 25

ICC Garden & Landscape Day

ICC is hosting their annual Garden & Landscape Day next Saturday, Sep 8, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. This is always a lot fun, checking out the booths, going to the seminars, EATING FOOD, and viewing ICC's gardens. We will certainly have a booth there with a variety of items for sale. If anyone from our club can volunteer to work from 11:30 to 1:30, it would be greatly appreciated, especially by Melanie who is the only one who has signed up to work at that time! She needs help!

Remember to drop off your items to sell at Jane's house or at ICC. Drop them off at Jane's the day before, or at ICC between 7:30 am to 9:00 on Saturday.

Laura's yard

I wanted to separate Laura's yard pics from the fairy container pics. Here we go!

The Fairies have homes!

Our Garden Club met tonight at the home of Laura B in Edwards. We took a tour of her large yard, first seeing her greenhouse in the backyard and the treehouse nestled amongst some interesting trees. Then we saw her propane tank, which you may think it remarkable that I would even mention it, but it was beautiful! It was covered in flowers (I can't remember the name of them right now) and surrounded with more flowers. There is a picture of it above. Then we walked to her front porch area and it was loaded with beautiful flowers of all kinds and there was even a couple fairies here and there. She gave us some 4 o'clock seeds from her bountiful collection of those flowers.

We then gathered in the garage where a couple girls from DA Hoerr were present to demonstrate how they made their fairy gardens. Laura's daughter came around with a huge tray of butterfly sugar cookies - we had to have something with wings to fit in with our fairy theme! You may notice, I always mention the food. Everyone laid out their trinkets and supplies and we were all amazed at how beautiful the 4 prepared fairy containers were. After a brief meeting, we all got started by filling our containers with dirt and plants. I brought ivy, but there was a huge variety. Gerda actually had gathered moss from her yard and a live mushroom that she incorporated into her basket. We also used a lot of crafting moss in shades of lime green, purple and so on. The end results were beautiful and we had such a variety. We all vowed to create more fairy gardens, possibly in our yards. Jane, our president, presented a gift to Laura for hosting our meeting. It was found at the Irish Fest: it was a plaque to hang on a tree that was shaped like a door and was fairy related. Very cute!

I'm going to try to post pictures of all the fairy containers.

Fairy Gardens

Tomorrow night we are going to Laura's home for our August meeting and we are on a mission. Laura put together some invitations that she mailed to everyone about a "treasure hunt" to find items that fairies like. You may ask, "what DO fairies like?" Her answer is shiny things like thimbles, jewelry, small glass bottles or tiny pieces of colored glass.

After collecting these items, the fairy needs a place to keep them, so we are to bring a container: it can be a suitcase, the hypertufas we made in June, a large gourd with a front opening, or anything suitable for holding dirt.

Next, we need to bring plants to create the fairy garden. They can be perennials to transplant later into our yards, annuals or house plants if you want to keep it inside.

Other things we might need would be a teacup for the fairy to use as shelter or cloth with some kind of support. Fake mushrooms, palm fronds or moss would be interesting additions also.

This should be fun! Using our imaginations, I think we may come up with some unique homes that are sure to attract fairies!

Luthy Botanical Gardens

After working so hard in June, on July 24th we took another field trip to Luthy Botanical Gardens in Peoria. Golda Ewalt, her husband and Jen Kamps gave a presentation on herbs. Golda's husband gave us a lots of tips on growing and caring for herbs, with plenty of group participation in asking questions and getting his advice. Golda demonstrated how to preserve herbs. She showed us how to make an herbla vinegar and gave a jug to Lynne for winning a game of "Name that Herb". She and Jen then made all of us an herbal dinner, demonstrating how to make each dish and stressing how important it is to eat many fresh veggies and fruit each day. The dinner was excellent. After eating, we were on our own to wander through Luthy's herbal gardens.

Things to sell

June was the month for our "working" meeting. We met at Jane's house and made all kinds of hypertufas and stepping stones. We made one item to keep and one item to sell at the upcoming ICC Landscape & Garden Day. The Club furnished the concrete and sand, a couple members were able to come up with peat moss, and we all donned our rubber gloves and started playing in concrete.

Lisa W brought some decorator cake pans that turned out to be great for making stepping stones. We lined them with plastic so that the pans wouldn't be ruined, then poured our mixture of concrete, sand and water into them. I made a frog with bulging eyes and a big belly. Gerda loaned me her paints, and I set about painting him. It was fun, and I'm not really artistic, but he didn't turn out too bad. He will be for sale at ICC. Gerda used a cake pan of the American flag that she also painted. It turned out really good.

We also made hypertufas, which are made out of concrete, water, sand or other stuff that is lighter in weight, and then peat moss. (Equal parts of all the above except the water - just enough of that to make it all stick together) Big bowls or square containers make a good form to pack your concrete mixture into. Don't forget to put a hole for drainage in the bottom! I also lined the bowl with a plastic garbage bag, and covered the whole thing with the overlapping edges. This has to set for a couple days, then it is ready to take out of the bowl. You still have to let it dry for a couple more days. It turns out to be a rustic looking pot that is light weight.

After we finished, we took a break and had snacks and a drink. Then Jane showed us her backyard that had an inviting looking swimming pool in it surrounded by a fence and wood deck. She had some window boxes, potted plants and unusual plants around the deck and pool. It was very pretty!

Strawberry pot

Last year at the end of the season, I bought a strawberry pot at a greatly reduced price. Now, I had never heard of these before, but thought it sounded intriguing.

I happen to work with a girl who has strawberries growing like crazy in her yard. She offerred to bring me some this spring to fill my container with.

In order to fill a strawberry pot, you need a piece of pvc pipe that is long enough to stick out of the dirt about an inch. I made a quick trip to Ace, and they cut the perfect length for me for about 75 cents. I also bought the fitting to put on the end at the bottom of the pot. Then, I used Steve's drill press and felt pretty mechanical as I started drilling holes throughout the PVC. The reason for doing all this is to be able to water the plant through the pipe, thus getting moisture to the sides of the pot near the bottom, where strawberries are growing.

Carrie from work brought me 15 beautiful strawberry plants, and I proceeded to add dirt to the pot. As I reached the lower openings on the sides, I planted strawberries. Then, more dirt was added and more strawberries, til the pot was full. I placed the remianing strawberries on the top.

I have enjoyed this pot more than any other this year. By the first week of June, I was picking strawberries and eating them fresh off the plants. Also, my son and his wife and my 3 grandkids came to visit, and Zoe was immediately attracted to my strawberries! I was happy to have something fresh for them to run outside and pick to eat!

My only question is, how are you supposed to store strawberry pots for the winter? Do you cover them, bring them indoors or in the garage or basement? Any help will be appreciated!

Sherican Nursery

May was a busy month for us. Our regular meeting on May 22 was a visit to Sheridan Nursery in Peoria where Susan Cody, a floral designer at the nursery, gave us tips on container planting. Most of us brought our own containers and we were set loose on the nursery to find just the right plants to put in them. They furnished the soil for us, and Susan was standing by to answer any questions we had. I stumbled upon a teacup planter that had a variety of annuals in it, which I couldn't pass by, so I bought it too. It was fun to browse through the nursery after hours and to have it all to ourselves!

The Seed Pod & Lisa Williamson's House

On Saturday, May 19, we went to The Seed Pod in Edwards, IL, then went for lunch to Lisa's house. Lisa recently joined our club and felt that we could help her identify the plants that were growing in the yard at her new home. As you will see from the pics, she has a lovely yard!

We also have an exceptional cook! We aren't at all shy about eating, either.

Road Trip!

We went on a road trip to Connie Ulrich's greenhouse and Janice Ulrich's Country Store in Lowpoint on April 24, 2007. Connie lives on a farm and does the greenhouse thing on the side. We love going there because she has some unique flowers to sell and has pictures and stories about a lot of them. She also has some interesting gardens of her own.

Janice has a country store in the basement of her home. A lot of the items for sale are in canning jars - truly a country store. Many locals get there supplies there. We like the cheeses that she sells.

Garden Theme Note Cards

On March 27, 2007, our club got together at the Germantown Hills Community Center to make garden theme note cards. The Club furnished the card paper, envelopes, stencils and stamps. Everything was decorated with scraps of ribbon, bottons, glitter, stamps, stencils and so on. As you can see, we love to get dirty in the dirt as we work in our gardens, but we are also crafty!

Watering Tips from the Home Depot Gardening Club Newsletter

Here are some tips from the latest Home Depot Gardening Club Newsletter.  You can sign up for the newsletter directly with the link below.

Efficient and Convenient Ways to Water Plants

Water is a precious resource, and for homeowners on a municipal water supply it’s an expensive one, too. Since up to one half of all household water is used in the lawn and garden, it makes sense to look at efficient, effective, and convenient ways to keep plants healthy so you can enjoy a beautiful landscape and conserve water.

Water Efficiently

The most efficient way to water plants is to apply water directly to the soil. Avoid wetting plant foliage and you’ll minimize disease problems. Read more...

Water at the Right Time

You may be surprised at how much water is lost to evaporation when you water on a warm, sunny afternoon. Estimates put the amount at up to 30%. Read more...

Avoid Runoff

In addition to evaporation, water is frequently lost to runoff. If land is sloped or soil is compacted, water won’t sink in but will instead drain away. Read more...

Water Deeply

When you water, strive to moisten the soil down to the depth of the plants’ root systems. Newly seeded areas and transplants may need daily watering. Read more...

Adjust Water to Plants’ Needs

Some plants need more water than others to thrive. Squash, melons, and tomatoes require consistently moist soil to produce their best. Read more...

Amend Soil and Apply Mulch

Interestingly, adding organic matter to soil helps it absorb and retain water, while also improving its drainage. Read more...

Make Watering Convenient

Water is vital to plants, but taking time out of a busy day to water the garden can be difficult. Set up a system that makes it easy for you. Read more...

Home Depot Gardening Club

Home Depot is sponsoring their own gardening club.  You can subscribe to the club for free.  Home Depot's Gardening club provides a number of gardening tips, tools, classes and inspiring ideas.

They also send out a number of gardening coupons and deals directly to their gardening club members that you might not find in the normal Home Depot flyers or newspaper inserts.

Christmas Centerpieces

We took our last road trip of this year going to Pine Grove Farm in Chillicothe. As this was in late November, it was a good time to make Christmas centerpieces. Our hostess, Renee, who owns and runs Pine Grove Farm, was an excellent instructor. She furnished us with various types of evergreens and taught us how to arrange them in our pots. She then gave us different items to complete the arrangements and Christmas ribbons to put the finishing touches on the centerpieces. We enjoyed some cookies and coffee as she demonstrated how to make swags. They grown evergreens on their farm and sell them for Christmas trees. The Journal Star had a reporter there while we were working in a flurry of activity putting our arrangements together. The story should appear in the paper; sorry, I don't know the date of that.

We all had a great time and at the end of our meeting we gave away a door prize of $20 to be spent at Pine Grove Farm.

Bingo!

Our club met in September and played Garden Bingo. Everyone brought garden related items to put on the prize table. All players were winners, some winning multiple prizes. This is a fun game, because our bingo cards have themes as we play. One of the games has the columns labelled with annuals, perenials, shrubs, trees, flit and fly, creepy crawly, etc. Then the normal bingo numbers in each row are replaced with items such as poppy, hyacinth, marigold, butterfly, etc.

Another bingo game is using the theme of fiction, with headings like fictional characters. The rows are then filled with "jolly green giant", "popeye", "wicked witch of the west", etc.

Our prizes ranged from live plants to garden decorations to T-shirts to hose sprayers and garden gloves, and much more. I came away with gloves, an autumn pumpkin, and a wind chime.

Location of the ICC Landscape & Garden Day

The ICC Landscape & Garden Day event is located at the East Peoria Campus right off route 24, at the top of the hill before going to Peoria. The hours are from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm on Saturday, September 9.

Some of the Special Features are:

- Plant clinic by the Tri-County Master gardeners. Bring a plant for on-the-spot diagnosis.
- 7th Annual Photography contest show and judging
- American Welding Socitey Sculpture show and silent auction
- Plant Sale, featuring hostas and new shrub selections, by ICC Horticulture Program
- "Children's Corner" (Face painting and other activities)
- The ever popular "Putt for Plants"

There will be maps and plant information at the registration table.

Seminars:

- Designing a Native Garden from 9:15 - 10:15 am
- Apple Churney and other Culinary Delights from 10:30 - 11:30 am
- Lunch
- Native Trees for the Home Landscape from 1:00 - 2:00 pm
- Natural Looking Water Gardens from 2:15 - 3:00 pm

Plant Societies demonstrations and information:

- Bonsai Club, Heart of Illinois
- Central Illinois Hosta Society
- Peoria Orchid Society
- Peoria Herb Guild
- Shell's African Violets

Area Garden Clubs:

- Germantown Hills Garden Club (this is our club!)
- Peoria Evening Garden Club
- Peoria Garden Club

Also to be there:

- Tri-County Master Gardeners
- George Luthy Botanical Garden
- Heart of Illinois Beekeepers Association
- Peoria Urban Forestry Advisory Board

Local Businessess:

- Better Earth Compost
- DA Hoerr & Sons Nursery
- Dantone Greenhouse
- Green View Companies
- Jim's Ornamental Garden Iron
- Lee Gardens
- Old Heritage Landscaping
- Outback Water Gardens
- Prairie Woods Farm
- Reflections Welding
- Spangler's Daylillies & Perennials

Garden Bingo!

On September 26th we'll have our next meeting at the Germantown Hills Community Center. We'll be playing Garden Bingo with lots of prizes for the winners!

Our next event

We are going to have a booth at the upcoming ICC Garden and Landscape Show on Saturday, September 9. We will be selling plants, gardening magazines, and seeds. Besides all the booths to browse through, ICC has some pretty gardens to walk through and get ideas from. They also have cooking seminars to attend. It's a fun day so we hope to see everyone there!