Plant Sale: Saturday, May 7

The Atlantic Rhododendron and Horticultural Society Plant sale is from 1-3:30 at he the LeMarchant-St Thomas School gym, 6141 Watt St, Halifax on Saturday, May 7

Wed. Apr. 27thSoil pH, Liming andPlant Nutrition

The April meeting will be your last chance to place your perennial orders; please bring your forms and your cheques.

Phil Warman is going to talk to us about testing and amending our soil to achieve the best growth results for our plants. As part of his talk, Phil will bring his pH meter so that any club member can have a free soil pH test and lime requirement analysis.  See the details below on how to collect a soil sample from your yard for testing during his presentation.

Phil has a BSc degree in Agronomy and MSc and PhD degrees in Soil Biochemistry from the University of Guelph. His interests include soil biochemistry, soil-plant relations, heavy metal bioavailability, composting of agricultural and industrial wastes (with emphasis on compost quality parameters) and the analysis and application of alternative fertilizers to soils and crops.

Photo by elvisripley on Flickr

If you have soil questions, Phil can also offer insight in the following areas:

• Soil Fertility, Plant Nutrition and Human Health
• Composts and Composting
• Organic Amendments for Soils and Plants

How to collect your soil sample for testing:

• Take a trowel or shovel and dig down at least 6 inches (15 cm) in a few places in your garden and add the samples to a clean pail.
• Mix the entire sample, remove stones and plant debris
• Take a representative sample of about half a cup. 
• Bring the sample inside and spread it out to air dry for at least 2 days on a piece of paper. 
• Make note of what you would like to grow in the area where the sample was taken.
• Bring your dry sample to the Garden Club in a small plastic bag.

As always, we will have a box for donations to our local community food bank at St. Timothy's.

Hope to see you there!

Saturday, April 16 - 8am-5pm

Village Nursery
RR#1 Pleasantville
NS B0R 1G0
Ph: 902-543-5649
Fax:902-543-6554
Visit www.villagenursery.net

Saturday, April 9, 2011District Meeting Information

Hello All,

Thank you for your enthusiasm and participation in making tonight's winter sowing workshop a big success!  Look for links to the handouts our blog's sidebar menus.

Thank you to Tara Moore for sharing the information about the upcoming District Meeting this spring!  Sounds interesting!

Nova Scotia Association of Garden Clubs
District Meeting

Host: Halifax Westmoor Garden Club

Date:  April 9, 2011

Location: 
Bethany United Church Hall
2669 Joseph Howe Drive
Halifax

Times:

8:30 - 9:00am Registration
                     
9:00  Reports from the club presidents

9:30- 10:15- First presenter: Carol Matthews - Creating a Bird Habitat in Your Garden
         
10:15 - 10:45 - Coffee break
         
10:45 - 11:30 - Roslyn Duffus - Rock Gardens

11:30 - 12:00 - Jennifer Modigliani - Garden Tour of England Agenda

12:00 - 1:00 - LUNCH

1:00 - 1:45 - Wayne & Wayne - Daylilies  (also: if the daylily roots are developed enough a presentation on how to trim roots so your daylily produces more blooms, how to divide plant into fans to create more plants)

2:00  Draws for door prizes

2:15 Last chance to shop at vendors & closing                       

Entrance Fees:  Members - $8, Guests - $10

Presidents are asked to keep their presentations to less than 5 minutes.
Each club is asked to bring two door prizes for the draw.

Contact Person:  Joy McCallum, 443-8646
E-mail: joymccallum1@hotmailcom

"Lug A Mug" for coffee or tea to protect the environment

Carolyn Downie will chair the March meeting for Halifax-Westmoor Club March 15/11.  She will be asking the members to volunteer to help support hosting the District Meeting.  Most things are already in place.  A group will make sandwiches but we will need members to provide muffins, cookies or squares.  We will need volunteers for registration, kitchen help and other activities. To make this event a success, we all need to participate.  Think about how you would like to help and please be ready to volunteer at the next meeting.

Wed. Mar. 23rdCollect Perennial Orders & Bringing Birds To The Garden

Hi everyone!

Have you been out in your yards looking for signs of spring?  What did you find?  Anyone seen a robin yet?  Wendy saw a caterpillar!

If you haven't already downloaded your copy of the perennial order form, it's in the sidebar here on this page.  Feel free to share it with friends and family.  Every plant sold helps raise funds to cover our costs, so spread the word! :)  We will be collecting the order forms at this meeting on Wednesday, March 23.

Redpole by Clarity on Flickr

Our guest speaker is going to be Clarence Stevens.  He will be talking about attracting birds to your yard and some of the benefits that can have for your plants.  I can't wait to hear his tips and tricks!  Love having all of the little finches and such in the yard!

As always, we will have a box for donations to our local community food bank at St. Timothy's.

Hope to see you there!

NS Association of Garden Clubs

The Scotia Gardener 

March greetings!

A link to the Nova Scotia Association of Garden Clubs (NSAGC) has been added to the sidebar under Sites of Interest.

The NSAGC publishes The Scotia Gardener quarterly.  You may view back issues on their site under What's New or check out the current issue in our sidebar.

The NSAGC web site has a wealth of information regarding local workshops, contests, news, district events, discounts and the NSAGC Convention as well as links to local clubs and societies.

Wed. Feb. 23rdHands-On Workshop: Winter Sowing

Recycle into mini-greenhouses!

Hi everyone!

We're hoping the weather will hold out so that we can have a full house at our next meeting.  Instead of just a guest speaker, we're going to dig in some dirt for a while as Wendy and Valerie guide us through some winter sowing.

Winter sowing at work!

We will be making our own mini greenhouses planted with some seeds to set outside now.

Once Spring hits, they'll grow where they sit and then we can plant them directly into the ground without hardening them off!

Exciting results!

This approach is a nice way to fill in your gardens quickly as these plants have a great head start and grow into gorgeous clumps.

What To Bring

Please bring a few supplies for this workshop:

• One or two of the following containers to convert to mini-greenhouses:
• 2L pop bottle
• 1L plastic ice cream container with plastic lid
• 1L plastic yogurt container with plastic lid
• 2L or 4L plastic translucent milk or water container
• Strong scissors (like kitchen scissors)
• An exacto knife or carpet knife or cheap old paring knife
• A Lee Valley garden marker (if you have one)
• Seeds you wish to plant (or share)
• click here for suggestions
• Halifax Seed has seed packages year 'round

We will be providing soil and water; mother nature will be providing the weather!

As always, we will have a box for donations to our local community food bank at St. Timothy's.

Reminder:
The Meeting Schedule Page contains meeting dates and time details. There is a permanent link to the Meeting Schedule Page in the right-hand menu under Club Pages.

Worms or Manure Anyone?

Photo by clocker

The Club is organizing orders of both indoor compost worms (European Nightcrawlers) and decomposed manure.

If you are a club member and are interested in ordering with us, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting with your full name.

We should have your contact information on file so we can contact you with more details.

Wed. Jan. 26thLasagna Gardening and Worm Composting

Photo by leedav

This week, our garden club members, John and Freeman, are going to share their experiences with lasagna gardening.  This simple method of creating new garden beds will have you creating new green spaces in a flash without digging or tilling!  Just plunk down a new garden bed anywhere in your yard!  We know that there are other members who have created lasagna gardens and we would encourage them to share their results with the group.  Feel free to bring pictures too if you have them!

Photo by rosepetal236

And of course no bed is complete without some great rich soil so Valerie is going to talk about her experiences with indoor worm composting and how to have these amazing creatures creating enriched garden soil for you all year long!

We hope you'll join us for an evening of sharing and demonstrations!




As always, we will have a box for donations to our local community food bank at St. Timothy's.



Reminder: 
The Meeting Schedule Page contains meeting dates and time details.  There is a permanent link to the Meeting Schedule Page in the right-hand menu under Club Pages.

Wed. Dec. 15th Holiday Social at the Rec. Ctr.

The date for our Holiday Social has been changed to Wednesday, December 15th at the PRCC.
If you would like to help set up, just arrive a bit early between 7pm-7:30pm.

Click here for ideas from Teleflora

Nicole has asked Lynn Yeadon to show us how to create center pieces.

Lynne asks each of the members to bring a few things:

• a pair of pruners
• a container to hold our arrangement
• items to make our creations with such as holly branches, evergreen branches
• items to decorate the arrangement from around the house or garden

Gisele Dupuis will be coordinating the goodies. Nicole will be sending an e-mail out to the members which will include her phone # and her e-mail for her to organize.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Wed. Nov. 24th Features Trees & Shrubs

Photo by ahp_ibanez

Dave Veinot will be joining us as the guest speaker at our next meeting on Wednesday, November 24th. Dave specializes in ornamental trees and shrubs - Japanese Maples, Magnolias, Dogwoods. etc. For those of us needing 'bones' in the gardens or a woody plant in a particular place this would be a great evening.

Dan also worked with Captain Steele, a reknown Rhododendron and Azalea hybridizer who once said, "You could turn the province over a fifty year period into a magnificent thing." when talking about gardening.

Our local food bank is in need of a whole variety of supplies. Some of the things that are most needed are canned stews, noodles & sauce dinners, macaroni/spaghetti, cereals, peanut butter, tuna, canned meat, canned fruit and vegetables, packaged potatoes, tetrapak milk, and items for children's school lunches such as canned fruit, puddings, cracker & cheese packages, etc.

It's easy to forget the food bank donation as you're rushing out the door to your favourite meeting, but every can and package helps someone.

Wed. Oct. 27 Features Dahlias

Photo by Sel

At our next meeting on Wednesday, October 27, we will be featuring Bill Mercier from Shad Bay. He will be speaking about Dahlias and actually bringing tubers to show us how to divide them and store them for winter as well as speak about growing them when the snow stops to fly. Bill has been growing Dahlias for some time and obviously knows Dahlias quite well. I know this since he identified all the Dahlias I brought in a vase at the last meeting and even taught me a couple of things about their 'form'. :O) 

Photo by Eric

For those who have Dahlias, Bill advises that now would be a good time to get ready to take the tubers out of the ground. In a phone conversation this morning, he advised to simply cut them back to a foot from the ground, leave them for a week, then dig them up. I will be doing as such starting this weekend. After digging, clean them off with a hard hose spray, let them dry a bit, and if you wish to divide them after Bill's presentation, simply keep them in a dry cool place. 

Photo by Nicole Dearman

Dahlias are great in the gardens, especially as 'fillers' and for late season blooms which we all yearn for! 

Take photos of your Dahlias and lets do a Dahlia tuber Swap in the spring!!! 

Looking forward to seeing you there!