January 15th Meeting Minutes

Minutes from Meeting for Garden Club
January 15, 2007
7:00 PM at Williamson Library

Attendees: Nathalie Fuller, Eric Herriman, Penny Higgins, Carol Hopkins, Perry Howland, Subrata Paul, Shirley Schulze, Scott Utley

1) Discussion of Fiskar "Orange Thumb" Grant
a. Eric will be point person
- Action item: Penny to call Fiskars regarding use of Mike Orr's green space
- URL for past winners
- vote to decide what to focus on – green space or planters?
- update blog to keep track of progress

Update: Grant focus will be Mike Orr's Green Space. Perry, Shirley and Subrata will undertake Questions 2-5 of the grant. Penny will act as advisor/reviewer of grants. Eric will see if students available to help with Question 1. Mary Jane Haugh (Economic Advisor) will draw up gardening plan.

2) Discussion of 2008 calendar for monthly lectures, etc. (Tentative)
January - Herbs, Meddy from Meddy's Musings
February - Seed-starting, Penny Higgins
March - Garden design/hardscaping
April - Mason Farms/Spring Valley Greenhouse tour
May - Spring plantings & Apple Blossom Festival
June, July & August - Pultneyville House tour (June 14th);
start house tours
- Parker Zach/ daylily tour
- Japanese Garden tour
- Ed & Kris Jorolemon garden tour
August - Audrey Ferris, Rose Garden
September - Herbs, Meddy
Pultneyville Garage Sale/3rd wknd in Sept.
October - Mulching/composting
November - Fall Plantings
December - John Palmer, flower arrangements

3) Pultneyville Home Tours "Sailor's Farewell" – Carol Hopkins
- donations from local farms and florists for 10 houses on the tour
- Would Garden Club be able to donate small vase of cut flowers? Carol can call a meeting to discuss what owners would like
- Penny has started plants – should have extras to donate
- $25 tickets, 10 houses. Tickets are free to docent (work ½ day). 10-4pm

4. Feedback on December event
- more people needed to work on arrangements
- set up work stations so goes more smoothly
- complimentary article AND letter in Sun and Record

Master Gardener Program

Hello Fellow Gardeners!

Laurie Van Norstrand from the Cornell Cooperative Extenstion in Wayne County, contacted me.

She is putting together a list of Master Gardener candidates for the next class. If you are interested,, please leave your contact information on the Master Gardener voicemail at Cornell Cooperative Extension, Wayne County, at 315-331-8415 x107.

Just FYI - The Cornell Cooperative Extension has a gardening hotline that is typically open, Tuesday and Friday from 9am - noon. Please call the office at 315-331-8415 and ask to speak to one of the highly trained Master Gardener volunteers.

thanks!
Subrata

Herbology URL Links

For those who missed an excellent lecture last night, feel free to contact me for a copy of the handout.

Meddy provided some useful URLs:

http://herbsociety.org/index.php - perhaps the best source to begin with

http://www.plantations.cornell.edu/collections/botanical/herb_brochure_cfm - who knew we had this resource almost in our backyard? In nearby Ithaca, science meets art and the beauty of nature.

http://www.websterny.com/arboretum - this is right in our backyard, in Webster

http://www.gardensalive.com/ - helpful products/beneficial insects

http://www.ann-mccormick.com/HerbNCowgirl/GardenDesign2.htm - ideas on formal garden designs

http://www.planetbotanic.ca/fact_sheets/fact_sheets.htm - individual herb fact sheets, some historical data with medicinal observances written with indvidual flair


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Other interesting URLs:

http://www.herbcompanion.com/ - herb magazine

http://www.abouthyme.com/dayletters/ - All About Thyme A Weekly Calendar of Times & Seasonings

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/herbs/ - excellent resource for Q&A

If you have other suggested herb sites, let me know and I'll post them!

happy gardening!
Subrata

The vote is in!

Mike Orr's Green Space will be our focus for the Fiskar Grant this year.

We've already taken pictures and measurements of the area (thanks, Shirley!) and are on our way to working on the grant.

Watch this space as we post updates!

- Subrata

Update on Members Meeting

Hello Fellow Gardeners,

We had a GREAT turn-out yesterday at our members meeting.

Topics of discussion included the Fiskars grant and also our year-long Monthly Lectures.

1. We are going forward with applying for the Fiskar grant. Eric Herriman is going to lead the group and there were some great ideas tossed around. Penny Higgins found out that the grant can be used for any community focused activity. Some people have already e-mailed me offering their expertise/proof-reading abilities and other skills. If you are interested in participating in applying for the grant, please contact Eric.

2. We came up with an AMAZING 2008 monthly lecture schedule. Highlights include, but are not limited to, water garden tour, japanese garden tour, dayliily garden tour, rose garden tour (are we seeing a trend here?). If we are able to get the speakers, we will have a lecture on hardscaping/landscaping and mulching. Just a reminder that next Wednesday, we will have our Herbology 101 lecture.

If you have suggestions/speaker recommendations, etc. please email them to me.

3. Finally, we're going to plan ahead a bit for the spring plantings. For anyone who is available, Lorraine Mason has agreed to meet with us on Wednesday, January 30th, at 7pm at the Williamson Library to talk about spring plantings for this year. We got some GREAT compliments last year and hope we can come up with plant ideas that will last the entire season.
This will hopefully be the only month we end up having THREE meetings but it's nice to start out the year with some very exciting things going on.

Happy Gardening!
Subrata

January Lecture - Growing and Caring of Herbs

Hello Fellow Gardeners!

Have you wondered how to pick the best herbs to grow in this area? Are you confused between ornamental herbs and culinary herbs? Are you interested in growing herbs from seeds?

The Williamson Garden Club is excited to announce that our January lecturer will be Meddy from Meddy's Musings in Williamson. She will lecture on Herbology 101: Growing and Care of Herbs , a basic overview of choosing, growing and caring for herbs.

This free lecture will be on Wednesday, January 23rd at the Williamson Public Library at 7:00pm. As with all our lectures, this event is open to the public.

Happy Gardening!
Subrata

January Members Meeting

Hello Fellow Gardeners -

I hope you're enjoying the beautiful weather! Who would have thought we would have 60 degree weather in January?

I'm still working on our January event and hope to have something put together soon.

In the meantime, I thought we should get started with our member's meeting to discuss plans for 2008.We've gotten some good buzz so far - Jim Hoffman gave some nice praise for our Fall Plantings and the Sun & Record has run some nice articles about our donated Flower Arrangements at Blossom View. We'll be meeting on Tuesday, 1/15 in the interior conference room at the Williamson library at 7pm . I hope to see everyone there!

And for those of you who are free during the day, I received this from the Wayne County Cooperative Extension:
Free Presentation: Thursday, January 17th from 11am to noon at the Wayne County Cooperative Extension in Newark"Weed Suppressive Groundcovers" a presentation from Brian Eshenaur, NYS Integrated Pest Management Team.We will learn about plants that can help control weeds in those hard to mow spots or that can be planted to cut down landscape maintenance. Please call(315)331-8415 by January 15th to RSVP if you can join us.

Happy Gardening!
Subrata