"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May"
Tallamy Lecture Recap
Over 200 enthusiastic gardeners attended our 100th Anniversary lecture on April 18th, which generated very positive feedback and provided a good kick-off for the gardening year.
Dr. Doug Tallamy offered general guidance about the importance of gardening in a way that supports our native species, and also gave some specific answers to audience questions. A few takeaways are:
He advises against participating in "No Mow May", explaining it is only beneficial if your lawn has a substantial number of noninvasive wildflowers that actually benefit pollinators. If you’re just not mowing monoculture turfgrass, then nothing’s really happening for the wildlife. Instead, he recommends reducing lawn size and replacing it with pollinator friendly plants.
If, in moving away from manicured lawn to more shrubs and perennials your yard starts to look or feel a bit messy, he recommends incorporating a "cue for care", something which signals your garden is well maintained, even if the plantings are not groomed looking. These are things like a well maintained garden path, or a birdbath, sundial, or bench in a pleasant, defined area. You can even plant natives in a formal bed arrangement.
There's not yet a way to eliminate Asian Jumping Worms. He acknowledges they are a real and serious problem.
He believes that the over-population of deer in many parts of the country is a primary reason invasive species win out over natives. Deer eat the natives, leaving most non-natives to proliferate. So, to bring back pollinator habitat, one important thing we can do is to advocate for humane deer population control.
There are two types of keystone plants: Host plants that feed the young caterpillars of approximately 90% of butterflies and moths, and plants that feed specialist bees who only eat pollen from specific plants. Keystone plants are native plants critical to the food web and necessary for many wildlife species to complete their life cycle. Without keystone plants in the landscape, butterflies, native bees, and birds will not thrive. 96% of our terrestrial birds rely on insects supported by keystone plants.
If you're inspired to put Dr Tallamy's words into action, attached here is his list of Keystone Native Plants for our area, which is classified as Ecoregion 8 - Eastern Temperate Forests. His Homegrown National Park initiative has many additional resources.
Many thanks to Gena Cohen Moses and Lauren Savage for spearheading this initiative, and for doing the huge job seeing it through to culmination in this successful event. Thanks also to all of the Committee members who played a part, especially Melissa Smart for creating the wonderful informational pamphlet that was handed out.
Up Next:
May Meeting -
Sanborn Mills Farm Tour
May 16, 2024, 10:00 AM
Sanborn Mills Farm, 7097 Sanborn Rd, Loudon, NH 03307, USA
Sanborn Mills Farm is a working farm with a mission to sustain and teach traditional farming and craft skills while stewarding its agricultural landscape for social, environmental, and economic benefits.
Their many gardens include the following: ornamental gardens, stream garden, meadow garden, sally (basket willow) garden, dye garden, teaching/ vegetable garden, kitchen garden, as well as annuals for cut flowers. They offer CSA programs for both produce and flowers.
Sanborn Mills Farm also has a grist mill and a saw mill, and they offer many wonderful workshops including Farm & Garden, Blacksmithing, Woodworking, Fiber Arts, and Historic Craft!
Their web site (https://www.sanbornmills.org) shows why our tour there should be very fun and interesting.
This tour will be held Thursday, May 16th 2024 at 10am. In case of inclement weather, the tour will be rescheduled to the following Thursday, May 23rd.
Members only, no guests
Registration closes May 10, 2024, 10:00 AM
Questions? Contact Ruth Perencevich at rperence@comcast.net.
June - CGC Annual Meeting
As a treat for our 100th Concord Garden Club Annual Meeting luncheon, Author and Humorist Neal Sanders will entertain us with his presentation “Garden is Murder”.
Neal speaks from a ‘husband’s point of view’ of gardening. His presentation is filled with humor and insight from someone who gardens less from an abiding love of horticulture than for the love of a spouse. Good horticultural advice is dispensed, bad advice is debunked. Our members will leave with a better appreciation of what is going on in the mind of their helpmates.
Neal will talk about….
· Why it is impossible to do just one thing in the garden
· Why so much gardening information on the internet is awful
· Why you should never compute the value of your labor in gardening
· Evidence that the wildlife in your garden have never seen a Disney film
· Why it requires digging three holes to plant something
· And much more…
Neal is also an author of 15 mystery themed books, a number of them centered around the bond of members of the Garden Club Gang but also another, stronger bond: each book centers on strong, independent women. Some of those women solve crimes. Some of them commit them. Some did both. Neal will be bringing copies of his books to the luncheon to sell. To review titles and synopsis of the titles, go to: The Hardington Press – The home of mystery writer Neal Sanders
Thursday, June 6 2024
11:30am-2:00pm
Kimball Jenkins Estate
Members Only -- RSVP here
Registration Closes May 10th
September - Save the Date!
Plan to join the fun at our Centennial Celebration Cocktail Party!
Friday, September 6th
5-7:30pm
1 Auburn Street, Concord
The home of Tricia Wentworth and Mark Fagan
Details to follow
SWAG!
Show your Concord Garden Club pride in a practical way with this useful sunhat. Made of material woven with special properties, it's designed to keep you cool and sun-free, and to repel insects.
In addition to this great hat, on offer are an Eddie Bauer softshell vest, a Port Authority gardening apron, Nike baseball cap, and a Carhartt bag with pockets for your gardening tools -- all sporting our beautiful Concord Garden Club logo. They can all be seen and ordered directly from our special website here. The CGC will earn a small profit on each sale.
Hospitality Request
In an effort to be green during our future social events, we have decided to collect plates to use and reuse as needed. We are looking for 6-8" plates which we will first use at our 100th anniversary cocktail party at Tricia Wentworth's house in September. (more about that below). Please look in your cupboards and donate whatever extra you have. We are looking to accumulate about one hundred plates. Gena (bgjam@comcast.net) and Tricia (plwentworth53@gmail.com) will be accepting donations through the spring. Thank you in advance.
May Chores for Flower Gardens
SHOP IN YOUR OWN BEDS: mulching an area, and before things get too far along, practice "use what you've got" gardening, dividing mature plants and plucking out seedlings and other “extra goodies” from cracks and crevices, edges of beds, the driveway, and moving them into better homes where they will make more impact. Free!
TAKE ADVANTAGE of any bouts of cooler, moister weather to divide and move perennials. Water in well, and keep an eye out all season to watch that they don’t stress.
PREPARE NEW BEDS by smothering grass or weeds with layers of recycled corrugated cardboard or thick layers of newspaper, then put mulch on top.
ONCE EXISTING BEDS ARE CLEANED UP, topdress according to label directions with an all-natural organic fertilizer if needed (a soil test can tell you), but more important, a layer of finished compost.
WHEN WORKING IN BEDS and borders, be careful not to clean up too roughly: desirable emerging self-sown annuals and biennials (larkspur, nicotiana, clary sage, Verbena bonariensis, perilla, Angelica gigas, etc.) can be disturbed unless you pay attention.
PLANT ANNUAL VINES, which make hummingbirds and butterflies) smile in high
summer-to-fall.
SPEAKING OF ANNUALS…Just as with many vegetables, a single sowing won’t take you from early season to late fall. Plan for succession plantings.
DEADHEAD SPRING BULBS as blooms fade, but leave foliage intact to wither and ripen the bulbs naturally. Deadhead spring-flowering perennials unless they have showy seedheads, or you want to collect seed later (non-hybrids only, unless you’re feeling daring and want to see what parental traits the offspring revert to).
TENDER BULBS started indoors last month for a headstart (like cannas) can go into the ground after frost danger passes. If you didn’t get dahlias, cannas, caladiums and such going indoors, plant now, inserting support stakes (if needed, as with dahlias) at planting time to avoid piercing bulbs later.
SOAK NASTURTIUM and morning glory seeds overnight, then sow. Zinnias and marigolds and other familiar summery annuals can be direct sown now, or start in cellpacks and set them out after a month to six weeks. Calendula is another good annual -- edible, beautiful, and popular with beneficial insects.
EDGE BEDS to make a clean line and define them. A clean edge makes a real difference, along with an inch and a half or two of good, fine- to medium-textured organic mulch. No baked-potato-sized chips, please, and no orange-dyed mulch.
Community Corner
Some of us may have known Evie Joss. Evie's children are hosting a celebration of life for her and would love to extend this invitation to her friends in the Garden Club. Gardening was one of her passions that brought her joy to the end. We hope some of the members who knew her will be able to attend.
Guns to Gardens
Guns to Gardens provides an opportunity for community members to safely dispose of unwanted firearms without putting them back out on the market. This novel program has been held in several other states, and we are excited to bring it to New Hampshire for a 2nd year now. Community members are encouraged to bring an unwanted, unloaded firearm to be dismantled into useful things, like art or garden tools!
Guns to Gardens is hosted by GunSense NH, a project of Granite State Progress and Engage New Hampshire, the NH Council of Churches, Kent Street Coalition, and other members of the NH Gun Violence Prevention Coalition.
important Guns to Gardens event:
Second annual Guns to Gardens event on
Saturday, June 8th, 2024, 10am to 1pm.
We will be setting up in Concord at the Wesley United Methodist Church parking lot, 79 Clinton Street. This event provides an opportunity for Granite Staters to voluntarily surrender firearms that they no longer want and do not wish to sell or put back into circulation. Under state law, New Hampshire law enforcement must either store firearms voluntarily surrendered to them, use them, or sell them back out on the market. Guns to Gardens helps take unwanted firearms off the market by repurposing them into something more useful, and less harmful, to our community. Sign up to support Guns to Gardens here:
A MONADNOCK GARDEN DAY:
GARDENING IN A CHANGING WORLD
Saturday, June 15 -- 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Join us for a day with the experts to talk about all your gardening dreams!
During this special full-day workshop, we’ll hear from Page Dickey, Edwina von Gal, Helen O’Donnell, and John Gwynne, innovative thinkers on gardening into the future.
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Harris Center, Hancock, NH.
A brown bag lunch by Fiddleheads Cafe will be provided, and regional nursery vendors will be on site. Coffee, tea, and snacks will be served starting at 9 a.m., with opening remarks starting at 10 a.m.
Cost: $100 per person for Harris Center supporters / $110 per person for all others
If you need lodging for this event, some local options are:
Space is limited, and registration is required.
For questions about registration, contact Miles Stahmann.
For all other information, including questions about accessibility, contact Susie Spikol.
Susie Spikol
she/her/hers
Community Programs Director and Naturalist
Harris Center for Conservation Education
Hancock, NH 03449
(603)525.3394 ext 111
American Waterscapes, a woman-owned business in Andover NH specializing in the creation of ponds and waterfalls, has invited us to attend this informational day
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