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10/25/2022 0 Comments

Celebrating our 70th Year

By Lainy Jada

On Thursday, October 6, we gathered at the Westmoreland Country Club to joyfully celebrate our 70th anniversary. Our members were proud to exhibit our history of civic engagement, community service, and local beautification. Members were recognized for their years of service, some having served for decades, including Dot McWilliams and Jean Streeter who have been with the club for over 50 years each.

We recalled the times when members attended meetings wearing skirt-suits and heels, as opposed to today's casual attire. Former MGC member and past president Fern Roberts fondly remembered the one-off occasion when members were encouraged to don their workwear for a membership meeting. They gleefully wore their frayed coveralls, rubber boots, and dingy flannel shirts.

Longtime member Dot McWilliams chuckled as she recalled one particularly scorching summer day when she and fellow MGC members were industriously digging in deep ditches on Route 22 at Trafford Road to transplant bulbs. Through the sweltering heat, Good Samaritans and big-rig drivers stopped to offer refreshments, as others honked with encouragement.

The Garden Club also remembered its members who have passed away in recent years, including our warm-hearted and upbeat Yong Sun Hutchinson, to whom the club dedicated an engraved bench at Murrysville Community Park's playground this past spring. Hutchinson's husband generously donated funds for the bench in her memory. The club also recently memorialized Martha Miller with a bench on the campus of Heritage Elementary School. She was one of MGC's hardest working members and spearheaded many of its most noteworthy projects.

Marilyn Backus, President of the District VII Garden Club Federation, was also in attendance. While with us, she presented a number of awards. Camille Erb received the District's Hummingbird Award, a prestigious honor, which recognizes her dedication and many contributions to the club and community.

Awards were also presented to Lainy Jada and Diana Sanner for their well-attended programs at Murrysville Community Library, to Joanne Murray for her outstanding newsletter and programming, to Nina Damato for a successful plant sale, and to Kathy Ostrowski for her revival of the garden therapy program at William Penn Care Center.

Thank you to all who came to celebrate Murrysville Garden Club's 70 year! It was a festive anniversary that honored our long history, many accomplishments, and exceedingly dedicated members.

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10/19/2022 0 Comments

Shopping for Bulbs

By Joanne Murray

At this month’s board meeting, several people asked for recommendations of the best places for ordering all bulbs. Well I’ve been looking at bulb catalogs for a long time, but I still must issue the caveat that this is all opinion based on my own experience of buying what look like the most foolproof bulbs.

For a general mix of quality, price, and variety of offerings, Scheepers is a favorite. Their bulbs are unfailingly good-sized, firm, and healthy. Their catalog is a model of clear and organized thinking, and the resources pages of their website will tell you anything you could possibly want to know about growing bulbs. They don’t offer anything weird or highly specialized. Their wholesale branch is VanEngelen’s.

Van Bourgondien’s is worth a shout-out because this year they are offering naked ladies and three beautiful cultivars of the wood anemone, anemone nemorosa.

Brent and Becky’s Bulbs has an extraordinary variety of cultivars, for example, they have a dozen offerings of fall crocus. They also have many new hybrids of narcissus. Finally, McClure and Zimmerman’s offers some hard-to-find bulbs of native ephemeral woodland flower such as trillium, dutchman’s breeches, and bloodroot.

And speaking of spring ephemerals, take a walk in the woods with Amy Mawby, Education Manager at Jenkins Arboretum in Devon PA. Her photographs are splendid.

JohnScheepers
Beauty from Bulbs
johnscheepers.com
860-567-0838

Van Engelen Wholesale Flower Bulbs
vanengelen.com
860-567-8734

Brent and Becky’s
brentandbeckysbulbs.com
877-661-2852

McClure & Zimmerman
mzbulb.com
800-883-6998

K.Van Bourgondien
Flower Bulbs & Perennials
at Wholesale Prices
dutchbulbs.com
800-552-9996

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10/19/2022 0 Comments

September Garden Tasks

By Camille Erb

I love the sunny days of September. The air is warm in the afternoons and the nights are cooler. However, September is not the time to dawdle. Gardening time is running low, and there is a lot to do before the landscape and garden beds are cleaned up and ready for winter.

Your first and foremost task is to continue weeding. Don’t let weeds go to seed. This is more important than ever. If you can’t get the whole weed, cut off any seed pods, and come back for the roots later.

Water your garden deeply if we haven’t had enough rainfall. Maybe this would be a good time to buy a rain gauge. It is important to know just how much moisture Mother Nature has bestowed upon us as well as how much we need to add to her supply.

Fall is the time to plant trees and shrubs. New plants need to be deeply watered so they can take root during the cooler days of fall. if you think you really should have a complete guide to tree planting and care, then check out this wonderful Tree Owner’s Manual for the Northeastern and Midwestern United States provided by the Department of Agriculture. It is even formatted so that if you select “booklet,” it will automatically print a little book.

Order spring bulbs. Buy the best quality bulbs you can. You might even treat yourself to some special bulb to try out in your garden. Be ready for October planting!

Feed your garden soil with organic fertilizer or homemade compost.

You will need to “winterize” your lawn. You can dig by hand or use a weed killer responsibly. You should also get a soil test to know just what your lawn needs. You may also need to add some lime. Your soil test will tell you if it is necessary.

If you want to save some of your delicate summer bulbs like dahlias, cannas, and glads, then you have to dig them up before there is a hard frost. Dig up the plants and knock off as much soil as possible. Set the tubers and bulbs aside so the plants can dry out for several days. Remove plant stems and leaves. Once they are completely dried, tubers and bulbs can be wrapped in newspaper and stored in a dark, dry place.

You may still be dividing perennials. Add them in to your landscape or pot them up and sink them into your holding garden. They will be ready for spring planting or to contribute to plant sales and swaps.

Continue to harvest tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, and so on. Tend to the new cool weather crops you have planted.

Now if you have some left-over time, you might want to tackle this project. Have you ever thought of starting a compost pile? You will have plenty of free material to start that experiment. You will soon have a boatload of leaves and garden waste to start your compost. You can use leaves that have been run over with the grass mower along with clippings from untreated lawns, spent plants from the garden and flower beds (but no seed pods please), and even weed stems and leaves. Find a spot to create your own leaf mold. You don’t have to go out and buy a composter. You can use heavy duty black bags or just try an open pile. If you try an open pile, do not add vegetable scraps or any other items that would attract unwanted critters.

The mix of materials should be about two thirds brown to one third green for the composting process to work correctly. You will need to turn the open pile to aerate it and add some moisture. You can buy a compost starter to get things moving.

You can find out more about composting on many online websites.

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