Meeting Summary May 22, 2018 Plus Plant Sale Photos

Longvue Acres Garden Club Meeting                                                       May 22, 2018

Colleen Fingal, LAGC Vice President, welcomed members and guests on a spring day. Blooms in our gardens include salvia, candytuft, columbine, trailing phlox, and many more.

·     Plant Sale– Mary Ann Kurtzwas thrilled by the success of the plant sale and thanked all of us for our involvement in many ways. The little bit of rain did not hinder the customers.  They continued to shop in the rain with their umbrellas. Members brought 600 assorted plants. $2100 was made and this means program support, meeting space, and donations to non-profits are covered in the budget. Only 40 plants remained at the end and these were donated to Evergreen Park and Christ Lutheran Church. Advertising was good. Mary Ann asked us to save any miniblinds for next year’s sale. Members discussed which plants seemed to sell the best and which plants customers had requested. Mary Ann compiled a list of the plants to refer to for next year and encourage members to bring more of these plants.

MORE PICTURES AT END OF SUMMARY

·      Officer spotlightTreasurer –Denny Brown summarized the Treasurerposition of collecting dues, providing quarterly updates to members, and filing sales tax for plant sale. One does not need to be an accountant to be treasurer. 

o   Interested for next year?  Let an officer know.

·      Duties report–Officers and Committee Chairs are asked to please submit their “Duties Report” by June for our information binder to assist future officers and chairs.   

·      Passavant Chapel Garden– Helen Dean passed around a signup sheet for two-week stints for deadheading and gentle weeding.  Peggy Elizeus offered to meet you there if you would like. Peggy gave a brief overview of the history of the garden. Hospital staff, patients and visitors alike enjoy the garden and often comment. 

·      Publicity– Patty Bumbaugh’s submittals for this meeting were published.

·      2019 Programs– Some suggestions are a September plant auction, straw bale gardening, and bees.  Please submit your suggestions to Jenna.

·      November or December tour with lunch– Colleen asked for suggestions for the tour with lunch.  Marilyn Gurtner said she and others who went to the Pines Tavern last year would happily repeat the same location. Other suggestions were Bella Frutteto, Kretzlers, and Whisper Pub. Contact Colleen with ideas for tour and/or lunch. The discussion will continue at the annual picnic in July.

·      Directory phone changes – Janine Zink and Lynn Betts announced new phone numbers. 

·      Dessert and arrangement – Thank you to Jeanne Schomaker for dessert and Peggy Elizeus for the arrangement of beauty bush. (without trimming it can be 15 ft.)

Program: The Basics of Rain Gardensby Attila Csokai

Attila is a Penn State Master Gardener and an avid rain garden supporter. His daytime job is as a project manager at Carnegie Mellon University. He also works with the Allegheny Parks Foundation and Boyce Park. He showed excellent slides of both new and established rain gardens. 

·     Why make a rain garden  – They are attractive while moving runoff away from the wastewater (sewage) treatment plant and slowing release into the rivers. They are a green, ecological method of flood mitigation and help to protect and maintain clean water. We can each do our part.

·     How to begin – look at your property and note the downspouts, both water flow and pooling. Rain gardens can be of any size and many of the sources below cover suggested sizes for roof sizes. Depth should be no more than 12” with a finished depth of 6”.  

·     Site selection – at least 10 ft from both your house and your neighbor’s.  A 10% slope is the maximum and 50 ft from any septic system. Pools of water should drain in 72 hours to prevent mosquito breeding. An outflow for larger storms should be included. “Scale a rain garden to your needs.” Even small ones are a good start. Rain gardens in troughs work also.

·     Attractive design and plants – vary heights, colors, textures, and use favorite natives. Select plants, especially native ones which can take periods of wet and dry once established.  Plant these in three zones: wet, moist, and dry.

·     References – http://extension.psu.edu/plants/gardening/eco-friendly. http://www.lowimpactdevelopment.org. http://raingardenalliance.org.

·      Sources– Sylvania Natives in Squirrel Hill, Prairie Moon Nursery, Pennsylvania Native Plant Society, and Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center plant database. 

·      Examples – Heinz Chapel gardens, CMU, area by old arena, and other locations.

·      Be flexible and have fun – “Plants will rearrange themselves over time according to their needs” per Attila. Expect to be surprised over time with an amazing variety of birds, butterflies and bees.

Calendar:  

·      June 26 – “Neglected Annuals” by Jessica Walliser.

·      July 10 – Annual LAGC Picnic at Janine Zink’s home, 6:30 p.m. Directions in LAGC Handbook.

·      August28  – “Native Plants in Bloom” Tour at McDaniel’s Launch Area by Mary Alive Koeneke.

2018 Plant Sale

Just a few left.

Load out..complete for 2018

Meeting Summary April 24, 2018

Claudia Hickly, LAGC President, welcomed members and guests on another rainy, spring day.

Blooms in our gardens include hellebores, grape hyacinths, daffodils, blood root, and magnolias.

·     Group Photo–Due to the rainy weather, the group photo is postponed to the July 10^thAnnual Picnic at the home of Janine Zink.

·     Treasurer –Denny Brown reported on budget with $3000 end of January. Expenses so far are $300 program fees, $125 handbook, $100 signs leaving a balance of $2100.

·      Plant Sale– Mary Ann Kurtzasked members to divide their plants for sale and aim for 10-20 4-6” pots per member. If larger, please divide into 4-6” pots. This is the club’s only moneymaker. “If we don’t have the plants, we can’t sell them.” Mary Ann brought mini-blinds for labels. This year, inside plants are also welcome. Deliver plants 7:30-7:45 and put in the proper category such as “Sun”, “Shade,” “Ground Cover,” etc. Helen Dean has extra pots if you need. Wear apple green shirt. Tags sticking up higher than the pot should include plant name, requirements, sun icon, blossom color, and height. Please use permanent marker on tags because rain can ruin our tags if not prepared for showers.

·      Publicity– Claudia thanked Patty Bumbaugh for the PR.

·      Duties report– Claudia reminded Officers and Committee Chairs to please submit their “Duties Report” by June for our information binder to assist future officers and chairs.  

·      2019 Programs– Add owner of Flowerama; Ask the Master Gardener Roundtable Discussion. Please submit your suggestions to Jenna.

·      Donation to Northland Public Library– donation made to library for a book in memory of Clif Highman. Claudia read a note of thanks from Rose Mary.

·      Officer spotlighton Rose Mary who summarized Corresponding Secretaryposition. The secretary takes notes and pictures and sends these to vice president for accuracy and proofing.  Beginning in January, the corresponding secretary will be a board position. The Blog Managerthen downloads them onto our blog. 

o   Interested for next year?  Let an officer know.

·      Thank you to Janine Zink– for Quality Gardens discount flyer.

·      Dessert and arrangement – Thank you to Linda Keiser for dessert and Linda Brown for the arrangement. 

Program: Compostingby Kurt Malecki

Kurt manages Best Feeds Garden Center on Babcock, is a longtime gardener, both at work and at home and also helps his wife’s gardening business.  He began by noting composting has been happening since pre-Biblical times and is quite easy to do. Thereare basically two overall methods, one cold and one hot. Either method removes about 277 pounds per person each year from landfills and this means no methane is added to the atmosphere as anaerobic landfills produce methane.

·     Hot method– Layering  – best way to compost, repeat layers of soil or starter, green (kitchen waste), a layer of brown (leaves) into a pile ideally 3’ x 3’ x 3-4 high’. Terms wet and dry can also be used, greens are wet, soil and leaves are brown. Turn a couple times a week. Cover pile if too wet and water if too dry. Compost is usable in about 3 months.

·     Cold method – layer wet materials beginning with coarse sticks for bottom into large pile as above. Water as needed. Wait about two years for compost.

·     Materials NOT to use – pet waste, meat or fat scraps, thicklayer of grass, no materials in contact with weed killers.

·      Nitrogen  – Urea or compost starter products adding nitrogen speed up composting.

·      Small piecesspeed up compost process.

·      Compost is ready – when it looks like soil. 

Calendar:  

·      May 19 – LAGC Plant Sale --- Reminder: Wear your green shirt, bring your plants. See above.

·      May 22 – LAGC meeting, “The Basics of Rain Gardens”by Attila Csokai.

·      June 26 – “Neglected Annuals” by Jessica Walliser.

·      July 10 – Annual LAGC Picnic 

Announcements:

·     May 11-12 – 82^ndMay Market & National Public Gardens Day, Phipps Conservatory. Unique plants, vendors, etc.

·     May 11-12 – Glade Run Spring Fest & Taco Trot, a Plant Sale and more, Zelienople

·      May 12, 2018 - Gardenfest & Artist Market on Saturday at the Lauri Ann West Community Center, 1220 Powers Run Road, Pittsburgh PA 15238

·      Spring 2018 – McCandless began a five-year tree-planting program.  Email photo of tree planted to ms4@townof mccandless.org. This is part of their storm sewer improvement project to reduce storm water runoff.