SACANDAGA GARDEN CLUB - by Barbara Henry | Courtesy of the Edinburg Newsletter

Back to Garden and Home

The Sacandaga Garden Club of Northville, NY was organized in 1972 and became part of the Federated Garden Clubs in 1997. We meet on the first Thursday of the month usually at the Bradt Building, 412 South Main Street, Northville, NY 12134 at 1:00 p.m. unless otherwise specified. Meetings are not held in January, February, July or August.

Currently we have 32 members and always welcome new faces.

The goals of the Club are the study of horticulture and floral design, civic participation and beautification.

Horticulture is defined by the American Collegiate Dictionary as

1) the science or art of cultivating fruits, vegetables, flowers and plants and

2) the cultivation of a garden.

Our address is:
P.O. Box 675
Northville, NY 12134

---

Officers for the year

Co-Presidents
Mary Hogan and
Barbara Henry

1st Vice President
Fran Varcoe

2nd Vice President
Anna Johnson

Secretary
Bonnie Defosse

Treasurer
Ginger Conover

Club Advisor
Doris Guyon

---

May 2010
Spring Seedlings
Bulb Maintenance

April 2010
Garden Cleanup
Pruning

March 2010
Spring Planting
Soil Testing

February 2010
Starters
Soil Activity

January 2010
Winter Pests
Seeds

October 2009
Worms
fall issues

September 2009
Fall gardening

August 2009
Dragonflies and Wildflowers

July 2009
Dragonflies and Wildflowers

June 2009
Dragonflies and Wildflowers

April 2009
transplanting seedlings

March 2009
Starting Seeds

February 2009
spring pruning

January 2009
Who we are
and what we do

December 2008
Armchair Gardening month

October 2008
forcing bulbs

September 2008
planting bulbs

 

Our March meeting featured a lecture by Crystal Stewart, Coordinator for Agriculture/ Horticulture at Cooperative Extension. She taught us about pruning, why we should do it, when and how. It was very informative and the hand outs that she gave us are going to be dog eared with the amount of times all of us are going to reference it!

The snow is mostly gone in my yard and as I walked around the other day I saw the crocus and daffodils that I planted last Fall beginning to emerge. Crocus are one of the early bulbs along with others such as snowdrops and aconite and they bloom just in time for the bees which start to appear on a warm day and are in need of the pollen that these early bulbs supply.

It is time we can start some garden clean up. Generally I don’t tidy up my garden in the Fall, I prefer to leave the old plants for the insects to use
for winter cover and the sedum heads and dried grasses always look interesting in the snow. But now it’s time to take my clippers and cut the
grasses down to the ground and cut back the sedum to make room for the new growth. It’s a good idea to remove all the old foliage and put it in your
compost bin. But if your plants had any mildew or fungus infection last year, don’t put them in the compost pile; it probably won’t get hot enough to kill the spores. We did have a lot of fungus infections on hosta last year because of the wet weather so be sure to clean them up.

Also slugs will lay their eggs on the old leaves and when they hatch those babies will see your newly budding out hosta and think – dinner! Now is a very good time to lay down slug control. You want to get the adults before they lay eggs. If you wait to put down controls until July which is when we start to see the slug damage, there are so many of the critters around that it is hard to make a dent in the population.

If you didn’t mulch in the Fall, you can put a layer about an inch thick on your garden beds, this will help build your soil and also help to suppress
the weed seeds. If you are diligent about weed seeds now you will have far less trouble later in the season.

It is still early enough for us to some general look at your Spireas and prune them back into shape. Remove the really thin stems, crossing
stems and clear out some of the growth in the middle which will allow more light into the plant for better growth and flowering.

My veggie beds are covered with the leaves I put on them last year. The leaves are starting to decompose lower down and I will not till or spade
up my soil. When I built my raised beds there was not a worm in sight but the old saying is true – if you build it they will come. The leaves and compost I add to the soil on a regular basis have attracted the worms from somewhere and now anytime I dig my trowel in I turn over lots of them.

These guys will take care of mixing the soil for me and their castings improve the structure of the soil and add nutrients. If you deep dig your soil
you will bring up dormant weed seeds so check every few days and run your hoe through the soil to clean them up.

Our birds are starting to return– that’s the feathered variety not the snow birds. Just last week I took all the dryer lint that I save during the winter
and put it out in the garden for the birds to collect for their nests. The
birds will appreciate if you clean out your nesting boxes so they can build a
new nest. The old material can get wet and moldy over the winter which is not healthy for the little chicks we look forward to seeing.

Watch for deer too. Round about now is when they start to establish their feeding routes for the year. If you can persuade them to go a different
route now you’ll have less damage later on. Once they have their travel patterns established it is very hard to change them.

Our April meeting, on the 1st, features Jo Jones, a Flower Show Judge and Steven Brown, our District Chairman, who will be discussing the mechanics of flower arranging. Note that this is a change from our program book.
And remember, Sweet April showers do spring May flowers. (Thomas Tusser)