Garden Club
Meetings are held in the Cherry Gardens Uniting Church meeting room, at 7.30pm usually on the 2nd Monday of the month from February to November.
President: Ray Wise: raywise@hotmail.com.au or 0405 273 003
Secretary: Shirley Callaghan: shirleyc5159@gmail.com or 0403 801 916
NEXT MEETINGS
Monday 12th August - AGM
All positions become vacant, so we welcome in a new committee. The election will be followed by a gardening quiz.
Monday 9th September
Richard Heathcote from Carrick Hill will entertain us with a history of garden tools.
Monday 28th October
We will be celebrating our 20th birthday with a community dinner, supported by the City of Onkaparinga. Watch this space for further details
GEORGE'S GARDENING SUGGESTIONS FOR AUGUST 2019
Pruning should be completed this month; I know it has been a weird season for roses.
Spray fruit trees with white oil to clean up over-wintering pests, and at bud swell on peaches and nectarines use a leaf-curl fungicide
August is a good time to prepare new vegie patches, remember to dig in plenty of old compost.
Prune shrubs after flowering, fuchsias can be reduced by two thirds.
Re-pot plants with good quality potting mix - increase pot size by no more than 50%.
Aerate lawns to reduce compaction in high traffic areas by spiking with a garden fork. A coring machine will be required for larger areas.
You may need to start watering in warmer, but particularly windier, conditions.
Feed bulbs on a balanced 5:5:5 fertilizer ( if you can find it ) because they have limited foliage but require phosphates to develop bulbs and potassium for flowers. Next year's flowers are formed after current flowers so look after them for a few more weeks.
Plant seeds or seedlings of Californian poppy, celosia, African marigold, petunia, phlox and portulaca.
LAST MEETING - June 2019
What a great way to warm up – Freebies night!
In June each year, each attending member places their donated gardening related gift on a table to swap. After the business meeting segment, participator’s names are placed in a container so each winner draws the name of the next person to choose a gift, ensuring that whoever brought a gift can choose one off the table. I was so excited to get the first draw and chose a 2 litre bottle of Liquid Blood and Bone ready for my spring garden fertilizing. Gifts ranged from potted flowering plants, garden tools and gloves, tea bags, footsoak to ensure a good end to a long gardening day and a range of garden ornaments. Great hilarity was evoked at people’s explanations of their choices and other members’ comments about those choices.
The next item was from our speakers, who this month, were from within the garden club. As a continuation of our ongoing – “Get to know each other” member participation at various appropriate times in the year, up to three members will share something about their interests, skills, employment, travel, a book they have read, or any other subject, but more often including garden related matter.
Our President Ray Wise, gave us a demonstration of fruit tree grafting, complete with a visual aid of ready cut rootstocks and grafting segments from pear and apple trees, He had prepared several and encouraged us to have a try, or take them to graft at home.
Nerida shared the most interesting, comical, enlightening, heart-warming and endearing interactions with adult, youth and child shoppers from her work at a local nursery. To the experienced gardener, some of the requests might seem outrageous, but many of us have been at that stage and it just shows what a valuable resource well trained, experienced, insightful and empathetic nursery staff can be.
Our third speaker - from Cherry Chatter, was George whose interesting reading was from a book on Joseph Banks’ arrival and his activities in Australia.
Yes! winter warmers this year certainly warmed us - in both heart and body - very well.
There were many interesting plants brought by members to the auction table, among them Spider Lily bulbs. A great contribution was a big parcel of Bella Donna lilies which will make a colorful display in the purchaser’s gardens at the end of summer, when there may not be a lot of color left. A nice change was a contribution of Kaffir limes, along with limes and eggs.
