PHS June 2020 Garden Evenings - Darlene and Jim's Garden

Well everyone, its week three of the virtual open garden evenings. Tonight we visit a delightful garden in the village of Pakenham. The garden belongs to Darlene and Jim. It is full of hostas, potted annuals, herbs and veggies and a pond.

Here is the video for our virtual tour:

and here are a few pictures - ENJOY!

Hostas and shrubs along front porch

Some of the many annual planters

More annuals and a Bunny

The pond

PHS June 2020 Garden Evenings - Sherryl and Bob's Garden

This wonderful established perennial garden is the second in a series of gardens that were supposed to be open to the public Monday nights in June and July. Sadly COVID restrictions did not allow us to see it in person, but we share it virtually as part of this blog.

Sherryl and Bob's home is surrounded by trees and lovely perennial beds; filled with hostas, roses, peonies and many other great plants. The garden backs on a gently flowing creek and birds can be heard throughout the garden.

Here is a short video - hope you enjoy it.

John Cabot climbing Explorer Rose

Lovely Iris

Glorious Peony

Veggie Garden

Pretty shrub

Wonderful Rose

PHS June 2020 Garden Evenings - Jill and Rob's garden

This year, the club was planning a series of open garden evening tours during Mondays in June/July. 

We thought it was a great way to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the society, showcase our member's gardens and share our love of gardening with others. While all those things are still true, the COVID restrictions have forced us to move the open garden evenings to virtual garden evenings.

Jill and Rob's country garden is the first in a series of tours we will blog about this summer.

They built their home 25 years ago in a tranquil wooded lot along the banks of the Mississippi River. During construction of the house, they excavated  many large limestone boulders, which later became the bones of their perennial and rock gardens.

Here is a short video of the garden:

And here are some still photos of the borders and rockeries.

Sedums and junipers along the limestone outcroppings

One of Jill's beautiful irises

Perennials/Herb Garden with rockery in background

Jill's mother's fox statue protecting the garden

Jens Munk explorer roses

Wild Hosta Bed

Lupins and Ornamental Grasses

Jelly Grapes

May Virtual Spring Flower Show

Pakenham kicked off our 95th Year as a Hort Society with our Feb 2020 meeting. Then COVID19 hits Canada and all events are cancelled. Our March meeting was cancelled, our April meeting cancelled but the speaker added audio to her presentation and saved it to Youtube so our members could listen to virtually. Then the first week of May, our Board of Directors meets to discuss May events. The annual plant sale scheduled for the May long weekend was postponed to September and we decided to cancel the May meeting, but to host our Spring Flower Show virtually instead.

Toby Barratt - Class 47 - The Queen's Birthday - a centerpiece design with a candle

We could not be more pleased with the results. Over 160 entries, submitted via email then resized and saved by Class on Google Photos to share with the members. Pakenham Hort is well known in the Ottawa Valley for its Flower Shows. We simply could not let the virus interrupt the flower show traditions that have been happening here for decades. So a little bit of of technology to the rescue. While it is not the same as prepping the flowers for a proper show, and having the hall smell glorious with fresh flowers, the virtual show comes in at a close second. We threw away most of the flower show rules, we allowed members to use their phones to snap pics of the specimens in the garden, and we had overwhelming support for this fun flower show event. We even had three floral designers enter the design classes.

Kara Lafreniere - Class 21a - Hyacinth

Judy McGrath - Class 19 - Daffodil Collection

To view the whole virtual spring flower show follow this link

We hope you enjoy the virtual show as much as our members that participated in this fun event, during an unprecedented time in recent history.

4H Canada Awards - Floral Centerpiece Fun-raiser

 

Photo by Lani Holland at the NAC

On Monday Feb 10 2020, the National 4H Leadership Awards Banquet was held at the NAC in Ottawa.

Pakenham Hort was commissioned to prepare the floral centerpieces for the banquet. 

All thirty eight of them. Read how we managed this mini project.

On January 23 we were contacted to see if we were interested in making the centerpieces for this gala event. Sherryl Smith quickly organized the floral designers and within one week, the team had developed two potential designs.

The final selection was made by 4H Canada and incorporated an Oxalis potted plant surrounded by a natural grapevine wreath covered in asparagus fern, pine, cedar and four white flower clusters.

With less than ten days before the event, the designers were challenged to go outdoors, harvest frozen grapevines, thaw it and assemble into 38 base pieces.

Sherryl ordered the Oxalis plants from Acanthus in Almonte and organized the white flowers from Mitchell's Independent Grocers in Carleton Place.

Beautiful Oxalis - 3 leaved clover very close to the 4H Logo

Judy McGrath, Lani Holland, Toby Barratt, Sandy Black, Janice Connolly, Lori Ray and Sherryl Smith would meet the day before the banquet and assemble the wreaths.

The raw ingredients	Sherryl Smith, Toby Barratt and Janice Connolly prepping
Our first test arrangement	Janice Connolly, Toby Barratt and Sandy Black hard at work

As the morning progressed, so did the arrangements.....

Judy, Lani, Lori, Janice, Toby and Sandy	Starting to accumulate the wreath bases
Lani and Judy adding greenery and flowers to grapevine	Hard at it!

 So the morning passes quickly; thirty eight bases are completed and Sherryl serves the team a delicious lunch for all our hard work.
What a treat to work with fresh plant material when it was minus 25 outside that morning.

Monday afternoon arrives - now Sherryl and her husband Bob need to transport 38 wreath bases to the NAC - no easy task, but with careful planning they were up to the challenge.

Luckily the Oxalis is in boxes!!

Lani arrived to take photos and help with setup	Exactly like we imagined them

And that is how a small dedicated team of volunteers came together to make a bit of money for their club, but mostly to have a great deal of FUN.

Many thanks to 4H Canada for the wonderful opportunity.

Blog written by Lori Ray
Photos by Lani Holland/Sherryl Smith/Lori Ray

Top Seven Reasons to Join our Garden Club

In case you are curious about joining our Garden Club, we have put together what we think are the top seven reasons accompanied by pictures to help convince you!!

Reason # One

To meet other people who share your love of gardening

Reason # Two

To attend interesting Speakers Series where you can learn about varied gardening topics

Reason # Three

Donate plants to our annual plant sale and then shop for perennial bargains, garden art etc

Reason # Four

Allows you to take part in Garden Tours and Summer Picnics

Reason # Five

To volunteer at one of our various community plantings - We Make Pakenham Beautiful

Reason # Six

We support our junior gardeners, teaching kids to grow your own food and flowers

Reason # Seven

Great Flower Shows - some of the best in Ottawa Valley

with very friendly competition, chance to see beautiful specimen plants and

marvelous creative floral designs

So with all these great reasons, whats stopping you from checking us out?

Next meeting:

Wed February 19th 2020 7:30PM

St Andrews United Church Hall, Pakenham

Pakenham Horticultural Society - est 1925

95 Years and Still Growing

Christmas centerpiece FUNdraiser

Our club is always looking for ways to engage the public, making the community more aware that this great little garden club exists. We decided that we could organize a Christmas centerpiece workshop open to members and non-members alike as a creative way to raise funds for the club.

Toby Barratt and Lori Ray offered to provide a teaching demo. 

Toby created two great designs in different styles of Christmas baskets.

Lori showed the group how to make a smaller round design in a glass cube covered with some ribbon.

Then participants started on creating their very own masterpieces. The finished designs were quite lovely and everyone left with their finished centerpiece to take home.

Tips for floral centerpieces.....soak your oasis overnight if possible....decide if the design will be viewed from one side or all sides since this affects the placement of the flowers.....oasis should protrude 2cm (3/4inch) above the top of container to allow the first row of greenery to placed horizontally over the container and then use greenery to cover the base of the oasis.....measure twice, cut once you cannot make a stem longer after you have already cut it.....never put the biggest flower at the top of the design.....keep oasis moist until Christmas, adding about 1/4cup of water to the middle of the design weekly.....if flowers fade you can replace them before Christmas.....if putting in a basket, use a sturdy waterproof container for design and stuff newspaper around the base to keep it from wobbling around....

 

We had 23 participants create their hands on centerpiece. 

We purchased 185 flowers for the event (Fuji Mums, red carnations, and white mums). 

Hort helpers gathered pine, cedar, balsam and spruce broughs from their properties. Pine cones were collected and dried out and wired. Members donated baskets.

We were amazed by the creativity of the participants and how with the same basic ingredients all managed to create a slightly different and unique design.

FUN way to RAISE awareness of floral design!

Gardeners helping Gardeners