Kanata-March Horticultural Socie

Kanata-March Horticultural Society

April 2009

In This Issue

President's Message

Next Meeting: March 3

KMHS Announcements:

Heirloom & Heritage Tomatoes
Volunteers needed
Wanted - KMHS newsletters from 2002

Down the Garden Path

Topic of the month:

Seeds
Things to do in the garden this month
Keeping fit in the garden

Members' Corner: Philadelphia Flower Show

Things to do and see

Newsletter Input

President’s Message

The sun is shining, the days are getting longer and my thumbs are turning a very nice deep green...both of them...yippee!

I hope everyone is excited as I am to have Spring arrive. I'm watching eagerly for the smallest new growth in the garden. It's amazing what you can see and find when you look closely almost every day. The bulbs that were planted with my two boys last Fall are starting to peek through the ground. I can't remember what I planted where but my guess is that it's the crocus that I'm looking at. Did I tell you that I love surprises?

Having a map of what's in the garden would be helpful and I'm sure that the one we are putting together for the Molly Wilson garden at the Old Town Hall will be great resource for all of us to use. I hope that members who took a plant name home to research are having fun learning about their chosen garden friend. There will be more plant names available at the next meeting for anyone who would like to research one for our digital garden project.

I've also turned my attention to the jungle growing inside my home. Each indoor plant got a much needed hair cut (don't forget to put your clippings into your composter). This will strengthen the plants and get them ready for a good growth spurt. I have also started to add liquid fertilizer to the water I set aside for the house plants to help their growth now that the warmer weather of Spring has arrived. The orchids I spoke about back in February continue to add new blooms. And, thanks to Mary, I have a fourth plant in the nursery, with new bark media, to see if it will join the others in bloom. It will take a few more months before it’s ready—I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

Robert Barta. KMHS President

Our Meetings

Regular meetings are held the first Tuesday of each month at the Old Town Hall, March Road, Kanata.

Guests are most welcome The $5.00 charge can be applied to membership of $15.00 single, $25.00 family.

Linda's tours

Next Meeting: March 3rd

Gardens of Tuscany with Linda Thorne
Tuesday, April 7th, 7.30 pm
Old Town Hall, March Road, Kanata

After working for the Federal Government as a policy analyst, Linda Thorne opened the well-known Thorne & Co store in the Glebe. For 15 years she provided wonderful products for gardeners. Since that time she has been organizing garden tours, the last two in 2008 were to Tuscany and France with Marjorie Harris. Her talk and slideshow at the meeting will take us (albeit vicariously), on the Tuscany garden tour.

Linda is also about to take a group to Holland on the 19th of April and then touring the gardens of Tuscany and Rome in September of this year. For a little more information on these tours, click the link on the left.

Elizabeth Stokely, KMHS Program Director

Editor’s note: don’t forget to bring your mug with you for coffee

Key Links

Ottawa recycling

KMHS Announcements

Heirloom & Heritage Tomatoes:

As always, we will be selling tomato seedlings at our plant sale at the end of May. We have a great selection to offer and these are usually very popular. Here’s a chance for members to get an early preview of what will be available.

EARLY
Belmonte	Tolerates cold weather. Red with tender, fleshy pulp. It has few seeds. Excellent taste	Medium
Black Pear	Brown-red pear shaped tomato with an excellent spicy flavor. Very productive	Small
Chadwick’s Cherry	Very prolific. These are well known for their great taste. Red	Small
Chalk’s Early Jewel	Introduced in the 1920 Burpee seed catalogue. Positively huge yields and good flavor to boot. A great canning variety. Red	Medium
Cherokee Purple	Fruits are a dusky rose colour and have a delicate mild flavor. Good yields of 12 oz fruits. Dates prior to 1890.	Large
Eros	Introduced to North America by German immigrants in the early 1900s. Huge yields of 2” round, pretty fruit. Juicy and flavourful. Great for early season salads. Red	Small
Marizol Magic	Multi-coloured fruits on productive, compact plants. A great tomato for kids to grow.	Cherry
Peacevine	Very sweet cherry red tomatoes have a high Vitamin C content. Sprawling vines produce huge crops.	Cherry
Silvery Fir Tree	Very unique wispy foliage. A great ornamental plant that is not out of place in a flower bed. Also does well in hanging basket of a pot on this patio. The production is not huge but the taste is quite good. An heirloom from Russia. Red	Medium
Trophy	Introduce in 1870 for the unbelievable price of $5.00 per packet and within a year nearly every seed company in the U.S. was carrying this variety. Clusters of medium size red fruit with outstanding sweet mild flavour.	Medium
MID-SEASON
Ailsa Craig	Developed in Scotland. Above average yiels of good tasting, drought resistant gofl ball sized red fruit. Does well in cold climates.	Small
Bulgarian Triumph	Very tasty and juicy 3oz red fruit, very productive	Small
Green Sausage	This variety is getting popular on roadside stands. It is about 3” long and is green with reddish stripes. An eye catcher.	Medium
Large Red	This was the first tomato seed offered for sale by the Shakers pre-1830. Full flavoured and juicy, at one time this was by far the most popular variety in America.	Large
Riesentraube	A German heirloom (the translation is giant grape) which grows in clusters of 6-10 one ounce fruit that have a small point on the bottom. Extremely prolific. Sweet/tart flavor. Grown by the Pennsylvania Dutch as early as 1856. Red	Cherry
Sandia Gem	Seeds were supposedly found in a leather pouch on a mountain in Peru and carbon dated to the early 1800s. Great sweet flavour red tomato. Heavy yields.	Medium
LATE
Red Brandywine	The heirloom standard for taste comparisons. Needless to say, the taste is excellent. Fruits are medium sized and quite late, Productive. Dates from prior to 1885. Red	Large

Volunteers needed: KMHS is involved in many activities related to gardening, providing a variety of educational opportunities for our members and helping to create pleasant spaces in our communities. To do this requires your assistance, in whichever area interests you. We need volunteers to help with the following tasks:

1. Garden maintenance: we maintain three gardens in Kanata, The Molly Wilson Garden at the Old Town Hall, the Tom Thomson Park in Beaverbrook and the small garden outside the Hazeldean library on Castlefrank Road. Jean Siemens has managed the maintenance of the Tom Thomson Park for many years and now wishes to step out of this role. Would someone be willing to pick this up? Thank you Jean, for all your hard work over the years. The park looks all the better for your efforts.

In addition, it’s time to sign up to help with garden maintenance in any of our gardens. Norma Davidson will bring a sign-up sheet to our next meeting. Please think about how you can spare a couple of hours every other week.

2. OHA booth at “Ottawa is Blooming”: the Ontario Horticultural Association always has a booth at the show (see Things To Do and See section below) to publicize the local horticultural societies and talk to people about gardening. Would anyone be able to staff this booth for a couple of hours? In return you get free entry to the show and the chance to talk to exhibitors and fellow gardeners from other local clubs. Please contact David Davidson, if you can help. David Davidson

3. Members Garden Tours: one of the ways in which we learn more about gardening is by visiting the gardens of other members. Would you be prepared to open your garden one afternoon or evening to our members? This is an informal arrangement, only for members and would be advertised by personal mail and email rather than details being put on the web. Any sort of garden would be great, large or small, new or mature. We are not looking for show gardens, just the chance to explore different approaches and pick up some ideas. Perhaps you are developing your plans and could use some input from others. What an opportunity to get suggestions for the perfect plant to go in that hard-to-fill space. I will bring a sign up sheet the next meeting: please think about taking part.

Wanted - KMHS newsletters from 2002:

Gisèle Robertson, our historian, is bringing her files up to date with a complete collection of the society’s newsletters over the years. We are missing all months from 2002. If by any remote chance you have some tucked away in an old file, please would you contact Gisèle. She will be at the next meeting and delighted to hear from you.

Margaret Turner, KMHS Newsletter Editor

Down the Garden Path

What’s in a name? In 1990 the OHA issued a directive that the Horticultural Societies could change their name to Garden Societies, the reason being that the name would be less intimidating for prospective members. Therefore KMHS became Kanata-March Garden Society until early 1993. However Copyright and Charter issues were encountered and KMGS became KMHS once more.

Special event: The internationally acclaimed landscaper and horticulturist David Tomlinson was the guest of the Society in the spring of 1990. His presentation on Garden Design and Practical Aspects of Landscape Design drew a group of two hundred people eager for information on home landscaping.

Get Mugged: The following message was written in the January 1991 Society’s Newsletter: ‘In keeping with our environmentally friendly position, we urge you to bring a mug to the meetings. We are aware of the two sides to the Styrofoam cup position, but it could also be thought of as a touch of class’. This message is still relevant after 18 years “please bring a mug to the meetings”.

Big Plant Swap: The May 1990 meeting featured the BIG PLANT SWAP. It turned out to be a very successful event, as a crowd of over hundred people attended. It was a special opportunity to take home a piece of someone else’s garden.

More prizes! Our 1990 Yearbook and Newsletter won third prize in the OHA competition.

Gisèle Robertson, KMHS Historian

Key links

Plant and rake

Gardening is good for you

Topic of the Month:

Things to do in the garden this month: don’t forget that your yearbook/calendar has a very handy list of things to do this month. It’s quite a long one for April and well worth a quick look before you go outside.

Keeping fit in the garden: I expect that many of you, like me, have been taking advantage of the glorious weather we have been having and getting an early start on the spring garden. If, again like me, you have found the muscles are protesting somewhat and the stamina is lacking, take a look at the two web sites on the left.

The first one, which is listed on our web site, provides some simple exercises and tips for keeping healthy while gardening. The second one, from Britain, while aimed at people who want to detoxify their bodies, in fact lists the major health benefits that gardening can provide, on top of the obvious pleasure we all get from it. It makes me want to rush straight back into the garden!

Margaret Turner, Newsletter Editor

Key links

Philadephia Flower Show

Members’ Corner

(in keeping with our April theme of Italy)

The Philadelphia Flower Show is held at the beginning of March each year. It is organized and run by volunteers from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The venue for this event is the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia. We were staying on the outskirts of the city and found it very easy to get in by train or bus.

The theme this year was Bella Italia. The Convention Centre’s outer, very wide hallways with ante-rooms had a mix of horticultural and cooking lectures, plus some wine tasting. The gardens in the main hall showed the culture of Italy from the history, food and wines to Milan fashion. Once inside the very spacious main hall my first thought was: how did they manage to create this extravaganza in such a short time?

The entrance was spectacular, with tall pillars surrounding formal fountains and huge stone urns filled with roses & delphiniums. A building that looked like something out of ancient Rome had statues set in flower beds and walls covered with bougainvillea. On top of the building was the stage, on which live musical performances could be seen and enjoyed by everyone. We enjoyed some Italian opera while we were there. A gondola, full of flowers of course, sailed under an arched bridge in Venice and trees full of spring blossoms were all around as we continued the tour of Italy. The gardens depicted the various regions of the countryside, from elaborate gated entrances to small country herb & vegetable gardens. There were colored plaster house frontages with balconies & window boxes full of flowers. The really fun part was the fashion runways of Milan. Mannequins in dresses made of flowers & plant materials, even matching shoes & handbags. It was truly amazing!

The central part of the hall was given to displays from local school & colleges plus the specialist societies—bonsai, rock garden, succulent & cacti etc. There was also a competitive flower show for members of the horticultural society, with everything from flower arranging to topiary.

The far end of the hall housed the Marketplace. There were all the usual garden related stands, even our own Lee Valley was there, but I’ve never seen so many orchids for sale. It was freezing outside, so how anyone got them home without any damage was a mystery.

We spent the whole day there, took lots of photographs (around 200) and did lots of walking, but it was well worth it! We took the bus back to the hotel and, on their recommendation, we finished the evening off in fine style at a local Italian restaurant.

Norma Davidson, KMHS director

Editor’s note: For a short video of the show, try the link on the left

Things to do and see:

March 25 – April 5: A Sense of Garden. The Algonquin College horticultural and florist students present their annual show. A plant sale is held on the final two days.

Building M, Algonquin College, Woodroffe Campus

April 1, 7.30 pm. - Kanata Environmental Network present Caring for Suburban Trees with Martha Copestake and Erik von Luczenbacher

Beaverbrook Community Centre, 2, Beaverbrook Drive, Kanata. Admisssion free

April 11, 1:30 p.m. - Ottawa Valley Rock Garden and Horticultural Society presents Marilyn Light with "From Seed to Flowering Plant: 50 Years of Filling a Treasure Chest with Knowledge"

Room T130, Building T, Algonquin College, Woodroffe Campus

April 15, 7:00 pm. The Greater Ottawa Water Garden Society presents Darrell Kekanovich speaking on Bog Gardens and Framing the Pond (Use of Structures, Rocks, Driftwood, Plants)

Greenboro Community Centre, 363 Lorry Greenberg Drive (situated between Hunt Club Road and Conroy Road), Ottawa

April 21, 7.30 pm. - Ottawa Horticultural Society presents Trilliums of the Ottawa Valley. A slide show presentation based on surprising finds close to home. Speaker: Brian Carson.

Tom Brown arena, 141 Bayview avenue (at Scott)

April 25, 9.00 am. - District 2 of the Ontario Horticultural Association holds its AGM with guest speakers and demonstrations.

Knights of Columbus Hall, 140, Ellis Avenue, Pembroke

April 25 - 26 - The Ottawa Orchid Society presents its 28^th Annual Orchid Show. Admission is $10.00

Nepean Sportsplex, 1701 Woodroffe Ave., Ottawa.

April 30, 7:00pm. - The Ottawa Botanic Garden Society will hold its AGM. The speaker after the AGM will be Jean-François Trépanier, Executive Vice-President of Operations at the National Capital Commission, presenting "NCC - A Capital Vision". His focus will be mainly on the floral displays of the NCC.

Rockliffe Library and Community Centre

May 1- 3 ^- Ottawa is Blooming. PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATE. The Kanata Garden & Landscape Show returns to its roots to celebrate its 10th Anniversary. Over 10 years the Show has grown from a small community event to become one of the biggest of its kind in all of Canada. This year's edition will be the biggest ever, with over 100 vendors ranging from nurseries, landscapers, pond experts, garden groups, backyard specialists and artisans.

Kanata Recreational Complex, 100 Walter Baker Drive, Kanata. Admission $10.00, with a $2.00 discount for OHA members, on showing your horticultural association membership card.

Looking ahead

The Greater Ottawa Water Garden Society presents its First Annual Water Garden Tour Saturday, June 20, 2009. Tickets will be available May 1, 2009 at http://www.ottawaponds.ca.

The Herb Garden will hold its Giant Spring Yard Sale on Saturday, May 2^nd, 8:00am to 2:00pm. There is no restriction on the kind of things that can be sold.

Margaret Turner, Newsletter Editor

Email the Executive at KMHS with your ideas and comments about how we can make our society better.

Newsletter Input

General newsletter input is due to me, Margaret Turner, by the third Friday of the month.