DHS Newsletter

The Lions’ Home and Garden Show is first on the agenda of community events. It’s located at the Dunnville Memorial Arena and Lifespan Centre and will be held on April 15th and 16th. Volunteers are needed and if you haven’t already signed up to help out please contact any of the executive. We’ll be promoting all aspects of the DHS including our Junior Gardeners. All help is greatly appreciated and most of all it’s fun.

Our three Life Members, Karen Waltham, Janice Croft and Doris Thomson, were honoured by the Province of Ontario last month at a ceremony in Vittoria recognizing their volunteer service of more than 30 continuous years each with the Dunnville Horticultural Society. MPP Toby Barrett was there to present the awards and ladies — you looked awesome in your photo in the Haldimand Press. Congratulations and we are very, very proud of you!

Steve Elgersma was nominated for Dunnville Citizen of the Year for his volunteer efforts in town, but unfortunately did not win. That’s okay, Steve. Everyone already knows how hard to you work and you’ll always be Number 1 with us. Congratulations on your nomination.

Last month’s guest speaker was Adam Koziol, from Dunnville’s EarthGen. He spoke about planting native trees and the talk was very informative. He and his daughter gave an engaging demonstration on how his company has developed a way of encouraging greater root development resulting in faster tree growth. DHS members are welcome to drop by and visit Earthgen anytime. Adam and Meghan graciously donated a tree to the DHS at the end of the presentation. Our guest speaker for April is Karen Richardson, curator of the Haldimand County Museum & Archives. She’ll be talking to us about early kitchen gardens. It’s always fun to learn how people grew their own food in the days before grocery stores.

Speaking of food, we all know that without our beloved honey bees our sources of food are going to become endangered. Honey Nut Cheerios, in an effort to raise awareness about the environmental threats facing bee populations, has launched a new campaign (March 15-April 30th) to remind customers just how important these pollinators are to life on Earth. General Mills has removed the honeybee mascot from the front of cereal boxes, replaced instead by an empty profile and an appeal to visit the campaign website and #BringBackTheBees. “One-third of the foods we depend on for our survival are made possible by the natural pollination work that bees provide,” Emma Eriksson, director of marketing for General Mills Canada. “With ongoing losses in bee populations being reported across Canada, we wanted to leverage our packaging to draw attention to this important cause and issue a call to action to Canadians to help plant 35 million wildflowers – one for every person in Canada.”

Canadians can visit the campaign website to order a free packet of wildflower seeds from Vesey’s Seeds, courtesy of General Mills Canada. More than 25 million wildflower seeds already have been shipped to households for planting. Go to https://bringbackthebees.ca to get your packet of seeds and to enter the contest to win one of five $5000.00 garden makeovers. I’ve ordered mine! As ‘caretakers of the soil’ it’s our responsibility to plant flowers that are beneficial to our bees, and to butterflies and birds as well.

For those of you in the area with cable television, this month’s episode of Haldimand Life airing on Cable 14 is about “What’s Growing On” with the Dunnville Horticultural Society and they also visit the recently opened Caledonia Lions’ Community Centre. It will be airing at different times throughout the month. If you don’t have an opportunity to watch the program on Cable 14 you’ll be able to see it on Cable 14 NOW by visiting:  www.cable14now.com and using your MyRogers/My Cogeco account login and password to access this show.

Mark your calendar for May 14th for our annual Plant Sale (I’ve booked the day off of work!). This is our biggest fund raiser each year and it will be held rain or shine in the parking lot of the Optimist Hall from 8 am till noon. We will be accepting donations of plants and garden related items on Friday evening (May 13th) from 5-7 p.m. at the Farmer’s Market parking lot on Market Street. So, when you’re dividing plants this spring please remember to save some divisions for the plant sale and make sure all plants are labeled with name of plant, care requirements, colour of flower if possible, and please have them in pots.

District 9’s Spring Forum (AGM) is being held on Saturday, April 30th in Grimsby. This year’s theme is “Spring at Beamer Falls”. The meeting will be held at 156 Main Street W., Grimsby, Ontario. There’s a link on the DHS website under “Upcoming” which you can click on to find out more about the AGM. There are guest speakers, a flower show and door prizes.

There will be a members-only garden tour on Sunday, July 10, 2015. This will be a self-guided tour with 8-9 different gardens to visit. The gardens all belong to members of the DHS and it’ll be so exciting to see them. This event will be free to members and non-members will be required to purchase a membership. Some refreshments will be provided.

It has been confirmed that there will be a winery/horticultural bus tour in August on the 13th to Niagara. Tickets will be available at $50.00 per person and we’ll have them at the upcoming program on April 21st. I’ll have more information for you in my next newsletter.

Until next month!