Dunnville Hort Update submitted by Debbie Thomas Pres. DHS
Dunnville Horticultural Society volunteers were out in droves during May. The town bedsneeded weeding along with soil and mulch amendments and each year more perennials are added relocated some divided, even potted and sold at our annual plant sale. DHS is grateful to its members and the community for supporting their plant sale with donations of plants or garden items and coming out to make purchases. Hardy DHS volunteers set up in the rain and remained to help raise $1768. with the proceeds allocated to the Thompson Creek Project. Our May program had 75 attendees all arriving early for our tailgate plant sale, as we sold all left over perennials for a $1 pot any size. Our guest speaker Carla Carlson from Niagara Nature Tours enlightened everyone with her talk on weeds.”good verse bad” most surprising to everyone was that many types of common weeds, that we just pull from our gardens can actually be eaten. 10 lucky members went home with a free rose bush as we held our annual rose draw. Our town wide planting day May 26th started at 7am with the pickup of annuals, all donated from Konkle Greenhouses. Followed by the arrival of volunteers at 8am with trowels in hand. Planting was complete in record time, celebrated with a parking lot tailgate coffee and muffin party for all volunteers. Behind the scenes DHS volunteers have been adding nautical enhancements to various beds with the telephone poles donated from Hines Electric and marine rope from Vic Powell Welding Ltd. The anchor bed in Wingfield Park also got a subtle makeover with new garden cloth to keep weeds at bay and the addition of 2 tonnes of potato rock, all thanks to Ed Zylstra of Dunnville Silo Ltd. A new plaque is yet to be added with historic information on its origin. Plans are also underway for enhancements to the area beneath the new BIA sign. Our June program with guest speaker Lester Fretz a returning favorite spoke on “Introduction to Trellis Gardening” Guests learned that not just flowers can climb, many vegetables do quite well. If you have limited gardening space vertical is the way to go, and keeps you off your knees when harvesting. Lively banter among the 77 in attendance, providing all kinds of ideas and sources to get or make vertical structures. There will be no DHS programs during July and August. However DHS volunteers will continue to weed the 24 town beds and planters ensuring Dunnville looks its best. Regular programs commence Sep 20th. DHS has been invited to take part in the No 6 RCAF annual open house July 7th, members will be on hand to provide information on the Thompson Creek Project.
info www.dunnvillehortandgardenclub.org or Debbie Thomas DHS Pres. 905 774 3064