Take time from your yard work to come to the next Yorkton and District Horticultural Society meeting. Our next regular meeting is on Wednesday, October 21 at 7 p.m. in SIGN on North Street. It’s “Member Sharing” night, a chance to hear all kinds of helpful hints and tips from our own gardeners! Bring a pen and paper to jot these great ideas down!
Interested gardeners are invited to the Saskatchewan Horticultural Association Provincial Convention and AGM which will be held in Yorkton on October 23 and 24 and hosted by our group. Just log on to www.yorktonhort.ca for all the details and plan to join us! There will be interesting speakers including a flower arranging presentation by All About Flowers; a gardening presentation by Warren Crossman; a session with Don Stein from the Godfrey Dean Gallery teaching us how to do garden photography; and a presentation by Sonja Pawliw about her beautiful Healing Garden, plus a banquet on Friday night with music by Jackie Guy. It will be great! You do not have to be a member of the group or any hort society to attend: if you are an interested gardener, you are more than welcome to join us!
And to add to the festivities, the City of Yorkton has proclaimed October 23 to be “Horticultural Day” in Yorkton! Our horticultural group has a long connection within the City, since the very first flower show was held at City Hall on September 7, 1906. So it is exciting that all these years later, we’re still going strong! We extend our sincere thanks to the City for this special acknowledgement!
When you are doing your garden clean-up, remember the basics: any plants or leaves that look diseased (as with blight) should go into the garbage. Do no try to compost them, and do not leave them lying around your garden. When you empty out your flowerpots, be sure that they are clean before you store them. Garden tools should be cleaned before storage. If you have any perennials, especially new ones, be sure to mark them with a stick or marker so that you don’t inadvertently dig them up next spring. (I have done this, don’t even ask!)
You might have a few tender plants that need some winter protection, but it is still too soon to do that. We like our yard to be tidy and ready for winter, but we leave some plants with seed heads so the birds can find a few little morsels to nibble on in the winter. One of the prettiest things is seeing waxwings munching on our cranberries! Beautiful!
If you have time once things are pulled out, go through your garden and pull out any weeds you can. And if you’re ahead of the game, you might even have your garden tilled by now, ready for next spring! Good for you!
I’d like to take a moment to offer our group’s condolences to the Flavel family on the death of Helen Flavel recently. Helen was a long-time member of our society, always a willing volunteer and an enthusiastic worker! She was an avid, expert gardener with a thirst for knowledge; she would have agreed with my Mom and Grammie who always said “You never stop learning!” Helen loved learning about new plants, and she loved the special serenity found in her garden. Mahatma Gandhi said “To dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves” and I know Helen lost herself with joy in her garden. At her funeral, there was a display of family photos, and a beautiful houseplant that Helen grew with a sign stuck in it: “Gardening - Forever; Housework – Whenever”. Isn’t that true for all of us gardeners!
Enjoy God’s garden, Helen; we will miss you!
Have a great week, let’s enjoy every stunning fall day!
