March Newsletter
Rod Reidel ‘s Spring view
Happy almost spring, club members.
On my daily to-and-from Virginia Road (where my youngest goes to school) I get to drive by John Althouse’s garden, and have recently been admiring the emergence of his Arnold’s Promise witch hazel that grows at the top of the wall above the sidewalk there. At its base is a clutch of snowdrops, basking in the morning sun. It’s been a daily treat and I invite you to take notice when you pass by there if you have not already.
Does anyone else have a reliable early spring spot in their garden? Please send me a photo, I would love to share with everyone here on the blog.
Our Spring Outreach Workshop is March 22 at Andrea Meyer’s barn (like last year). The sign up is almost full but there has been some shuffling so if you want to come but don’t made the list, use the waitlist and cross your fingers. And there’s still room for lunch items, sandwiches and the like, so feel free to contribute chicken salad sandwiches, cucumber canapés, or some fruit kababs! Charity Tremblay and Beth Kundert have a colorful plan for the morning (the photo here is a very successful trial run put together last week), and a light lunch will fuel us all before we head off for our deliveries. The forecast so far is suggesting the weather will be in the low 50s and calm. Let’s hope for another wonderful day like last year.
From Sarah Beguelin and the Plant Sale Committee:
Garden Club Members – it may be cold outside but the 2023 Plant Sale is coming up and we need to start talking about it NOW. This is our biggest and most important activity in our club year and everyone’s help is needed.
The Plant Sale committee is meeting and making plans but we need you to start thinking about plant donations, lots and lots of plant donations. We are hoping that we can ask everyone to donate 15 plants but it has been made clear that some members do not have big enough gardens to donate a large number of plants. So…we need to think outside the box. Do you have friends who have gardens that need to be either divided or even removed? Think of helping our neighbors and friends AND helping the club with plants to sell. I could get all nerdy and give you all the numbers and break it down by dollars, but I won’t bore you. WE.NEED.PLANTS!!!
We are trying something new this year – GARDEN TOOLS! If you have garden tools you no longer want please consider donating! We are thinking small hand tools, shovels, edgers, etc. Must be in good enough condition to be useful. The Plant Sale committee sees this as an add-on to our wonderful plants and members are always clearing out their stash. This could be some additional dollars in our coffers. Information to follow on where to drop off!
A SignUp Genius will be posted and sent out shortly asking each of you to volunteer to help dig, sort, price transport, sell, be a cashier or set up/take down the sale. Remember participation in the sale is one of the requisites of membership. Think Spring!
Concord 250 Trees
The Garden Club of Concord has been asked from several directions to support the Concord 250th Committee’s effort to revitalize our street scape with the installation of what Brian Rosborough called in his December letter to The Concord Bridge 250 “Liberty Trees”. Anyone familiar with the tree information section of the Town’s website will recall that planting 250 trees per year was the recommendation made by the Davey Tree report submitted in 2017, although this has yet to happen.
From the William Monroe photo collection, Concord Free Public Library
I have spoken with a few prominent tree advocates in town about this and I am still learning about the practicalities involved (money is the least of them). In the meantime, it does appear that our best effort as a club is to work as advocates for a tree-oriented project, to lobby our friends and neighbors to beef up the town’s Shade Tree program, and to think creatively about funding for something more monumental. I have an appointment to brainstorm with a representative from the Monuments 250 subcommittee early this week, and I will continue to research and share what I learn. Whether or not the Garden Club itself needs its own special committee for this effort is still unclear. I will know more by next newsletter.
Welcome new member, Sarah Paino
Sarah writes: I have been an avid organic vegetable gardener for over 40 years with an interest in sustainable and native plants. I have been living on a beautiful piece of land bordering the Minuteman National Park since 1983 where I have planted fruit trees, blueberry bushes, a large vegetable garden and native perennial flowers and shrubs. I live with my husband John and yellow lab Nala. My daughter Julia, her husband Drew, and 4 month old son James also live in Concord. After 30 years as an acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist I decided to retire in 2019 and focus on oil painting. Many of the subjects of my paintings are inspired by what I grow or find at local farm stands. I have a studio at the Umbrella Center for the Arts where I welcome visitors. You can also see my work on my website at sarahpaino.com.
A few events are coming up that you may want to mark on your calendar.
The Emerson Umbrella Open House is March 18th and 19th and Jeanne Hamilton will be providing another one of her beautiful arrangements on behalf of the Garden Club.
At Concord Bookshop, Thursday, April 6 at 7pm – Richard Higgins presents “Thoreau and the Language of Trees”
Some may have noted that the Concord Library is celebrating their 150th anniversary this year, with events culminating on October 1st with a re-enactment of the opening day ceremony complete with Emerson himself. The Garden Club has been invited to contribute, and we’ve extended the invitation to Seeds and Weeds and to the Green Thumbs to join us. All hands on deck! More details to come.