November 2020 Newsletter
Dear Members,
What an unusual Thanksgiving this will be. Regretfully, it will be in keeping with the ongoing pandemic in how we celebrate.
Although many of us will not be able to share our holiday table with family and friends, we can all still give thanks.
My thanks will include all of you for your continuing support of the club in this difficult, unusual time.
I am so grateful to see so many of you joining our virtual presentations. Although we would all prefer in-person engagement, it has been rewarding to share our excellent guest speakers with you.
Each time I pull up my armchair to welcome you all via Zoom, I feel as though we are having our own horticultural version of Masterpiece Theater!
My thanks also go to the GCC Board of Directors who continue to do diligent work behind the scenes to keep the club vital.
Thanks, too, for reading this newsletter! According to the statistics I receive, we have a 98% open rate. Wonderful.
With best wishes to you all for a peaceful Thanksgiving,
Sandra Conrad, President
The Bridge of Flowers Wednesday November 18th 1 p.m.
Please join us for a Zoom presentation by Kirsten Torkelson on the Bridge of Flowers, a unique botanical garden in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.
Kirsten is the owner of KTIMages based in Foxboro, Mass. She has a longstanding interest and passion for photographing nature, especially gardens and flowers.
The Bridge of Flowers spans the Deerfield River from Shelburne Falls to Buckland. Kirsten will provide a history of the bridge and one woman’s unique vision that brought it to fruition.
We will also see what is in bloom over the seasons. Join us for an armchair tour of this unusual garden.
If you have not already done so, please sign up here:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0d4aacaa29a31-gcczoom
Please note: we hope to plan a field trip to the bridge when it reopens. Also, stay tuned in the new year for a planned photography workshop led by Kirsten.
Committee News
Community Outreach
425 (!) bulbs were planted in the West Concord Garden recently.The varieties include:Daffodil – Mt. Hood, Dutchmaster, Ice Follies (300)Allium – Mt. Everest, Globemaster and Cristophii (75) Grape Hyacinth (50).
Thanks to the “Bulb Brigade” for ensuring that spring 2021 will provide a wonderful swath of color for all to enjoy.
Mary Ann Ferrell, Jane Rupley, Jen Stone, Kate Chartener, Ellen Whitney (not pictured)
Horticulture
My garden is under there somewhere!
If you are like me, my garden cleanup is not done until after Thanksgiving. Thank goodness for the recent warm weather that made this annual chore a pleasure.
There are many different viewpoints on how much or how little to clean up each year. Thanks to Pam Nelson, Chair of Horticulture, for sending along this article that provides excellent guidance on the matter:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/realestate/fall-garden-cleanup.html
Marta’s Messy Moment
We have so many talented flower arrangers in our club, including Marta Taylor. She will be doing a video on a Thanksgiving holiday arrangement. Please look for a special posting of this video coming next week.
Need further inspiration? The Garden Club Federation has flower arranging ideas at GCFM Fall Happenings: Fun with Floral Design at http://gcfm.org
Hospitality
Our traditional holiday luncheon will not happen this year, but if any of you have favorite seasonal recipes to share, please send them along to me and they will be posted in the December newsletter.
Ways and Means
Jen Lannan, Chair of Ways and Means, and Co-Chair of the 2021 Plant Sale will be sending out a Signup Genius after Thanksgiving for the Plant Sale Committee.
One and all are encouraged to join this committee. Planning will begin in February.
Massachusetts Endangered Species Act Celebrates 30 years!
Enacted during the Dukakis administration in 1990, the MESA seeks to preserve, conserve, and protect endangered animals and plants to ensure ongoing biodiversity.
Here in Concord alone, we have lost 27% of our native species according to Richard Primack of Boston University.
Please read more here about this important, ongoing work:
Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang…
Shakespeare’s famous sonnet has a more subtle meaning behind this metaphor, but my first association with it is always more literal in terms of looking at newly-bared trees in November.
Now that we have planted bulbs and put our gardens to bed, interest in the garden does not cease as trees in winter provide an opportunity to learn more.
Pictured below is a Hawthorn (Crataegus) in my yard. When I first moved here, I did not know for certain what is was, but soon learned from its spiky thorns, small rose-like flowers (it is a member of the Rosaceae family) that is one of hundreds of varieties of this species.
Hawthorns, also known as Mayflower trees in honor of the month they bloom, have extensive folklore associated with them.
The Pilgrims named their ship The Mayflower after the tree to represent hope for the New World, so I now think of it as my Thanksgiving tree.
Only recently did I learn the identity of this particular Hawthorn from an elderly man who knocked on my door to tell me he had lived here as a child in the late 1930s and 40s.
His family planted the tree, a ‘Paul’s Scarlet’ which over the past 80 years has reverted to stock and now blooms white/pale pink.
This gentleman spent his career working for Davey Tree, the company we use to care for this tree. The wonderful symmetry of all this resonates each time I look at the Hawthorn.
To learn more about your own trees in winter, please look at this article from Mass Audubon:
https://www.massaudubon.org/news-events/publications/explore/past-issues/winter-2019/bark-buds-twigs
Happy Thanksgiving!