McMinnville Garden Club, PO Box
386, McMinnville, OR December
2011 503-434-4344
December
19, 2011 – MEETING and LUNCHEON
$15 payment/reservation needs to be to Mike by DECEMBER
12th
Please join us for this special event!
Hillside Retirement Community
“Activity Room” at the Manor
900 N. Hill Road McMinnville,
OR 97128
PLEASE REMEMBER TO PARK IN THE CHURCH PARKING LOT
9:30a.m. - 10:00a.m. - Social time
10:00a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Business Meeting/Holiday Fun/
Including an 11:30a.m. – luncheon, catered by Hillside
Ready
for a journey to a bright, holiday-decorated garden? Love to work in teams to figure
out plant names? Like to sing or listen to others sing?
Want ideas for memorable holiday traditions? These and many other
festivities will fill our December meeting.
Invite a friend, dress in holiday style, and enjoy!
Mark Your
Calendars:
Dec 12 Board
Meeting, Patty’s
Dec 19 Club Meeting, holiday luncheon, and FUN!
Dec NO
Field Trip, nor
Arts & Crafts scheduled, Happy Holidays!
2012 HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Jan 09 Board
Meeting
Jan 16 Club Meeting; Norm Jacobs,
Arbustus Garden Arts, “Conifers in the Garden”
Jan NO Field Trip,
nor
Arts & Crafts scheduled, due to weather
President’s
Message Merle Dean Feldman
Thanks
to all of you that help to make our meeting time such a highlight of the
month. Our special honoree at the November
meeting was June Benson. Thank you, June,
for the many ways that you help us make our club the
best! And thanks to all of you that
contribute so generously to our raffles in remembrance of our theme “Every
Garden is a Gift.” Sharing with each
other makes everything we do to produce our gifts so worthwhile.
As
the holidays come we now shift to decorate our homes instead of our gardens. However, it is difficult to concentrate on
the inside when so many new seed catalogs keep arriving each day. Is your wish list of new plants getting as
long as mine? I am still in denial that
winter is almost here. There are still
so many fall jobs to do, plants to divide, and bulbs to plant. So I just keep
Over
twenty members participated in our annual holiday wreath and winter hanging basket
workshop in Merle Dean’s greenhouse.
The two day event on Nov. 28-29, gathered a crowd of treat-bearing
artisans. We were warmed by Merle Dean’s
hospitality and delicious fare. Thanks
to all who brought snacks and loads of greens to share: “Every Garden Is a Gift!”
“The
ultimate expression of generosity is not in giving of what you have, but in
giving of who you are.” At our November meeting, we collected and
Cozette delivered 13 full grocery
sacks of food for the YCAP Food Bank!
Season of Giving: We will support Henderson House for our “Season
of Giving” event at our December meeting. Their pantry is critically
low due to the increased number of shelter clients and decreased funding.
The shelter can buy food from the Oregon
Food Bank (cheaper than the grocery and by the pound), however sugar* &
coffee* are typically unavailable.
Henderson House staffers transport clients to Wal-Mart and supervise ordering
prescription and other purchases.
Please
bring, to the December meeting, any of these items or gift certificates needed for the Henderson House shelter:
*Sugar, flour, *coffee, peanut butter, oatmeal, cereal, gelatin, canned fruit,
fruit juices, pasta and sauce, powdered milk, instant potatoes, canned and
boxed foods and mixes for hamburger, condiments, adhesive bandages, pain
relievers, cough, cold, and flu meds and syrups for babies, children, and
adults, deodorant, toilet paper, paper towels, NEW ladies socks & underwear,
Wal-Mart gift cards with dollar amount marked on the card (helps clients afford
prescriptions). Gift cards from local
grocery stores are useful to purchase perishable items.
Horticulture: Organic Fruit Tree
Care by Sally Brown
In
December the most important thing to do with your fruit trees is to spray with
a lime sulfur/horticultural oil mixture.
Spray, following the directions on the products, to eliminate many pest
and disease problems of a home orchard. Unfortunately, finding a dry day when
the temperature is not very cold is tricky.
A few hours without rain are necessary for the oil spray to dry on the
tree surfaces. A few follow-up sprays, a
month apart, really add to the preventative effect. Vern Nelson had a very good article in the Homes
and Gardens section of the Oregonian on Nov. 17th. He starts out stating that winter pruning is
often hard on the tree and causes more work later. Here is a summary of his fruit tree pruning
tips:
Mistakes Too Commonly Made:
1.
Leaving the trees too dense. Understand the
difference between making thinning cuts and heading cuts. One shortens the
branches, the other opens the tree up on the inside by cutting a branch off at
the base. This is necessary for good air and light penetration.
2.
Leaving
unproductive branches that are below horizontal, ones that slant downward.
3.
Leaving
most of your pruning for summer when wounds heal faster and new fruiting wood
is encouraged.
4.
Neglecting to prune every year. Guiding growth
when it is still small and pointed in the right direction saves more and bigger
cuts later.
5.
Not
leaving access to the inside of the tree. This means that you leave four or
five major scaffold limbs with enough space between to get in close and work.
Even small, dwarf trees need access to the interior to be maintained properly.
6.
Leaving
suckers. The tall, straight, vertical shoots are poor producers and look bad.
Failing to cut
down a tree when necessary. When a tree is too big, too old to produce much, or
is diseased it is time to call someone and have it taken down.
Wildlife Habitat: Canadian Geese by June
Benson
I have never seen one in my garden
but hundreds (thousands?) must live in or near McMinnville. Sometimes I see a
few in fields next to Hill Road or next to 99W as I head to Portland. Often
they fly over my neighborhood. As they fly over my deck, I can hear their
squawking and wings flapping, and, if they are flying low, I can see their
skinny legs hanging straight below their bodies. They are a rowdy bunch!
You, too, have probably seen large
flocks of Canadian Geese flying in a V formation over McMinnville. Scientists
believe that geese do this because it makes it easier for them to fly. The lead
bird breaks the air and creates an updraft, which reduces air resistance for
the rest of the flock. By flying in this position, geese can use 50-75% less
energy. It is assumed that older, more experienced birds lead the flock. The lead bird changes to prevent
exhaustion.
There are many subspecies of
Canadian Geese, and the four smallest forms are now considered to be a separate
species called the Cackling Goose. Geese
live in a great many habitats: near water, grassy fields, and grain fields. The
geese are especially drawn to large, manicured lawns. Many consider Canadian
Geese a nuisance and airports consider them a hazard. Early this year thousands
of geese invaded a Salem golf course.
In general, migratory populations of
Canadian Geese are not going as far south in the winter as they used to and
some do not migrate at all. There are seven subspecies of wintering Canadian
Geese in NW Oregon and wildlife officials say that nowhere else in the United
States are there so many subspecies mixed together on wintering grounds. Since
some are in decline, only some can be hunted, so Oregon hunters must pass a
test of their ability to differentiate between subspecies in order to obtain a
hunting license. In the 1960’s three national wildlife refuges in the
Willamette Valley were established to provide a wintering habitat for Dusky
Canadian Geese. All three are within easy driving distance of McMinnville:
Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge (near Jefferson) Baskett Slough (near Dallas),
and William L. Finley (south of Corvallis). Unlike other geese, duskies have
limited summer and winter ranges and were in serious
decline. They nest on Alaska’s Cooper River Delta and winter almost exclusively
in the Willamette Valley. The refuges are undisturbed areas that provide
protection, food, and water, so the geese survive in the fall and winter to
make the trek back to Alaska in the spring. Under agreements with local
farmers, fields are planted with grasses preferred by the geese. In November 2009, Baskett Slough counted
23,000 geese in a single “fly-off.” Photo blinds are available year-round, but
during the winter, reservations are required. More information is available
online at http://orne.ws/photo-blinds
or call 541-757-7236.
You’ve probably already met Norma if you’ve been a
member for a while, as she has a friendly, active way about her. Norma is a
fairly new member, but she has written the Horticulture column for our newsletter,
and she just finished leading our “Rakettes” as we marched along Third Street
in the Santa Parade! Norma was raised on a farm in Dayton (Oregon, of course),
where her family, the Blanchards, had large fruit orchards. Some of you
McMinnville natives or semi-natives may recognize the name “Blanchard-Wirfs
Orchards” --- the “Wirfs” name comes from Norma’s grandmother’s family.
Something else long-time Oregonians will remember is the “Columbus Day Storm”
in 1962. It flattened the orchards, and before long “wine pioneer” David Lett
planted grapes on that land; part of it is now Sokol-Blosser vineyards.
After graduating
from Dayton High, Norma attended Linfield, where she participated in girls’
hockey and softball. Norma also sang in Linfield Master Chorus and in smaller
groups. She also met her future husband, Elmer--another McMinnville native.
Elmer’s family had originally come to Oregon in the Buell wagon train in 1843,
and he has spent most of his life in forestry. He and Norma have enjoyed
traveling to fourteen European countries, and their most recent trip was to
Australia and New Zealand. They have two children, a daughter who is a CPA and
lives in Utah, and a son in Maryland, who has a PHD in physics. They also have
10 grand-children.
As a retired
Language Arts teacher, (13 years at Dayton High) Norma is a member of two book
clubs; another favorite activity is playing pinochle with her 97 year-old
mother every week. Gardening, of course, is another favorite, but she says what
she likes best to grow is “whatever the deer won’t eat”! Fortunately, deer don’t
eat Koi (do they??), so she can enjoy watching them in her peaceful pond. And,
as for the fact that there is a big red fire engine in her backyard, you’ll
have to ask Norma: “What’s up with that??”
Web Links to Explore:
Mike Darcy podcasts (radio). Scroll down for the
list of shows and archives.
http://www.hortmag.com/category/horticulture-radio
Scroll down to Horticulture Radio then click on the
title of the episode you would like to listen to.
Stop by the
Public Library
to visit our
Garden Club
Santa!