McMinnville Garden
Club, PO Box 386, McMinnville, OR
May 2011
503-434-4344
May 16, 2011 – MEETING
Hillside
Retirement Community “Activity Room” at the Manor
900
N. Hill Road McMinnville, OR 97128
PLEASE DON’T FORGET TO PARK IN THE CHURCH PARKING
LOT
9:30a.m. - 10:00a.m. - Social time
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. - Business
Meeting and FUN
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. – Speaker- Neil Bell
“Drought Tolerant Plants for the Sun”
With
all the rain we've had this year, did you ever think we would be interested in
plants that do well in a drought? In
case we have a dry summer, you might want to come to May's meeting to hear Neil
Bell talk about choosing shrubs and perennials that can not only be grown in
our area without summer irrigation, but also provide interest in the garden
year-round. Neil is
the Community Horticulturist at the OSU Extension Service for Marion and Polk
counties. He also works with home
gardeners and oversees the Master Gardener program in both counties.
May
13, Friday Beach Garden
Visit Leave
9:30 from the Bethel Baptist Church.
Field trip to the Connie Hansen Garden in Lincoln
City for a tour. After time to wander, we’ll find a great place for
lunch, and head home in the afternoon.
May
18. Wednesday Nursery Crawl #2 Leave 9:30
from the Bethel Baptist Church.
Sebright Hosta and Adelman’s Peony
Nurseries
June
4, Saturday Stepping Stones/Birdbath -
Jean Lierman's House
10 AM
Time for our yearly creative event. $30 per stone. At our May meeting, we’ll need to ask you to
pay. We need at least 6 paid members for
this class to be a go. Check with Patty
or Jean for more info.
June 20 Club Meeting: Potluck at the Yamhill County Historical Museum
We are going to try something new this year for our
installation luncheon, a potluck! We
will be meeting at the Yamhill County Historical Museum to see their progress with
our donations. The museum is on Hwy 99
across from where the closed RV sales facility is located. We will be checking to see if there is a need
to carpool for some. Rather than a
catered luncheon, we’ll try a potluck luncheon!
Meeting will start at 10 with installation and a short business
meeting. Then we’ll tour the facilities
and have our luncheon indoors! The board
will provide paper plates, cups, silverware, and hot/cold drinks. We could use some help setting up at
9:30. Members are asked to bring their
favorite potluck dish including main dishes, fruits, veggies, salads, and
desserts. There is electricity for crock
pots, etc.
After
the luncheon, we will carpool out to Merle Dean’s botanical gardens near
Yamhill for a tour. What a perfect
day. NOW, to hope for sun in late June
for two days: 20th and 26th,
right?
"ALL ABOARD"
Yeah, the sunshine finally arrived for a
few days. I think the clouds and
precipitation were given to us this year so we’d appreciate the sun more. Just like being President has made me
appreciate each and every one of you with your smiles, talents, and love of
gardening. I’m really looking forward to
all the activities that are scheduled in the next few months. Hope you’ll join us even if the sun is out
and you can work in your gardens. Fun,
friends and field trips are a winning combo in my book!
|
Garden
Club Booth at the Home Show |
Judy/Patty/Beryl/Cindy/Stephanie/Jan Great
job, ladies |
|
|
|
Ladies/Men a Success!
A HUGE thank you to the team of club members and partners who helped us clean 2nd and 3rd streets downtown. Those ivy vines, weeds, grass, garbage and leaves were no challenge for us. They have been removed thanks to this team. We were treated to a fabulous lunch donated by Golden Valley and continued to work in the afternoon this year. Two weeks later, a much smaller group of three with the help of Rose Marie and a friend, finished it off with bark dust purchased from our City Beautification Fund. We are also adding an additional set of flower baskets to the RXR station soon. A job WELL DONE!
GARDEN PARTY, June 26, 2011
Spring letters have been sent to all our Garden Tour homeowners. We are thankful for each day of sunshine as
the tour gardens awake for their special event.
Can’t wait!!!
At our May meeting, we will be distributing the ticket
booklets to members for sale/gift giving.
It is historically expected that each member sell 4 tickets. If you would like MORE or
LESS, please indicate so when you pick them up at the meeting. It is very important that all tickets are
accounted for prior to the June meeting for use during the tour. Here we go!
Our work is really gearing up to continue to raise funds
for city service projects. Thanks to
EVERYONE who is helping in one, two, three or more roles to support this club
activity. Be sure to help all of our fabulous chairs with their task of once
again providing our attendees with a memorable tour and exciting shopping spree
at our Garden Faire! We have over 40
vendors slated to be here so be sure to save some money to spend at their
booths.
Congratulations, Gaye and Mike!
Our own Gaye and Mike Stewart will repeat as Pioneer District Officers: Director, Gaye and Treasurer, Mike! You represent us well.
May Yard of the Month
Congratulations to Donna Nelson, 2150
NW St. Andrews Drive, McMinnville
A creative whimsical Spring garden
hosting vibrant colors and subtle garden art which makes it POP!
HEUCHERAS - Coral Bells
Heucheras seem
to be one of the most popular perennials.
They are compact evergreen clumps of roundish leaves with lobed or
scalloped edges. Slender, wiry stems 1-3
feet bear loose clusters of nodding, bell-shaped flowers. However, what sells the plants are the
variety of colored leaves, which include:
deep purple that age to silver, chocolate with burgundy below,
chartreuse leaves with ruffled edges, apricot to peach, bright red to purple
red, hot pink polka dots, etc. They come up with more colors every year.
Grow
them in well-drained, humus rich soil.
The plants can take sun, part sun, part shade, or shade, depending on
which one you choose. They are very
hardy and make good container plants.
Propagating is easy by cutting the stems with new growth and planting
them in the ground or in a pot.
I seem to come
home with a new color whenever I visit a nursery. Can’t have too many heucheras!!!!
Wildlife
Habitat
THE
UNINVITED By June Benson
On
the south side of my house is a deer path, a superhighway from the grass field
up to the street, and in between the deer find our landscape to be an
all-you-can-eat salad bar. Choosing deer resistant plants is complicated
because plant species change in their appeal to deer throughout the year. For
example, last year deer ate all five new Viburnum
davidii down to the ground. To my
surprise and delight, the plants returned later in the summer and the deer left
them alone. This spring the new growth must be tender and tasty because the
deer are eating the same plants again. Last year the deer never touched the
Candytuft growing under my living room window, but recently they ate almost all
of the flower buds. Moreover, occasionally I see small plants, which I put in
last fall, sitting on top of the ground (yanked out by the deer, I presume).
There is hope because we do have mature landscaping despite the deer. I think
our new plants can survive a bit of nibbling IF they are allowed to establish
themselves.
So far I have had some success with
commercial sprays and nylon netting. I have also found Deer-Resistant Landscaping by Neil Soderstrom (available at
the library) to be an excellent resource. Strategies are research-based, and
there is advice for outwitting 20
uninvited guests including gophers, ground squirrels, moles, opossums, rabbits,
raccoons, mice, and moles.
If
you have uninvited guests in your garden and have advice you would like to
share, drop me a note at junebenson@frontier.com.
Slate of Nominees for Officers 2011-12
President:
Merle Dean Feldman Vice-President: Cozette Castor
Secretary:
Rosemary Vertgret Treasurer: Mike Steward
by Rosemary Vertregt
On a glorious
sunny day your “roving reporter” drove north on Highway 47 for an interview
with our new club president-to-be at her home just north of Yamhill, missed the
entry, turned around and got it right on the second try, climbed the curving gravel driveway
surrounded by plantings of conifers and perennials, and arrived at the large
white house with the great big porch.
Wow! The gorgeous view into the
rolling valley through the many large windows is the reason Merle Dean and her
husband David named their place “Story book Hill Farm & Nursery”. The view is also, Merle Dean says, why there
is very little art on their walls. As
she gestures outward, she says happily, “This is our art!” It was not a quick and easy process getting
to this point. They worked from 2000 to
2003 with soil problems, various architects, designers, builders, etc. At last, after finding a builder to do just
the framing--they built the house themselves!
Well, that is how you get what you want!! Merle Dean gives David great credit for
making it happen, saying he’s a “talented inventor and fabricator”, and he’s
her husband of nearly 48 years!
But
Oregon was not Merle Dean’s starting point.
She was born in Texas, lived in Barstow and Clovis, California, where
her parents worked for the Harvey House Inn and Restaurant, her mother as a
“Harvey Girl” and her father as a chef.
This was one of a historic chain of establishments across many states to
provide service to customers on the Santa Fe Railway. Merle Dean remembers her father cooking for
huge groups who needed to be fed on time!
Merle Dean says it took her ages to get through college, as she also had
to work. She began college in Texas, met
and married David there. They moved to
Kansas, where David taught physics and chemistry. The family has lived in Kansas three separate
times, and she has a special place in her heart for the state, especially the
Manhattan area, and David was a Kansas farm boy.
Later,
living on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska for twenty years, Merle Dean discovered
the fantastic perennials-- their size and the strong colors of their
flowers. She worked for the Dept. of Health & Human
Services as a district manager, but had time to join a garden club that took on
a beautification project--turning a large area of the main street of town from
garbage dump to public garden by donating plants from their own gardens,
planting and caring for them. She was
also a member of Master Gardeners and had a small nursery of her own. She retired in 1997, and they returned to
Kansas, where she intended to finish the few credits she needed for her
horticultural degree, but life kept getting in the way; her activities included raising four
children, two of whom live in McMinnville, one in Roseburg, and one in
Alaska. However, as we know, education
is not just classes and credits, and Merle Dean is one very well-educated
lady. She has tall double bookcases full
of plant-related information (and gorgeous photos, of course), and her garden
is actually a botanical garden, meant to preserve endangered species and to
allow people in the area to see and learn about them. Merle Dean has a most
generous attitude about sharing what she has -- in her garden ( I got succulents!), in her kitchen ( I got homemade scones!), and in her book
collection. Merle Dean‘s mother liked to say, “When you plant a garden you give
a gift to the world”.
Your reporter’s quote is: “She
is a welcome gift to McMinnville Garden Club!”
Internet Links:
Pioneer District Newsletter
http://oregongardenclubs.org/pioneer/
State Website
http://oregongardenclubs.org/default.htm
Club Calendar of Events
http://mcminnvillegardenclub.org/yearbooks/2009-10/2010-11calendar.htm
Dig in the Dirt!
http://www.healinglandscapes.org/blog/2011/01/its-in-the-dirt-bacteria-in-soil-makes-us-happier-smarter/
Perennials Resource
http://www.perennialresource.com/search/?searchterm=perennial&searchtype=all
Deer Resistant Plants
http://www.deerresistantplants.com/
Huechera Plants
http://inthegardenonline.com/main/plant-profiles/heuchera
“The flowers of late winter and early
spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size. “
Gertrude S
Wister