Corvallis Evening Garden Club Presents their April Speakers

Evening Gardening Club Grants

 

Grants from the

For over 35 years, the Evening Garden Club has supported the expansion of gardening, education and beautification in the Corvallis community through its Grants Program. The EGC offers grants to Benton County nonprofit organizations to carry out worthy gardening related projects.

Application for Request for Funds  https://corvalliseveninggardenclub.org/grants/

2021 Grants Program Timeline:

• February 10 – March 25: Grant applications submissions

• March 25 – April 5: Review and Approval

• April 5 – April 12: Notification and responses to grant applicants

Selection Criteria:

• Applications must be complete and submitted by the deadline

• Strong grant applications are expected to address one or more of EGC objectives:

• To promote and encourage the art of gardening and the study of horticulture

• To aid in the protection and conservation of natural resources

• To promote civic and roadside beautification

• To cooperate with other organizations interested in these objectives

The evaluation criteria will include the number of people reached by the project, whether it includes an educational component or youth involvement, the diversity of people involved in or benefiting from the project,  and whether the project is a one-time or ongoing event.

Selection Process:

• Funds are available to non-profit groups only. Tax Exempt Status Number/Tax ID Number is required.

• The project must benefit the Benton County Community.

• The organization must follow up with brief written documentation and pictures as to how the grant was spent in order to be considered for future grant requests.

• Grant requests cannot exceed $500.  Each year, based on the number of applications received, some of the requests may only be partially funded.

DEADLINE FOR Receipt of the EGC Grant APPLICATION is  March 25, 2021

• Applications can be submitted by email grants@corvalliseveninggardenclub.org  or mailed to:  Evening Garden Club, P.O. Box 315, Corvallis, OR 97339-0315

• Funds shall be disbursed in April 2021.

• Checks will not be made out to personal accounts

Grow Your Own Tea

 

Bulb-A-Palooza

 

Who:  

www.corvalliseveningardenclub.org

What:  Annual Fall Bulb Sale

Top Quality Bulbs from Holland packaged in a variety of choices: alliums, daffodils, species tulips, camas, saffron crocus and so much more!

Why: Support community gardening grants & horticulture scholarships

How: Order by email with no-contact pick up

Watch your listservs for full ordering information between September 10-14 -or- Request information from kathleen.rochester@gmail.com after Sept. 15

When:  Place orders Sept. 27— Oct. 6

Pick up and pay October 11-13, details when you order . First come, first served!

December dreaming …

It’s a time for curling up with a great garden book, sorting through a season’s worth of garden notes and photos, turning garden produce into holiday gifts, travelling to a warmer place – or at least into a local garden center greenhouse to pick a poinsettia!  Here are some ideas to keep you happy indoors:

1.    Pick a photo or two for an unconventional horticultural holiday greeting.  

                 

Chilean Bromeliaceae Fascicularia Bicolor

variegated Alstromeria

2.    Read the story of the making of a garden.  Some oldies but goodies are We Made a Garden by Margery Fish; A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed, by James Fenton and An Island Garden by Celia Thaxter.  All three gardened in places with enough overlap with Corvallis’s climate to make many of their experiences very relevant and very fun to read!  Or give yourself a treat and rediscover The Essential Earthman by Henry Mitchell, longtime garden columnist for the Washington Post.

3.    Pack jars of your sun or oven dried tomatoes or roasted peppers with olive oil, lemon peel and herbs to give as gifts. Clip rosemary and bundle with a red ribbon for a quick hostess gift, along with a rosemary-forward recipe such as this quick side dish: 1 can small white beans drained, heated with 3-4 oz. crumbled gorgonzola cheese, 1 T finely chopped fresh rosemary, or more to taste, and 2-3 T white wine or broth.

4.    Use dried flowers, seed pods and fresh evergreens to decorate your home and packages.

5.    Finally, add “Join the Corvallis Evening Garden Club” to your New Year’s Resolutions!! 

                           

                        Information at www.corvalliseveninggardenclub.org

Two Thoughts from the Evening Garden Club this Month

1.    TIME TO MULTIPLY YOUR PLANTS! 

While weeding (before mulching your beds for winter) look for volunteer seedlings of plants you might want and leave in place or lift and pop into a nursery bed.  (Some may need sheltering.)

It may not be too late to collect seed from overgrown veggies and later flowering plants.  Dry the seed before storing in a cool, dry place.  Old Altoids tins or paper envelopes work well – just don’t seal in plastic.  Label carefully!!  Share seed with fellow gardeners – you almost never need as much as you have.

Learn about propagation and start taking cuttings from your favorite and rare plants.   By late summer next year, you could have well-started plants to give as gifts or add to your own garden.  Here’s a great, well-reviewed book to start with:

American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation: The Definitive Practical Guide to Culmination, Propagation, and Display 

by Alan R. Toogood, American Horticultural Society

2.    TIME TO CUT BACK, COMPOST AND TIDY UP (BUT NOT TOO MUCH!)

Leave seed heads in place as long as possible for the birds and other wildlife who use them and for the beauty of their forms in the winter landscape.

Cut off dead stalks of euphorbia.  Fresh blooms will form for spring.

Leave flowering plants with green leaves to photosynthesize until they turn brown – they’ll come back stronger in spring.  

Remove and get rid of any diseased foliage – keeping it out of the home compost bin.  (Yard waste bin is okay.)

DO NOT cut back hardy fuchsia, kniphofia or hardy cyclamen.  Wait until early spring to cut back epimedium (when you see flowers forming underneath) and ornamental grasses (when new growth is beginning.)

Tips from the Corvallis Evening Garden Club

Almost August – 

It’s that floppy time of year when gardeners are seeking new ways to support and trellis plants.

Imagine just about anything vertical with a climber on it – here, clematis on a weather vane.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF BAMBOO!  This looked like the Blair Witch Project before the Scarlet Runner Bean took over, but is just three 7-foot bamboo teepees connected by a cross bar: 

(Get bamboo for free from your new friends in the Evening Garden Club!)

Finally, explore the endless possibilities of using REBAR and SMOOTH MILD STEEL RODS to create plant supports and trellises.  Here’s a great video to get you started making simple supports.  https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/diy/how-to-make-steel-supports-for-perennials/  Note: 6mm steel rods are approximately 1/4 inch.  Locally, they can be purchased at Wilco, but this website seems to have them at a real discount:  https://www.onlinemetals.com  There are MANY DIY rebar benders on YouTube.  Here’s one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RpNJq_vMZw

Evening Garden Club will be at the Corvallis Spring Garden Festival

The 32nd Annual Corvallis Spring Garden Festival is coming up – and this year the Evening Garden Club will have a fundraising booth, selling live plants and bulbs as well as a “Garden Boutique” of gently used garden-related items such as tools, containers, garden art and garden books.
And it's in time for  –  Mother’s Day!
Sunday, May 5, 2019 • 10 am – 4 pmArts Center Plaza / Central Park
7th Street & Madison Avenue

Please come shop to support the Evening Garden Club
Better yet-- take this opportunity to do some spring cleaning and donate your garden rummage to the sale -- clean, attractive items only – no junk!  All “Garden Boutique” items can be dropped off at Ruby Moon’s house, 608 SW 7th St., Corvallis, on April 27th and 28th from 1 to 3 pm. Please enter through the alleyway between 7th and 8th streets, south, off Western-- look for the EGC sign.  Questions? Svetlana Dascaliuc, Garden Boutique Coordinator 541-250-6207

Spring Tips from the Evening Garden Club

IT’S PLANT SALE SEASON! Local Nurseries and the Benton County Master Gardeners will have hundreds of tempting plants – but DON’T buy BIG, thinking you’ll have a better plant faster. Perennials plant best at 3-5 INCHES tall and small trees soon catch up to bigger ones.


It’s planting time for natives and most other perennials– before summer temperatures arrive and while it’s easy to work the soil. Try not to tread on wet beds – avoid compacting the soil.

Get close to your plants – plop right down on the lawn or pathway and enjoy the wonder of emerging leaves and blossoms. It’s the best way to stay ahead of pests and diseases—you’ll notice more--but also another way to pause and really enjoy your garden.


Fertilize your lawn using a slow-release fertilizer with a 3-1-2 ratio four times a year. Remember when to do it in the PNW with these holidays:  EASTER, MEMORIAL DAY, LABOR DAY AND HALLOWEEN

From the Corvallis Evening Garden Club – Meetings: 1st Monday Oct-May, 7 p.m., Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, 2650 NW Highland Dr. Corvallis. Tours, Holiday Greens Party, Socials.  

More at www.EGCCORVALLIS.ORG

Evening Garden Club presents -

 

Everyone who digs in their bit of earth has experienced garden goofs. Award-winning garden writer Mary-Kate Mackey discusses classic disasters in her 27 years of gardening in the same spot, such as wrong plant, wrong place; why drip doesn’t work in all situations; and why friends don’t let friends put down weed cloth. She’ll also offer tips on how to avoid or correct these errors, including how to research trees and shrubs that won’t outgrow their welcome.

A lively and knowledgeable speaker, Mary-Kate Mackey is the co-author of Sunset’s Secret Gardens—153 Ideas from the Pros. She is a contributor to Sunset’s Gardening in the Northwest and the Sunset Western Garden Book. Five-time winner of a GardenCom (formerly GWA) Award for garden writing, her articles have appeared in national and regional publications, such as Fine Gardening, Horticulture and Sunset. 

Online, she writes about growing Encore Azaleas from a West Coast point of view.  https://www.encoreazalea.com/gardening/expert-advice/mary-kate-mackey

“Rooting for You” is her monthly column for the U.S. Hartley-Botanic Greenhouse website. https://hartley-botanic.com/magazine/author/marykatemackey/

http://corvalliseveninggardenclub.org

http://corvalliseveninggardenclub.org

Upcoming talk - January 7th

Paul's active gardening blog can be found at https://xeraplantscom/author/pau

Winter Tips and Holiday Greetings from the Evening Garden Club

Winter Tips and Holiday Greetings from the Evening Garden Club

Pyracantha ‘Yukon Belle’

*Visit local nurseries over the winter months to see plants which will add winter color and interest to your garden.  Don’t miss evergreen ferns and native groundcovers – you’ll be surprised! 

*Check that frost has not lifted ground around newly planted shrubs and trees.  If it has, stamp ground down firmly.

*Check that wind has not rocked newly planted evergreens – they are more susceptible than deciduous trees.

* Don’t leave heavy mulch or evergreen boughs over emerging bulb foliage.

Hellebore “Gold Collection” ‘Snow Fever’ 

    Pyracantha ‘Yukon Belle’

                                                                  

*Roses still blooming? They need to go dormant to thrive next year.  Prune lightly and remove all foliage. Allow buds and hips to form.

*Lime soil where dahlias will be planted next year – 5lbs:100 square feet, every three years.

*Add a thorough CARE tag to any plant you give as a holiday gift. There’s nothing sadder than killing a plant you’ve been given by a loved one.

*Read January garden magazines and look at websites now for the newest annual flower and vegetable introductions.

*If you want to use and plant a live Christmas tree:

--Acclimate it in an unheated garage both before and after its time in the house.

--Don’t keep it in the house more than a week.

-- Keep root ball moist but not sopping and coat needles with an anti-dessicant spray.

-- Plant ASAP in an appropriate full sun location with plenty of space to reach its potential.

*Great garden book for a gift: Month-by-Month Gardening in Washington & Oregonby Mary Robson with Christina Pfeiffer – many of these tips originated there!

MOST IMPORTANT WINTER TIP:

*Attend the Evening Garden Club’s Annual Greens’ Party, 7:00 pm December 3, 2018!  Bring greens and plant material to share and learn to make wreaths and decorations.  Shepherd of the Valley Church.

more at www.corvalliseveninggardenclub.org

HARVEST THOUGHTS FROM THE EVENING GARDEN CLUB

With the first freeze inevitable, harvest upon us (green tomatoes, anyone?) and Thanksgiving approaching, pause to consider the vast changes in world diet brought about by the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, starting with Columbus. The staple foods of millions from Ireland to South Africa – potatoes, manioc and corn -- were unknown in the “old world” prior to the late 15thcentury. Imagine Italian food without tomatoes, Hungarian without sweet peppers or Thai without hot chilies. Chocolate, walnuts, vanilla and strawberries – how sad to imagine the great chefs of Europe creating without these original plants of the Americas.
So, as you cook for friends and family, give thanks for what food historians refer to as “The Great Exchange.”
and for those green tomatoes...a recipe
Green Tomato Chutney – makes about 1 quart – can be canned, frozen or kept in the fridge for at least a month – great on turkey sandwiches and with leftover turkey curry!
1 and 3/4 pounds green tomatoes, cored and chopped in about 1 inch pieces (about 6 med tomatoes, but you can use any type or size)
2 firm apples cored and cut into chunks, peeled or
unpeeled
1/3 cup (65 grams) chopped candied ginger – or use a little less fresh, grated ginger
1 cup golden raisins, raisins, dried cranberries, currants or a mixture
1 cup chopped red onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar (or less to taste)
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard seeds – yellow, brown or
black
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1⁄2 teaspoon ground allspice, or 1⁄4 t cinnamon + 1/8 teaspoon each nutmeg and cloves
**Mix and boil gently together, stirring frequently, until desired consistency is reached—about 45 minutes. You can add the sugar after some of the cooking is done to get the desired sweetness.**
____________________________________________________________
The Evening Garden Club of Corvallis would be happy to welcome new members at our November 5, 2018 meeting when we will have an exchange of plants culled from our gardens along with tips, tricks and ideas. Everyone should bring plants and/or ideas to share and everyone will go home with new inspirations! We meet on the 1st Monday of the months from October to May at 7 p.m. (hall opens at 6:30) in the Community Room at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, 2650 NW Highland Drive, Corvallis. We have a December Greens Party where we make wreaths and decorations, and more talks, tours and workshops coming in the new year.

more at www.corvalliseveninggardenclub.org

Tips for the NW Garden from the Evening Garden Club

The garden is a bit discouraging as we hurtle towards Labor Day.  We’ve worked hard, but heat, smoke and no water for months have taken their toll. The garden feels drab and tired.

Tip #1  Photograph your garden NOWto identify blank spots and to see what IS BLOOMING.  After the rain comes, dig and divide these blooming clumps (in my garden: asters, alstroemerias, obedient plant and surprises like some heathers) to fill those spots.  Note what else does well this time of year – hardy fuschias, gaura, geraniums – and add more when you can.

Tip #2  Spring bulbs (daffodils, crocus, tulips, fritillaries, hyacinths and native bulbs such as camas) will come on the market now.  Treat them like eggs – don’t leave in a hot car for long.  Store in a cool place.  At planting time (mid-Sept- early Nov) the ground may still be very dry. Expose a planting area of at least a square foot and soak the ground at the depth you’ll be planting.  The bulbs need to put down roots before winter and they can’t start in dry ground.  

Tip #3  Cheap chrysanthemums (left) will be coming into stores now.  Pot up in larger pots to grow on for a long fall display and then plant out in the garden after they’ve finished, but before the freeze.  They’ll establish in your garden as perennials and bloom around now for many years. 

Tip #5   Don’t be too tidy with fall clean-up.  Seed heads left on, and detritus on the ground provide food and winter protection for birds and other wildlife. Leave decaying leaves in place under trees and bushes –natural mulch. Slugs lay most eggs in the fall, so keep an eye out for eggs.

Tip #6  Fall is a good time to renew your lawn, starting with aerating it.  Be careful to do this after the lawn has had some rain so that it has good weather to recover in.

Finally– Note to self: Labor Day should remind us to take time to RESTfrom our labors and actually enjoy the garden!  Have a BBQat the table you built, listening to that fountain you finally installed, eating the tomatoes and plums your garden produced.  

Happy Labor Day from the EGC!!!

A Warm Summer Welcome to Immigrants!!

U.S. home gardening would be a pretty monotonous place without the immigrants we love.  Evening Garden Club members grow and enjoy some interesting ones!  A member of Chinese descent grows boo choy and napa cabbage which her grandmother used in stir fries.  

Another has a garden full of unusual fruits she knows from the Russian Far East, including black, red and white currants, honeyberries, Korean cherries and this gorgeous Schisandra chinensis or Five- Flavor Berry-- a deciduous woody vine, native to forests of northern China and the Russian Far East.  (It’s available locally at One Green World Nursery.) 

Yours truly grows delectable Tromboncini, a squash which can be enjoyed young as summer squash (firmer textured than zucchini, with a hint of artichoke) or hardened off for a winter keeper. The vines are rampant, growing to 8 ft., but can go on a trellis.

Experimenting with vegetables met on trips to China, another member grows Kailaan, and Choy Sum, both kohl family flowering vegetables like broccoli, where all parts are edible.  She also likes Kobocha - a Japanese winter squash, and long beans, such as Dragon Bean (available from SeedSavers.com) which keep producing vine in the heat.

Speaking of  HEAT…

Many of us need ideas for spinach substitutes which will not bolt. Niki Jabbour, who gardens, cooks and writes about both, has a new book out called Veggie Garden Remix.  She was inspired by her Lebanese mother-in-law (an immigrant to the U.S.) to grow ingredients for Lebanese cooking.  Among them was one of several heat tolerant spinach substitutes, Molokhia,Corchorus olitorius, a Middle Eastern super green.  That led her to investigate over 124 mostly foreign vegetables for our gardens.

Other spinach substitutes in her book include: Magentaspreen Chenopodium gigantium, a quinoa relative, and Orach, Atriplex hortensis (both available from www.wildgardenseed.com – an Oregon organic grower), Red Leaf Vegetable Amaranth(known as Callaloo in the Caribbean) and New Zealand Spinach,Tetragonia.

The book is full of dozens of those wonderful garden immigrants which remind us so vividly of the rich cultural diversity around us.  Niki Jabbour was recently interviewed (June 4) on a terrific gardening podcast called A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach.  Check out the podcast and all of her garden-related writing and speaking at www.awaytogarden.com.  Watering is a lot more fun with a podcast to keep you company.

From the Corvallis Evening Garden Club–Meetings: 1^stMonday Oct-May, 7 p.m., 

Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, 2650 NW Highland Dr. Corvallis.

 Tours, Holiday Greens Party, Socials.  More at www.Corvalliseveninggardenclub