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Lockerly Newsletter May 2016
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Volunteers of the Month
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| Plant Sale customer (left) and Master Gardener (right) discussing plant choices |
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It takes a lot of helping hands, strong backs, plant expertise, and of course beautiful plants to make a plant sale successful. Our volunteers stepped up in a big way to make our 2016 Plant Sale a great success.
Our Dirt Diggers, new Master Gardeners, student volunteers, and Trustees worked together to start plants last winter, care for them while they grew, moved them outside for the sale, talked with customers, and helped load them up to go to their new homes. Volunteers also staffed a membership and Lockerly retail tent. These volunteers sold tickets for drawings and made sure the donated and almost new items at the Second Hand Rose table were nicely displayed for shoppers.
Students from the Grassmann Ceramics Studio at Georgia College served complimentary freshly brewed coffee and tea on Thursday afternoon and most of Saturday. Their ceramic pieces were lovely and added a nice new feature to our event. They donated some pieces to us and are now available for purchase in our Visitor Center.
We appreciate what our volunteers contribute throughout the year, but it is especially nice to see some many people who love Lockerly come together for such a special event.
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Explore, splash, learn, repeat!
Lockerly's Summer Camps are all about exploring and learning, and maybe getting dirty and wet. Organized by school grades, Camp Oliver Worley and Camp Discovery build on school curriculum. so our Campers go back to school in August with new skills and knowledge they can use in the classroom.
But, it is summer, so that means our Camps are also a big change from sitting in a desk most of the day. Our Campers will learn about water eco-
syste
ms while collecting samples in our pond or creek, and then
use microscopes to see what is swimming around. Our new archaeology dig sites allows Campers to learn some unique skills while thinking about history in a new way.
Camp Oliver Worley
is scheduled for June 6-10 for rising 6th
-9th graders, and June 13-17 for rising 3rd-5th graders.
Camp Disc
overy
is a half day camp held in the Arboretum for rising 1st-2nd gr
aders.
We keep our sessions small so all Campers have plenty of supervisi
on and hands-on learning. Don't wait until the last minute to
register
- some are nearing capacity.
If you want to feed your child or grandchild's imagination this summer, our camps are where they need to be. They will spend the day outside having lots of fun and go home with stories to share about their adventures.
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Help us make improvements to our Education classroom
Lockerly's Education Program Director Greg Eilers and his student staff teach over 4,000 students every year. Sometimes the groups are as large as 100 children, and other times as small as 10-12 students.
If you've ever been in the classroom building you've probably seen microscopes, plant samples, lots of hands-on teaching tools, and maybe Tito (
she lives in the aquarium near the classroom).
What you haven't seen in the classroom is a sink! Greg has managed to do incredible science projects without a drop of running water in his building. We want to fix that, and we're asking for your help.
We plan to add three sinks, one being a deep sink, to the small room just off the classroom. These sinks will allow Greg to readily do experiments that require water for any stage of the project (currently he has to use buckets).
An added bonus is that the classroom can more readily be used for art classes and other creative workshop offerings that require access to water, so the addition of sinks will have benefits beyond Greg's program.
The estimate for this project is $3,500 from start to finish.
We are very proud of the work Greg and his staff do for every participant in Lockerly's Education Program. We hope you will support what we provide to students of all ages with a donation for the improvements to his classroom.
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May Garden Tips
Lockerly Horticulture Director
By now your garden should already be planted with beans, cantaloupe, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, field peas, peppers, squash, tomatoes and watermelon. A repeat planting of snap beans, corn, squash and lima beans can be done every 2 to 3 weeks for a continuous supply of produce all season long. When planting tomato transplants, keep the blooms pinched off until the plants are big enough to bear fruit. Plants perform better when they are given a chance to grow into a healthy size before putting energy into producing tomatoes.
Early in the season, you may notice blooms on your squash plants that do not produce fruit. When squash plants are young the first flowers to open are usually male. Several
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Adult Squash Vine Borer |
male flowers may open before the first female flowers form. Only the female flowers produce fruit so be patient and eventually the male and female flowers will be open at the same time and your squash will start to develop.
Squash Vine Borers over winter as larvae in the soil and emerge in May as adults. During May and June the adults lay eggs on squash stems near the base of the plant. The eggs hatch in 7 - 9 days and bore into the stems where they will feed for 4 to 6 weeks causing the squash plants to quickly wilt and die. The larvae will then leave the plant and return to the soil and emerge again as an adult in August.
Once the borer enters the squash stem, treating with insecticides is a waste of time. Insecticides must be applied just before the eggs hatch from mid May to late June. Only the stems close to the ground need to be treated. Spraying the leaves will not provide protection. Stems will need to be treated at regular intervals according to the product label. Insecticides containing Neem oil, spinosad, pyrethrin, permethrin, bifenthrin or carbaryl can be used.
Read the rest of Debbie's garden tips here.
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We appreciate our sponsors
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Lockerly Arboretum 1534 Irwinton Road, Milledgeville, GA 478.452.2112
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