September 2020
Established in 1980 |
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In this issue you will find:
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| | Night Blooming Cereus saying good morning. |
- Message from the President
- Upcoming Events
- Seminars
- Member Tours & Events
- Volunteer Opportunities
- Feature Articles
- "In Your Plot"
- Make a Donation to GVG via AmazonSmile
- Project Updates
- Allen J. Ogden Community Garden
- Arid Garden
- Desert Meadows Park
- GVG Gardens at Historic Canoa Ranch
- Elementary Schools
- Garden Tour
- 40th Anniversary Project
- Committee Updates
- Member Photos
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MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
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Finally, we received rain last night. My husband and I were like kids at Christmas. We went from window to door to door to window watching and listening to it rain. My rain barrels have water once again.
I have been asked a few times if people who are not members can be added to our mailing list for the newsletter. I tell them no. The monthly newsletter is a benefit of being a member. It only costs $25.00 for a single and $35.00 for a family per year to be a member. Members get to see the news before things happen. So, if someone asks you to share your newsletter just tell them they can sign up to receive one, hot off the press, each month for just $25.00 a year. Past newsletters are on our website and can be viewed by members and non-members.
We are planning our first live board meeting since COVID-19 arrived, September 8. We will be meeting outdoors with social distancing and face masks.
It has been decided that we will not have our fall plant sale. There has been much debate about this issue, but we feel the safety of our volunteers and visitors is more important than having the sale. We will certainly miss the sale and the profit from it, but hopefully will be able to have a sale in the spring.
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| | Beautiful show of Texas Rangers and Orange Bird of Paradise on Continental |
We have a volunteer possibility for those of you who have interest. National Clean up Day is September 19 from 8:00 a.m. to noon. Gene Van Dyken is in charge of the Green Valley Litter Patrol. For more information, please email to: greenvalleylitterpatrol@gmail.com.
We have been invited to attend a special event in Tubac. Tubac Presidio State Historic Park hosts the first outdoor art exhibition in the heart of Tubac, Arizona. Exuberance: An Artistic and Botanic Experience begins November 14, 2020 and ends April 30, 2021. Thirteen acres of art space showcase local artists and their creations of garden sculptures, art installations and contemporary garden vignettes. The show runs during the park hours, 9-5 daily. Garden Crawls, free one-hour guided tours of Exuberance are scheduled regularly during the park hours. Please call ahead for times and reservations: 520-398-2252.
Email to: pats@greenvalleygardeners.com
Patricia Simpson, President
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METHODS FOR MAKING A MONETARY DONATION TO THE CLUB
Square offers a direct link to make a credit card donation to the garden club. Simply click here ~ you will be asked for an amount, your contact information and credit card information. Donations made to this link go toward operating expenses. If you want your donation to go to a specific project or in honor of an individual, please indicate your intention in the comment area.
You also can mail in a donation to:
Green Valley Gardeners PO Box 86 Green Valley, AZ 85622-0086
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Seminars are cancelled until next year.
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MEMBER ACTIVITIES
By Marita Ramsay
Member activities are cancelled.
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"IN YOUR PLOT"
By Lorna Mitchell
Autumn decorations will soon appear everywhere, but our thermometers will not get the message until Halloween; we are in the marathon of summer. No rains to speak of and hardly a day below 100 degrees have taken a toll on our plants. Water your plants like it's still summer and maintain irrigation systems by closely observing emitter openings because they can easily clog due to hard water deposits.
This is also a good time to apply a little extra nitrogen to your actively growing plants. Soluble nutrients get washed out with constant irrigation. A simple way to do this is to dissolve one half teaspoon of granulated Miracle Grow in a gallon of water and pour a little at the base of each plant in addition to regular watering.
Prepare soil now for success by digging in composted steer manure, mushroom compost, peat moss, or other organic material and granulated fertilizers where you will plant. As you dig, remove and destroy grubs that will nibble away at your roots. Nourish your friends the earthworms by adding veggie scrap smoothies made in your blender at home.
Nights will eventually get chilly so put in seeds of winter crops while the soil is warm. Plant seeds of these vegetables later this month: radishes, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, turnips, rutabagas, collards, parsnips, Swiss chard, cilantro, kale, and fennel. Spinach and peas prefer to wait for next month. Transplants of broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, Swiss chard, spinach, kale, and fennel can be planted at the end of September or early October.
Insect populations go hand in hand with the rains, so the downside of not having much rain brings a positive side with fewer pests in the garden. Tomato hornworms have not been high profile nor have grasshoppers made a strong showing, yet. Do keep alert to both doing damage, especially grasshoppers. They can be a serious problem and will not go away until the weather turns cold. They eat their way through everything in short order. Consider protecting seed beds with a cover of an old white sheet until the plants start pushing it up. Fine netting (think bridal veil) supported by some PVC pipe bent over some rebar in the ground and held down on all sides by soil will help keep predators off small plants.
Those are my Plot thoughts for now, Happy Gardening.
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Shop AmazonSmile and Benefit the Garden Club
Green Valley Gardeners is now listed on AmazonSmile. When you shop Amazon, log into AmazonSmile, use your existing personal account login information, select Green Valley Gardeners as your non-profit of choice. The club will receive a small donation for each qualifying purchase you make. Thank you!
To shop AmazonSmile go to http://smile.amazon.com/.
Through Amazon Smile, the GVG has earned $97.12 this year. Thank you all for the support!
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Allen J. Ogden Community Garden
By Erin Walker
I hope this finds you all very well. The summer is lingering on with very little rain to bring the garden relief, but I am pleased to report that many of the plots are still producing at the Ogden Community Garden. Before long we will start seeing slightly cooler temperatures and the change from summer plants to winter, and the garden will be busy once again. I myself will be starting winter plant seed this week, and I couldn't be more excited. I wish I could be able to announce that we had a great showing here and am gearing up for a shin-dig there, but until the situation with the current pandemic can be resolved, we will only have the garden on our time.
As far as our animals, they are doing just great in this weather, as long as they get their treats from their humans everyday that is. George Jr. digs deep in his burrow for coolness, but when a pile of fresh kale is left at his stoop, he can be seen. The chickens have continued to lay for the most part, but it may be time to retire Goldie and look for two new girls. I'll keep you all updated on that. For anyone curious about Snow Bunny, she lives in the lap of luxury still in my home with all the snacks, lettuce, and pets a bunny could ever dream of.
Stay cool my friends.
If you would like information on the Ogden Community Garden, please contact Erin at erinwalker822@gmail.com.
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Arid Garden
By Mary Kidnocker
With continued weeks of triple-digit temperatures with sunny skies and daytime humidity often below 10%, even our collection of native and desert-adapted plants are not happy. Thanks to Jackie Jensen for her regular mid - week supplemental watering, everything has survived despite the heat stress.
Last month Bartlett Tree Service pruned our two old Velvet Mesquite trees, primarily removing heavy branch ends to prevent major breakage during summer storms. The four large Aleppo Pine trees also received their bi-yearly treatment to prevent pine engraver and bark beetle damage. These six trees are originals in the garden, and we do our best to preserve their health for the future.
A recent hailstorm roared through Desert Hills and shredded a major number of leaves, twigs, and small branches from plants in the garden. Fortunately no major damage was done, and volunteers were able to quickly clean up the debris.
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New hard surface walkway built by Volunteer Barry Gillaspie
at the Arid Garden
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| | Looking for a new ground cover? Mediterranean Carpet (Teucrium majoricum) blooms randomly throughout the summer at the Arid Garden. |
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| | True dwarf "Cimarron" Texas Ranger has been in full bloom several times this season at the Arid Garden. |
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Desert Meadows Park
By Chuck Parsons
Plants at the park have been asking what happened to their monsoon season rains. Volunteers have been trying to provide some relief by increasing the irrigation and by hand watering. Sad to say that some of the plants just aren't finding that sufficient. Sadly we will lose some of our natives and succulents. Hopefully the last month of this monsoon season, September, will be kind to the plants ~ and to us. July's water bill was well over $500! That's really painful, especially this year when our major fundraisers have had to be cancelled.
Park use by morning walkers, dog walkers and coffee klatches continue to be a highlight-of-the-day for many in our community. Fortunately, social distancing and masks seem to have become our "new normal." One visitor mentioned she hadn't walked her dog very often at the park until the pandemic. She now has far more leisure time. Her dog now moans until taken to the park each morning. She assumes her dog won't let her return to a pre-pandemic routine.
Last month we had a fun event. Kristin Harvey, one of the Art-in-the-Park artisans, contacted me and asked permission to do an art hunt in the park. Apparently with the closure of farmer's markets and art fairs this summer her studio was crammed. She hid 12 paintings on a Saturday and 13 on the following Sunday. Park visitors finding the paintings were allowed to keep them at no charge. She asked that people finding and taking a piece would post something on social media.
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| | Kristin Harvey hiding one of her paintings |
This month Kristee West will be dismantling her beautiful iris bed at the Desert Meadows Park community garden. She will sell rhizomes to members on Wednesday morning, September 9th from 8 to 10 a.m., from her plot in the community garden. She has a large selection of varieties and will be providing a flier on the planting and care of rhizomes here in the Sonoran Desert. Rhizomes will sell for $5 each. Please have exact cash or check for your purchase.
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| | Kristee in her iris plot at DMP |
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| | Some of the beautiful irises |
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GVG Gardens at Historic Canoa Ranch (HCR)
By Raydine Taber, HCR Project Manager
Here we are, beginning September and it seems like it should only be June or July. Where did the summer go?
We have added soil in the two raised beds at Grijalva House, filled the new raised bed where the butterfly garden use to be, and amended the planting area along the Grijalva House north wall. Bill Carley has made most of this happen. Next step is irrigation planting.
We have been experiencing issues with the irrigation in the orchard. As of this writing, two of the Pima County crew have been tasked with finding the cause. They will also check the irrigation in Jr. House Courtyard and Grijalva House. With the 100 degree plus days stretching into September and coming close to breaking the all-time record of days over 100, we need functioning irrigation.
We maintain two hummingbird feeders and our resident hummers are very possessive of them. They are not exactly polite about telling us to move away from the feeders or where is my fresh sugar water. Here is one of the little guys coming in for a quick snack.
Several of the barrel cactus, in our cactus and succulent garden, are blooming. Love the color in this bloom.
Several months ago, we mentioned work was being done of the Tradesman's House (future Welcome Center). The building has been completed. Placement of new trees was approved several months back and, weather permitting, will be planted relatively soon. The ramada, in the area of Tradesman's House, should be erected within the next couple of months. Plans for landscaping the entrance to the building have been completed and will be presented to the Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation, upper management. This is the first step in our designing, planting, and maintaining another portion of the "Ranch." Still to be done are designs for the remaining areas surrounding the house. A sneak peak teaser. Plants being used are predominantly Arizona native plants and, it's not yard art, but we will be including some of the old artifacts from around the ranch in the Welcome Center entrance. A big "THANK YOU" to our summer volunteers for braving the early morning start time and the intense southern Arizona heat. All of you are appreciated and valued. Leslie Campbell, Jim Campbell, Bill Carley, Dave Duffy and Jerry Sampson, THANK YOU so much for volunteering at Historic Canoa Ranch!!!!. We couldn't do it without you. Historic Canoa Ranch is not only about gardening but it's a step back into Arizona's history. HCR offers an enormous assortment of gardening venues. If you are interested in, want to learn about, or are you an expert with vegetables, ornamental plants, indoor plants, herbs, cacti, native plants, succulents, plants for the pollinators and/or fruit trees, then, for you, Historic Canoa Ranch is the right venue. We have a variety of plants and gardens to meet everyone's preference. You can choose to work on all the gardens or just the one you prefer. As the COVID-19 virus starts to improve, we hope to see some new faces on our Tuesday, Day At The Ranch. Everyone please stay cool and safe from the virus.
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Elementary Schools
By Steve Curtis
Schools are closed so nothing happening here.
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Garden Tour Revisited
By Stacie Meyer and Cynthia Surprise, Garden Tour Co-chairs
As we wait for the monsoon rains, we will continue our journey down memory lane and visit some gardens from tours in years past. We continue to look forward to the time when we can once again tour fabulous gardens in person.
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| | Francis & Paula Howe - 2017 Garden Tour |
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| | A resident in Gieslinde Fisher's garden - 2017 Garden Tour
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| | Rich & Marge Bernardo - 2017 Garden Tour |
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| | Chuck and Dana Parsons - 2018 Garden Tour
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| | Lynda Chaufty and Glenn Oka - 2019 Garden Tour
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Paul and Patty Calver - 2019 GardenTour
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40th ANNIVERSARY PROJECTS
Median Green Project
By Phyllis Barboza and Ruth Tamminga, Co-Chairs Median Project
The medians are looking great, thanks to our watering volunteers:
Russell & Cheri Smith
John Divjak
Linda Papworth
Kay & Richard Farland.
They have been busy during the extreme heat periods making sure the plants get enough water. There are some plants that have not made it, but that was to be expected.
Thanks to all the volunteers who are watering and pampering the plants, you are doing a great job!
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| | Green Valley Gardeners sponsored La Cañada median. |
Our Green Valley Gardeners sponsored median located on La Cañada is looking fantastic. This median is well established, but takes a lot of maintenance. A big thank you to our volunteers Joe and Cheryl Wolowsky.
Thanks everyone you are appreciated!
White Elephant Parade Project
By Cynthia Surprise and Marita Ramsay, Co-chairs
The White Elephant will not hold the parade this year. It's only the third time in its history that the parade was cancelled. Thank you to all of the club members who volunteered to help with our entry. We hope we will be able to participate in a 2021 parade, so please keep thinking of ideas that we can implement at that time.
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Membership
By Mark Thompson
Just like a well fertilized garden, we keep growing as we are now up to 590 members for this year. Membership always seems to pick up the end of summer and I suspect we will be over 600 members very soon. Here's the list of the new members who joined in the last month:
Robert and Lynda Laux-Bachand
Judy and Dan White
Lisa Diaz
Mary and Larry Fieland
Randy Todd
Mike Utley
If you have any changes in your contact information, please email me at memberships@greenvalleygardeners.com . And don't forget to order some GVG branded clothing or get your fresh herbs at Desert Meadows Park. Happy Gardening!
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Nominations
By Bill Carley
I will be submitting my nominations for Board of Directors to the Board at the Sept. 8th meeting.
I would urge all members willing to serve to please contact Bill Carley at custom.bill@att.net or 920-344-6563.
Elections
The candidates' bios will be e-blasted to members prior to elections. Election ballots will be sent out:
9/17/2020 by e-blast
10/1/2020 in Sands 'n' Seeds
10/19/2020 with the ballots
Ballots will be due by Nov. 6th.
Results will be given to the board on Nov.10th.
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If you have some favorite photos you've taken at one of the club's projects, please submit them to pats@greenvalleygardeners.com prior to the 25th of the month to be included in the newsletter for all to enjoy.
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| Anyone know what kind of hawk this is?
She had just feasted on dove on my garden wall then stopped for a drink |
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