Events & Happenings

The Garden Club participated in the annual Celebration Memorial Day Ceremony on Saturday, May 27. The weather was wonderful and a large crowd was in attendance to see speakers talk about the brave servicemen of our country that have given their lives to help keep our country safe. The Boy Scouts were in attendance too to raise a replacement American flag.  Our club Vice President, Jaime Erik’s, gave an introductory speech and presented the club’s wreath to the city in honor of our fallen soldiers. The wreath will be displayed at the 851 building. Click on the heading to see photos of the event.

This is what a nice, compact butterfly/pollinator garden can look like in central Florida. We have about 10 species of plants that attract many species of butterflies and bees. Once the plants get established there is little maintenance needed. Just a little weeding and pruning to keep the plant growth in check.  Click the post heading to see photos. Many of these plants were planted just last fall. 

The Celebration Garden Club gave ten convertible bench/tables to the Creation Village School in Celebration in the Spring of 2023. The students are using the benches during their outside lessons and lunches. The Club has also donated $2000 to the Celebration K-8 school for new science related books in the library. Our pine straw sales and Poinsettia sales fund these donations to the community.  Thank you for supporting our fund raisers! Click on this post title to see photos.

Two outstanding Celebration High School seniors were awarded the 2023 Garden Club of Celebration Scholarships. Salma Ouaaki will be attending the University of Florida, majoring in Biomedical Engineering. While at Celebration High School she completed the four-year International Baccalaureate program, and was named an AP (advanced placement) Scholar of Distinction. Algerdas Alksninis, known as Sandy, will be attending George Washington University, majoring in Systems Engineering and minoring in history. Sandy is the lead officer of the 200 member unit of the JROTC, is an Eagle Scout, and plans to be a Navy pilot after college. Click the heading above to see photos of Salma and Sandy.

Vice President Jaime Eriks and other club members set up a table at the Island Village amenity center on Friday, March 24.  They sold annual bedding plants and educated people about the garden club.  A new QR code that takes people directly to our website was well received and used a lot. Thanks Jeff, Jaime, Judi and Sylvia! Click heading to see photo.

The garden club went on a field trip to Discovery Gardens in Lake County, Florida on Friday March 15. Fifteen members of our club toured the 27 small gardens on the 3.5 acre site.  We were led by the head of the Master Gardener program in Lake County and she showed us water gardens, cactus gardens, Florida native plant gardens and a host of other garden types. After the tour we all went to Yalaha Bakery for an outdoor lunch on a perfect Florida day. A very nice end to our field trip.  Our next field trip will be held on April 21 when we have our annual visit to pick blueberries at Southern Hills Farm. Click “Read More” to see photos from …

March 17 Field Trip to Discovery Gardens Read More »

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It’s true that most plants love peat. It’s light and slightly acidic and it retains water without bogging down soil. But peat bogs, where this wonderful material comes from, are absolutely essential carbon sinks. In fact, while peatlands cover only 3% of the planet, they are the largest of all natural carbon sinks on Earth — they store nearly 500 metric gigatons of carbon. One study I read (linked below) says a single meter deep of peat is approximately 1,000 years of stored carbon! (Honestly, wtf wow.) This means that peatlands store more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world COMBINED and the harvesting of peat releases all that lovely stored carbon into the air; an estimated 5% of CO2 emissions caused by …

Plants Love Peat! Read More »

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