Luncheon Donations
Earth Day 2024
Monday, April 22 is Earth Day and the Garden Club
is looking for volunteers for two events.
We are having a Memorial Garden Clean Up starting at 8 a.m. (before the heat of the day). Anyone interested in helping please come with a trowel to dig out some overgrown ground covers, clippers to trim dead flower stalks and your weed pulling hands to spruce up the area. This will take an hour or two, so be sure to bring water! Meryl Rachin is heading up this Spring Cleanup.
The second event is a program at Town Hall in conjunction with Grand Manors. They are sponsoring an Earth Day event from 5:00-6:00 p.m. and we need 3-4 volunteers to help at a potting table. The town is supplying pots for the kids to decorate. We will fill those pots with potting soil and have seeds that they can plant and take home. We will supply them with a care sheet so that they can keep the plants alive after they sprout. Jaime Eriks will be leading this program.
If you can attend either event, please email us at gardenclubofcelebration@gmail.com
The Making of Deerwood Park Pollinator Garden
Meryl Rachlin, Membership Chair of the Garden Club and enthusiastic Pollinator Gardener, shared her experiences working on the new garden.
Friday, March 22, 2024 and Monday, March 25, 2024, the green thumbs of Celebration gathered at Deer Woods Park to plant 4,200 pollinator and native plants. What an exciting project. I arrived at 8:30 on Thursday, March 21st for the first day of a two day planting event in the East Village. Deerwoods Park was in need of a makeover and the Celebration community was ready.
There were already a large group of young students from Creative Village, along with Brian Causey of Exquisite Landscaping and his men and a some Garden Club members working to plant over 4000 pollinator and native Florida plants. Brian’s men were digging holes with powerful awls and working with shovels to dig through stubborn roots. The many volunteers removed the new plants from their pots, seated them into the ready made holes and packed the dirty back around the new plants.
Colorful plants lined up like soldiers waiting to be planted already looked incredibly beautiful. With many hands the speed of the planting was impressive. The excitement and energy from all of the people working together made for a really wonderful event. By noon we had already reached the center of the park. The children left, with news that the 8th and 9th graders would be arriving sometime.
After lunch the staff of Grand Manor’s arrived and they too helped. Over the course of the afternoon a few more folks from town arrived who wanted to help.l. Some stayed for an hour or two; others worked the better part of the day. The energetic 8th graders had arrived with new fresh energy and the planting continued till about 5 pm.
It rained heavilyThursday night and into Friday, forcing Friday’s planting to be postponed until Monday. But the rain was a huge win in terms of watering all of these plants into the ground, giving them a successful start in their new location. Monday the remaining plants were seated, and to complete the masterpiece Brian’s men spread pine mulch to help protect the plants.
It is so stunning already. The numerous plants will grow rapidly and the garden will become very lush. There will be some losses – some just won’t make it and possible damage from deer will need to be monitored. Butterflies already started arriving while we planted!
A huge thanks to Brian Causey of Exquisite Lawn Care for his passion and guidance to make this happen. He worked to clear the path with CROA and drew up the design plans with Brad Wagoner, president of the Celebration Garden Club, club members Bill Silverman, Meryl Rachlin and Bob Boyer.
The community has beautified this section of East Village and we hope that it brings decades of peace and enjoyment, qualities Celebration is famous for. Visit our Photos Page from more photos from the planting.
Supporting Audubon Center for Birds of Prey
At our club meeting on March 13 we had an excellent presentation by representative of the Audubon Center for Bird of Prey in Maitland. Club members were so impressed by the presentation that it was decided to support them with donations at our Club Luncheon on April 10. Posted below is their Wish List and everyone attending the luncheon is invited to bring a donation. Click on the image to enlarge.
UpComing Plant Sales
If you are looking to add new plants to spruce up your home, deck or balcony, you might want to visit one of these two good plant sales coming up in the next couple of weeks. A number of club members that are Master Gardeners are helping with the first sale this next weekend. We have at least seven Master Gardeners in our club currently. That is over 10% of all Master Gardeners in Osceola County!
February 24th is the Master Gardener plant sale. Over 30 vendors with their wares along with food trucks and things for the kids to do.
March 9th and 10th is the Annual Plant Sale at Leu Gardens. Visit the Leu Gardens Website for more information.
Coming Soon – Celebration Pollinator Gardens
I had a meeting with Brian Causey, owner of Exquisite Landscaping and the caretaker of all of CROA related parks. He said that the CROA board voted to allow seven new garden areas within Deerwood Park in Celebration. The gardens will be themed as pollinator and Florida native plant gardens. He is asking the garden club to help design and plant the gardens which will occur in March 2024. The club and schools will help determine the type of plant, how many plants of each type, the design within the garden and then assist with planting the garden. He and the club are doing this with the help of other groups in town. Lexin and Creation Village school are two of the other groups involved and we are hoping to do this with the public K-8 school also. Brian’s group will prepare the garden, run irrigation, buy the plants, mulch the gardens and maintain them afterwards. We are to help design and plant them initially and then help keep an eye on them. There is no cost to the club for this. The gardens will each have anywhere from 50-250 plants in them and should be a great addition to our community. More details being fleshed out as we go.
Brad
New Years Greeting from a Master Gardener
Sandi Switek, an Osceola County Master Gardener, offers some New Year’s advice for our gardens.
A New Year for the Garden
Now that it’s time for New Year’s resolutions, why not make at least one for the yard? Hopefully the result will be a more beautiful yard. And hopefully your new resolution will also cause you to have less work to do in the future. Here are a few ideas.
1 – Get rid of Invasive plants.
Some of the worst invasive plants are still up for sale. We shouldn’t even be tempted to buy one of them just to see if it really is invasive. I have never been able to prove the experts wrong.
Next, we must make a plan to get rid of any invasive plants that we already have, no matter how they got there. The longer they stay with us, the more they spread.
2 – Remove your weeds.
Select a weeding day before the weeds get a chance to just take over.
3 – Help wildlife to survive as you beautify your yard.
Buy yourself some plants which provide nectar for butterflies and other pollinators. A native firebush can attract many. Also include some larval plants for the butterfly caterpillars to eat. And try some plants which provide seeds or berries for wildlife. Invest in a bird bath and bird feeder. The wild critters have a hard time surviving in modern urban landscapes.
Help wildlife even more by cutting down on pesticide use. Try to find some plants which don’t get many pests. Pollinators are declining in home landscapes.
Minimize the lawn and provide more wildlife cover plants.
4 – Pick out some nice native plants for your yard.
Native trees, shrubs, and flowers can save you a lot of work if planted in the right environment. They survived for many years without any help from us.
5 – Recycle your yard waste yourself.
Raked leaves and pine needles can make decent mulch for flower beds. Grass clippings can be left on the lawn. A mulching blade for the lawn mower will help. Even plant clippings can be cut up or shredded and used in gardens. In these cases, we are no longer throwing away the nutrients which we have fed to our plants and lawns.
If you still need more mulch, use only something that is sustainably grown, which often does NOT include cypress mulch.
Start a compost pile to make use of any other yard waste and turn it into soil.
6 – Use the right plants for your environment.
Consider the water and light requirements. Don’t buy a plant that will grow too large for its space, expecting that you won’t mind pruning it for the rest of your life. Don’t buy plants which will freeze or catch diseases easily. Choose plants that don’t have high water requirements unless you have a native wetland. Consult the Florida Friendly Plant Guide for info on the best plants.
7 – Treat yourself to a book on your favorite plant subject.
Have a happy year of gardening!
A jatropha can provide nectar for our state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing.
photo/Sandi Switek
2023 is a Wrap
The Celebration Garden Club held its annual Holiday Luncheon at Heritage Hall in Celebration on December 13. We enjoyed an Italian buffet and good social times. Club members brought towels sets and pillows along with them as donations for a local domestic abuse help center. The club had a great year in 2013 and we look forward to new projects and field trips in 2024.
Merry Christmas to all. Brad
2023 Poinsettia Sale
The 2023 Poinsettia Fund Raising Sale is history. The club sold over 90 plants and raised over $1,800 dollars. Thank you to everyone who worked on the sale, and purchased the beautiful plants!
Sprucing Up the Memorial Garden
On Friday, October 27, Meryl Rachlin led a group of early risers to spruce up and replant some of the plants in the Memorial Garden to get it ready for the Foundation Memorial service next weekend. Some plants don’t over summer well and others just die and need replacing after a few growing seasons.
Thank you to the six club volunteers that showed up to do this big yearly duty. The rest of the year the six sections of the garden are overseen by individual members but sometimes they need a little help. Thanks to CROA with help in buying some plants and with Brian Causey of Exquisite lawn care for removing all of the trimmings. A special thanks to Bob Boyer and Kathy Carlson in supplying some of the other plants.