.jpg) Elmvale & District Horticultural Society Newsletter
by Ina Mechlinski
Hello to all of you and welcome to the Elmvale Hort Newsletter!
Our annual Spring Flower Show will take place on May 23, starting at 2.30 p.m. at the Elmvale Community Hall on Queen St. W. It will be followed by a general meeting at approx. 7 p.m. For further details please clck on "Home".
Please note that our annual Bus Trip will take place on June 12, leaving Elmvale Community Hall at 8 a.m. For further details please click on the "Home" page.
The schedule of our meetings as well as the programs are now posted. Please click on "About us" above.
At the last meeting on November 23, 2011, we elected our officers for 2012. You will find details by clicking on 'HOME' above.
Each monthly event will be announced on our home page as well as in the "events" information.
We sincerely thank the business community of greater Elmvale, Wyevale and Phelpston for their support by advertising in the year book 2012 and we ask all our local citizens to support the business of our advertisers. Please think and act local! You will find a complete list of our supporters by clicking on "Supporters" at the top of our web page
Here is a short summary of activities in 2011 by our YOUTH GROUP:
We were happy to see the YOUTH GROUP "Earthkeepers" participating in our Spring Flower Show last year. Their handmade Book Markers were done with pressed Flowers on paper, a project which they startet already in the winter. The paper was then laminated. The winners will be announced shortly and awards will be handed out before the school year closes. At their meeting on June 14, the senior members finished planting Boxwood in the form of a cross. All other members worked in the big garden, shoveling, snipping and hoeing. They even had fun! This was the last meeting for this school year.
The Fall 2011 activities started in September and the children learned about the Passion Flower ( Passiflora). The legend attached to this flower dates back to 1609 when it was first published by a monastic scholar. It relates the story of the way of the cross. They also learned about the Canada geese, how the family bands of these geese are very important. Why do they honk while flying? This is how they keep track of each other and if one is lost, they fly back to the last resting place to find it. Amazing facts about nature are thus explained to the children. They worked in the gardens, raked the leaves and jumped in the piles. How fun! The gardens are now prepared for winter. The earthkeepers have 45 official members. The children cleaned up the boxwood in the new garden in September. They also learned from the life cycles of Monarch butterflies and Hummingbirds. Painted stones resulted from the creativety and artistic abilities of so many children . The stones will be placed in the garden in Spring. The children finished the year of activities by making a Christmas wreath which they happily took home.
Thanks to the volunteers of our horticultural society, parent and junior leader volunteers whose assistance makes our Earthkeepers Club so successful. Thank you also to Mr.Drinkell whose help is always appreciated.
January 2012 was a month off for the Club as we now have 2 meetings a month in September, October, May and June to get the outside garden work completed. February was "Help Feed the Winter Birds" month. Members made bird feeders from used plastic bottles, twigs for perches and hung up with used shoelaces (recycling at work here). Bottles were filled with sunflower seeds. In March dried 'sea grape leaves' from the south were painted with flowers These designs will be entered and judged in the Horticultural May FLOWER Show which takes place on May 23 at 2.30 p.m. at the Elmvale Community Hall on Queen St. W. See picture above.
Members, students and parents are invited to check out the Spring Flowers poking their heads up at the Our Lady of Lourdes 2 school gardens on Kerr Street.
A brief History of the Elmvale Horticultural Youth Club,
"The Earth Keepers":
We proudly announced in 2008 that our YOUTH GROUP, THE EARTH KEEPER'S CLUB is up and running out of Elmvale's Elementary School 'Our Lady of Lourdes'. The first meeting was held in May 2007. Soon after the work begun: collecting and drying seeds from Marigolds, planting 600 donated bulbs in the garden which was cultivated by a donation of equipment and topsoil from "Hardship Acres". It measures 10 x 13 meters. The Youth Group resumed their activities in September 08 and started by searching trees and bushes for bird nests welcoming each discovery to their garden. Then there was a lot of weeding done. The students wanted to plant more bulbs in the Fall and all donations were much appreciated. Grade 8 students of the Youth Group now started to take attendance at each meeting of the Earthkeepers Club. A 'Toolman' was made out of old garden tools and, upon completion, was painted by the children and placed in the garden as 'Garden Art' . Another project was the making of bird feeders using pieces of twigs, cookie lids and old CDs. How creative is this?! A collection of garden tools was another accomplished project which provided the Youth Group with a permanent collection of garden tools right in their school . If you still have old garden tools that you can spare, please donate them to the Youth Club. The children also painted river rocks to resemble little bugs. Last Spring they were placed in the school garden forming a little path.
At the meeting on Sept. 22.09, with proceeds from raffles, donations and several fundraising projects, the Youth Group has bought 2 cement benches for their garden. They were installed in the Fall in order not to disturb the Spring and Summer plantings.
Seeds were collected from Hollyhock (Althea) for seeding next spring and the children cleaned and weeded the perennials as part of this year's Fall clean-up. The Youth Group has now 50 members between Gr. 1-8.
Sharon Chambers welcomed 2 new members, Jean and Linda, from our Society as volunteers to join the Youth group leaders. We thank Sharon Chambers, Catherine Verlaan, Kevin Healey and Mrs. Helen De Ward, principal of the school and all volunteers and parents for their help and efforts.
The last meeting took place on May 17th, 2011. The children dissected flowers to learn the parts and cleaned up the new bed on the south side of the school. The children place painted rocks along the path in the centre of the garden which gives the garden a happy face. Last year blue grape hyancinths were planted as a mirror image of the cross on the nearby wall of the school. Both gardens in the school can be visited by the public. Another meeting took place on June 14th. For Fall activities please look above.
Next, you will find member societies and their web sites addresses of District 16 in Simcoe County:
(2012-04-27) |
