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Growing The Club: Garden Club Hosts Over 50 People At Meeting

By Ruth Cantillon

    There was a gathering of 52 gardeners this past weekend when the Umatilla Garden Club held its March meeting at the Umatilla Library. We welcomed special guest Nathan Mahai of Lowes, who’d been invited to explain some of the ways Lowes can help coordinate installation service and materials delivery for large scale home gardening projects that include hardscaping or quantities of landscaping plants. Nathan brought a carload of Boston ferns in hanging baskets as a gift to our club for our monthly fundraiser.
    Added to the fundraiser were a spring flower arrangement tucked into an antique glass Art Deco vase donated by member Margaret Grant, an elm tree from Diane Dammiller, and a loquat tree from John Cantillon. Club secretary Toni Peyton reminded us that all the money we raise goes into community projects such as a bench at the Umatilla Elementary School garden, the pollinator garden at the Umatilla Library, and funds donated to the Friends of the Umatilla Library for book purchases, to name a few. We also pay for expert speakers to provide educational gardening programs free of charge to our community.
    This year, we’ve been tapping into the talents and wisdom of our members for several of our club programs, while taking some extra time for group forums and question and answer sessions. The calamitous three-night January freeze was so far outside the experience of most of us it’s been hard to decide on the right ways to address the damage to our gardens.
    Happily, between the experts we’ve brought in and the ability of our members to pool their knowledge and present both “book learning” along with practical, hands-on experiences that fall into categories of “don’t do like I did,” or, “this really worked for me,” we’ve been able to advise each other.  Last month, club members were urged to wait until March before pruning. To our delight, this month, reports were rolling in- much of what we thought might be dead, is alive! In our rapidly re-greening landscapes, Resurrection Season is being illustrated by nature right before our eyes
    The big questions now had to do with pruning- what are the best tools, techniques, and follow-up to support healthy new growth? Garden club board member Robert Hermens addressed these concerns in a special presentation that he jokingly called “Tool Talk.” Show and tell ensued, with favorite pruning tools demonstrated and discussed. John Cantillon added a few of his own favorites to the conversation; Robert then covered spring fertilization, remedial fungicide treatments, and gave specialized advice on the slow process of rehabilitating damaged palm trees. The two men were peppered with questions; it was good to hear experienced gardeners from our club chiming in with additional answers and information. As president,  I had to laughingly bang a makeshift gavel on the plant table a few times to make sure whoever was speaking at that moment was heard, but I didn’t mind. The sense of camaraderie, community and sheer joy was amazing. In an audience that ranged in age from a child to a near-centenarian, all were sharing their enthusiasm for gardening. Too, there was a profound spirit of generosity- some of our members are either master gardeners or professional growers who together brought at least a hundred plants to share at our exchange table. In an area where many lost a good part of their gardens to the freeze, I was in awe of these members’ productivity and proud to see us helping each other start anew. It’s good to grow together in the spring.
    The Umatilla Garden Club meets at the Umatilla Library the second Saturday morning of each month from August through May. Our meetings are always open to the public. Find us on Facebook, mark your calendar and check us out in April!