SEPTEMBER 2024
Each September, it seems that the summer goes by more and more quickly. Well, here we are, ready to get back to it!
On a beautiful Friday morning, some of our members met at West Brook Sports Complex in Great River to take part in Seatuck’s “Phrag Pull”. We trekked through the woods with our shovels and trash bags to West Brook Pond where the phragmites are encroaching all around the site. Seatuck and other concerned groups are intent on eradicating the invasive in an attempt to re-establish the many native species and habitats there. Alongside volunteers from National Grid and college environmental studies students, we dug and yanked and pulled out the tangle of reeds surrounding the pond. It was strenuous work, but we made a pretty good dent in the three hours we were there. Thank you to those who came out to help!
John, Barbara, Mary Ann, Jane, Denise, Hubert & Sandy
JUNE 2024
It was a beautiful June day to get together for the club’s Annual Meeting and Luncheon at the home of Mary Ann and Gavan Moynihan. We gathered inside for a brief business meeting to hear committee reports and talk about plans for the following year. Luncheon was provided by the club officers-tea sandwiches, salads, iced tea and lemonade, rosé wine, finger desserts-which we enjoyed outside on the terrace overlooking Mary Ann’s picture perfect backyard garden.
Have a great Summer! See you in September!
APRIL 2024
April being the month for daffodils, the members got together at the Bay Shore Brightwaters Library for a small in-house, no pressure flower show. Daffodil bulbs for forcing during the winter months were distributed to those who would participate. A schedule was written up following GCA guidelines and three other categories were added: Cut Stems, Floral Arranging and Other (branches, for example). Members set up their entries, filled out entry cards, then viewed and discussed the presentation. Everyone agreed it was a learning experience and not just for the newer members who have yet to enter a GCA flower show. There is always so much to learn from each other and we hope to do something like this in the coming year.
MARCH 2024
This month we met for another wonderful workshop with SSGC member Patty Francfort, our Horticulture Chair. Patty has been very generous in providing all we could need to propagate plants by the winter sow method. She saved gallon milk jugs, brought bags of potting soil, a great variety of seed packets, printed information about propagation, as well as pots and cuttings from her yard to share with everyone. The procedure for winter sowing is to fill the milk jugs with soil after poking holes in the top and bottom, sow the chosen seeds, water lightly and set out in the cold in the garden or yard. We all felt quite accomplished by the end of the workshop, thanks to Patty’s instructions and encouragement.
DECEMBER 2023
Our December meeting was a festive one, as we gathered to celebrate with Christmas music and sweets and freshly cut greens. We had an abundance of cuttings from our gardens, wreath forms and containers, ribbons and bows, all ready to make decorations for our homes or to give to a friend. The only thing missing was Santa Claus.
Happy Holidays!
NOVEMBER 2023
The club’s annual Conservation Dinner was held on the eighth of this month, with guest speaker Enrico Nardone, Executive Director of Seatuck Environmental Assoc. in Islip. Enrico gave a fascinating talk and slide show on the return of the river otter to the south shore of Long Island. Our gracious hosts, Becky and John Halleron, served a wonderful buffet dinner following Enrico’s presentation. We were also very happy to welcome new provisional member Laura Beckham and her husband Edwin to the garden club!
Decorating for Christmas in the bedroom of Olivia James, daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Cutting.
ABOVE: Hubert, Noel, Marilyn, Penny, Jane, Mary Ann, Barbara
South Side was delighted to be invited by Bayard Cutting Arboretum to decorate Olivia Cutting James’s bedroom for Christmas. The arboretum staff begins setting up for their annual holiday house tours and just after Thanksgiving various garden clubs and decorators take an area of the manor house to dress up with Christmas trees, mantle greens, wreaths and all sorts of decorations. The greens were cut from all over the property and were left for us in the lower carriage house, where we assembled our mantle piece and wreath, while Noel and Hubert tackled the tree lights in the room at the manor house. A few weeks before this, a group of our members made paper decorations to hang on the tree for an overall Victorian feel. It was a full day and so much fun working together to represent our garden club. Happy Holidays!
OCTOBER 2023
On Thursday, October 19, our own Mary Catherine Gutmann held a workshop to talk about all of the beautiful spring-flowering bulbs that are out there to enjoy. It was so informative and entertaining. Everyone took home daffodil bulbs to pot up for an informal flower show we plan to have in April 2024. More on that in the future!
SEPTEMBER 2023
It looked like it was going to be a rainy day when our members kicked off the new garden club season with a visit to Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Great River. The skies cleared, though, as Director Kevin Wiecks told us a little of BCA’s history with Frederick Law Olmsted and of their plans for the future with the new Visitors Center that is under construction. The group then strolled over to the Conifer Garden, circled the Dwarf Conifers, walked along the path past the Four Seasons Garden and ended up at the gazebo in the Old Pinetum, where “our” Japanese Maple has been planted. In honor of the 100th anniversary of South Side GC of LI, a donation was made to the arboretum, which was used to acquire an Acer palmatum ‘Murasaki Kiyohime’.
Members of the South Side Garden Club of L. I. around our Japanese Maple
BCA Director Kevin Wiecks speaking on the tour
JUNE 2023
The historic Village of Bedford was the setting of this year’s GCA Zone III Meeting, which President Michelle Pittman and Delegate Jane Arbeiter attended June 20-21. The Bedford Garden Club and Rusticus Garden Club sponsored the meeting which included private garden tours and a flower show. The first day, Tuesday, after making sure our show entries were passed, we gathered under a tent on the village green to register and have lunch. Business meetings for about two hours, then we carpooled to the home of Martha Stewart to tour her 153-acre Cantitoe Farm. Our group was led by her right-hand man, Kevin Starkey, who’s been with Martha since the inception of her magazine. That was an amazing tour and at the end we were served wine and cheese in the stables. Perfect. We returned to the village and had a quick minute to see the flower show before racing back to the hotel to change and get to the private homes we were invited to for dinner.
On Wednesday, we met again for more business meetings, which were really panel discussions and reports from the various GCA committees. Then back to the village green for another delicious plein air lunch, followed by tours of three private gardens. All spectacular and so different from each other. The two days were capped off with the Awards Dinner held at Glen Arbor Golf Club. All in all, it was a great chance to meet new people, to see how other garden clubs do things and to come away inspired with new ideas.
Patty, Mary Ann, Jeanmarie and Amy had individual entries in the Horticulture classes. Patty, Beth, Jane and Mary Ann made an arrangement of cut stems as a club entry, also for Horticulture. Mary Ann entered the photography class and Jane entered in Floral Design. This was such a learning experience for how to read and follow the schedule, how to interpret the different classes and the importance of growing well-maintained plants. We came away with some Honorable Mention ribbons in Hort and Floral Design and a Third Place in Photography. The next Zone III Meeting will be in June 2025, hosted by GC of Irvington-on-Hudson. We’ll be looking forward to it!
MAY 2023
Some of our members took a ride out to Laurel, on the North Fork, to see the workings of the Beds and Borders Nursery. We had pre-ordered flats of annuals, which were so diverse and beautiful, but before we took them home, we were able to take a self-guided tour of the greenhouses. The number of plants was overwhelming!
APRIL 2023
Garden Designer, Sue Avery, was invited to speak about pollinators and how we can attract them to our gardens at this month’s meeting. Sue is owner of Nature’s Edge Gardens, based in Stony Brook, as well as a prolific speaker on natives, water-wise gardens, invasive plants and sustainable horticultural practices. Her garden talk to our club was enhanced by a slide show of her own photographs. Everyone who attended, members and guests alike, thoroughly enjoyed her topic, “A Reassuring Hum”, an introduction to our native bees and gardening for native pollinators.
Sue’s website:www.naturesedgegardens.com
April was also the month for the Heckscher Museum of Art’s show, Art In Bloom. Along with three other local garden clubs, three teams of two club members were given an artwork as their inspiration for a flower arrangement. Jane and Tina, Marilyn and her daughter Christina, and Michelle and Denise were our teams of volunteers this year. The teams got together to brainstorm ideas, then the day before we were to set up our designs, we met at Christina’s to put it all together. What an outstanding job everyone did!
Top Left: Marilyn LaPenta & Christina Campolettano
Top Right: Tina Mattimore & Jane Arbeiter
Above: Denise Gibson (teamed with Michelle Pittman)
MARCH 2023
We held our first evening meeting in awhile at the Bay Shore Library to enable those working members to attend a Winter Seed Sowing workshop. Last year, Patty Francfort gave a great demonstration and provided all of the material needed to get seeds started, and she agreed to do it again this year. Our members came away with seeds and cuttings that Patty so generously donated and we’re all eager to get planting in a couple of months.
FEBRUARY 2023
It’s that time again ~ Valentine’s Day! As our club has been doing for years, a group gathered at the local library to put together small bouquets for the residents at Momentum Rehabilitation Center in East Islip. Red carnations, white baby’s breath and deep red hypericum were arranged in straw baskets to be placed on night tables or hung on doorknobs. We always enjoy getting together for this workshop, and especially for the lemon tarts and chocolate cupcakes provided by Tina and Denise of the Hospitality committee.
JANUARY 2023
The Photography Committee and the Program chair showed a GCA video about the photo app, Snapseed, this month. The taped demonstration was given by photographer Yoni Mayeri, who had all sorts of great tips for anyone interested in taking pictures with their mobile phones. Once we all get comfortable editing our photos with this app, we hope to have a casual in-club photography show next year to practice what we’ve learned. The video can be found on the Garden Club of America’s members page under the Videos and Publications heading. GCA has so many wonderfully helpful resources that can be very useful to all of us. Check out the website! www.gcamerica.org
NOVEMBER 2022
Each year (Covid-19 not withstanding), our club holds a Conservation Dinner with an invited guest speaker to give a talk about a pertinent conservation subject. This year, Associate Director for Bivalve Restoration at Stony Brook University, Michael Doall spoke to us about the advantages of growing kelp along the oyster beds in our local waters. With the loss of the clamming industry in the late 70’s, our Long Island bays have suffered from various red tides, brown tides, and so on. Through years of research and field studies, Mike has shown that kelp lowers acidification, thus improving the growth of shellfish such as oysters. It was a fascinating evening, hosted by John and Becky Halleron at their home.
HERB WREATH MAKING
Our September meeting was held poolside at the home of Amy Furey on a beautifully warm afternoon. Grapevine wreath forms and assorted herbs were provided and many shared cuttings from our gardens to make lovely scented wreaths. Thanks to Amy for opening her home to us!
SSGC Annual Meeting
June 29, 2022
We ended our club’s year with a wonderful luncheon provided by Board members and hosted by Jeanmarie at her home. What a lovely setting!
GENERAL MEETINGS FOR 2022
Friday, February 11, 2022 : Flower Arranging for Valentine’s Day 10:00 am - 12:00 pm Bay Shore Brightwaters Library Meeting Room
Wednesday, March 9, 2022 : Winter Seed Sowing Workshop 10:00 am - 12:00 pm Bay Shore Brightwaters Library Meeting Room