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RGC May 2020 Newsletter May 4, 2020
Richmond Garden Club
We are on YouTube!
Origins of Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day was first
celebrated in 1908, when
Anna Jarvis held a
memorial for her mother at
St. Andrews’s Methodist
Church in Grafton, West
Virginia. In 1914, Woodrow
Wilson signed a
proclamation designating
the second Sunday in May,
Mother’s Day, as a national
Spring flowers in Paulik Park
holiday to honour mothers.
Anna Jarvis hated how Richmond Public Library online learning
commercialization crept opportunity
into the holiday and spent
It is amazing what you can create when something is taken
her life trying to remove the
date from the calendars. away from you. Early March we had to make the decision to
cancel garden clubs meeting until we are given the ‘all clear’
Her intentions of the from health authorities to have large gatherings.
holiday was to honour the
sacrifices mothers made for While I was pondering how we could stay connected in the
their children. new world order, Richmond Public Library reached out
looking for ways to keep their library members connected.
Gift of flowers for Mother’s
Day is most popular. Social media. With the growth of online meeting and
connection platforms like Zoom, YouTube and many others,
we dove right in.
It is all about interactions we have in our lives and how we
can collaborate and create and LEARN something new at the
Email:richmondgardenclub@gmail.com 1
RGC May 2020 Newsletter May 4, 2020
same time!
I met Kathy Miao last fall in Paulik Park. She and her family
are recent immigrants from Beijing. Her immediate focus at
the time was to delve in and learn Canadian culture, the
language and a new hobby, gardening! She has evolved
into a friend, a passionate gardener and someone who
Paulik Park rhododendrons always wants to try new things.
May garden chores Kathy and I have taken on the production of the Richmond
Garden Club gardening videos, all created in Paulik Park.
With the warmer weather we Kathy does all the work behind two cameras and an IPad
can now plant out tender
along with directing our guest hosts and myself where to
annuals, perennials, hanging
baskets. You can also take position ourselves to get the best light and garden features.
some softwood cuttings.
In seven months since we met, Kathy is now a proud member
• keep on top your weeding of the Richmond Garden Club and can be found up to her
• check for nesting birds elbows in dirt caring for the gardens in Paulik Park.
before clipping hedges
• lift and divide overcrowded To follow the video series, go into YouTube.com and search
clumps of daffodils and for Gardening with the Richmond Garden Club.
other spring-flowering
bulbs If you have any ideas on future content for our video
• plant out cannas and series please email us at richmondgardenclub@gmail.com.
dahlias
• containers can be planted “The Great Flower Fight”
up with summer bedding
plants Thank you to Gary Lake for passing this interesting looking
• divide clumps of series available on Netflix starting May 18. It is similar in
herbaceous perennials that style to the Great Canadian Bake Off (my favourite show).
you want to propagate.
Ten teams battle each other to create huge flower
• cut back spring-flowering
perennials such as installations. The winning team will get to showcase their
Pulmonaria and Leopard’s flower installation at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Bane to encourage a new
https://www.gardensillustrated.com/news/what-is--big-flower-
flush of foliage.
fight
• divide hostas as they come
into growth
• protect tender plants until
the end of May
Email:richmondgardenclub@gmail.com 2
RGC May 2020 Newsletter May 4, 2020 The Chelsea Chop The Chelsea chop usually occurs at the end of May, coinciding with the Royal Horticultural Chelsea Flower Show. It is a pruning method by which you limit the size and control the flowering season of many herbaceous plants. It is most suitable for late-flowering perennials such as Anthemis tinctoria (golden marguerite), Echinacea purpurea, Helenium, Phlox paniculata, sedum (upright, strong-growing forms such as ‘Herbstfreude’) and Solidago (goldenrod). The closer to flowering time you prune, the greater the delay in flowering. Some herbaceous perennials can be cut down as much as half with very positive results. We will be performing the Chelsea chop on some of the late-flowering perennials in Paulik Park. The benefits include limiting the size of plants so that they are not so tall and leggy. The plants need less staking. The flowers are smaller but more plentiful. How to carry out the Chelsea chop: 1. Clumps of perennials can be cut back by one-third to one half using shears or secateurs. This will delay the flowering until later in the summer and keep plants shorter,. more compact and manageable. 2. If you have several clumps of one plant, try cutting back a few and leave others alone, which will prolong the overall flowering time. 3. Another method is to cut half the stems back at the front of the clump which will extend the flowering season rather than delay it. Email:richmondgardenclub@gmail.com 3
RGC May 2020 Newsletter May 4, 2020 Get ready, get set, GROW! Thank goodness garden nurseries are deemed essential services during our lockdown. There is so much interest and anxiety around growing your own food this year, partly due to food security concerns. Some of the gardening posts I follow on Facebook show ‘new to gardening’ folks rushing to get plants into the ground, with many times shock at plants wilting and not performing as they expected. Those of us who have been at the game for a number of years know the recipe for successful food production in your own gardens. We know that we have to prepare our soil, choose the right location for sunlight, right spacing, the right timing and choose edibles we like to eat. Some tasty.edibles that do well in our climate: • Beans- fun to watch and they keep delivering. Pat Walach, RGC member, loves to grow purple beans. Beans are not to fussy about soil type . Pole beans need something to climb on. • Beets - any type of soil works • Broccoli-best grown in loamy soil, but will tolerate other soil types. Can be planted in the fall for an early spring crop. • Carrots (try seed tapes this year!) - germination time is long, so be patient! Carrots do need well-drained loamy soil. • Cucumbers - loamy soil and warm weather are needed. Fun to find the cucumbers growing amongst the vines. • Lettuces - thrive in well-fertilized loamy soil, but thinning is needed to produce big heads. Replant every few weeks to enjoy fresh lettuce all summer long. Email:richmondgardenclub@gmail.com 4
RGC May 2020 Newsletter May 4, 2020 • Peas - an early planting and producing crop, peas need loamy soil. Some peas don’t need a trellis, but snow and snap peas may. Read the seed packages carefully. • Swiss chard - a poor-soil-forgiving plant that is beautiful and will grow through the winter. • Tomatoes - buy mature plants from your local nursery that will grow in our cooler summers. Early Girls and Roma or plum-type tomatoes do well in our climate. Most plants need to be staked as they grow, with new growth tied up every couple of weeks. Towards the end of the summer, nip the new flower growth and don’t overwater when the fruit is ripening. Keep the water off of the plants to reduce disease. Even in a small space you can grow some edibles in containers if you have the right light. Use potting soil rather than garden soil in the containers. May chores for trees and shrubs This is nesting season so always check for signs of activity before getting out your pruners and shears. This is the time of year to cut back tender shrubs such as Penstemon, Caryopteris and hardy Fuchsia (our task at hand in Paulik Park right now). Clip evergreen hedges. If not too woody, shred the clippings and add to your compost, ideally in combination with soft material like grass clippings. Prune spring-flowering shrubs such as japonica or Japanese quince (Chaenomeles), Choisya and Ribes (flowering current) after flowering. Remove one stem in three from Kerria and Spirea ‘Arguta’ and shorten the other flowered stems to a suitable sideshoot (another task underway in Paulik Park). Evergreens such as Viburnum tinus can also be trimmed. Email:richmondgardenclub@gmail.com 5
RGC May 2020 Newsletter May 4, 2020
Prune overcrowded, dead or diseased stems from Clematis montana once it has finished
blooming.
Ensure newly planted trees and shrubs do not dry out. Loosen any tree ties that are digging into
the bark.
Take softwood cuttings of deciduous shrubs, including Forsythia, Fuchsia, Hydrangea macrophylla,
Philadelphus and Spirea.
Spirea arguta, bridal wreath
Be safe working in the garden
One of our members loves to garden without gloves. She recently had to make a trip to
emergency to deal with an infected cut on her hand. When we work in Paulik Park, we wear
gardening shoes that gives us good support, good quality gardening gloves and long pants.
Cotton garden gloves do not offer much protection from thorns, gets wet and easily tear. It is best
to purchase good quality gloves that can be leather or synthetic rubber coated gloves.
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