Spring is here! Gardeners, prepare your trowels! It’s time to go outside and play!
The Put in Bay Garden Club anticipates a fun summer ahead. A plant Exchange at the Nature Center on May 7th will kick off the season. Start cruising your landscape now to discover what plants may need to be divided so you can contribute to the inventory of plants for exchange that day. The plant exchange will begin at 9 am, and Master Gardener Mary Strayer will present a talk at 10 o’clock on raised beds and container gardening. May 13 at 3 pm, Lisa Brohl will lead participants in a guided wildflower walk on the Jane Coates trail. This is a wonderful time of year to begin focusing on the natural beauty of our island and the surprises the wildflowers bring to our landscape each year. On June 9 at 5pm, the Garden Club will meet at the Yacht Club for a Pruning lecture and demonstration by Ottawa County Master Gardener Dick West. We ask you to come armed with pruners so that you may participate in this hands-on workshop. The Yacht Club is ready and willing to have us practice on their shrubbery! On July 7, Cuyahoga County Master Gardeners will present a talk on the selection and care of Hydrangeas and introduce you to the hydrangeas of the newly-planted DeRivera gardens. The Garden Club took on the challenge last fall of designing three new gardens for DeRivera Park. Jody Frimel, Susan Hildebrandt, and Sue Thwaite met with landscapers from All Seasons Landscaping to design the gardens, which were planted last October – one across from the Boardwalk, and two others surrounding the new lift stations in the park. On June 6th at 10 am, garden club members are invited to assist in the planting of perennials which will be added to the gardens’ designs at that time. Come and learn about proper planting of perennials, help us label the plants in the new gardens, and enjoy the comradery which comes from working together to create something beautiful! Please mark your calendars now for our big event of the summer - the Put in Bay Home and Garden Tour on July 27th! There will be six properties featured in this year’s tour, including the “Benson Ford” pilot house on the West Shore! The tour will begin at 10 am, followed by a luncheon in the Crew’s Nest Pavilion. Tickets will be limited to 120. Online sales will begin June 1 through our website at www.putinbaygardenclub.com . Please consider volunteering your time to help with the many activities we have planned this year. We will need all hands on deck to help with the Home and Garden tour, especially. You may sign up online to help or contact Kathy Schrader, chairman of the event, at 440 773-5413. In the meantime, enjoy the Spring breezes and playing in the dirt! See you soon! The Garden Club has big plans for the summer of 2016! We ask you to mark your calendars now for our Home and Garden Tour on July 27th. This year, the tour will feature six of the island’s most unique and special homes and gardens, as well as the new gardens in DeRivera Park. The tour will be followed by a luncheon at the Crew’s Nest Pavilion. Both will be limited to 120 people, so book your tickets early, beginning on June 1. More information will follow in the April Gazette and on our Put-in-Bay Garden Club webpage. We hope you will join us for this very special event!
Garden Club Calendar 2016 May 13 – Wildflower Walk with Lisa Brohl – 3 pm Jane Coates Trail May 24 – Preparing baskets for planting De Rivera Park - 9 am May 25 – Planting Baskets De Rivera Park - 9 am June 6 – Planting perennials in gardens De Rivera Park - 10 am June 9 – Garden Club Meeting at PIBYC - 5pm. - Pruning: How, When, and Why July 7 – Garden Club Meeting at PIBYC - 5 pm - All About Hydrangeas July 27 – Home and Garden Tour/Crews Nest luncheon August 11 – Planting a Butterfly Garden (site to be determined) – 5 pm September 8 – Annual meeting and dinner PIBYC - 5 pm September 29 – Basket takedown at De Rivera Park - 9 am The lamppost baskets in the park will be taken down on October 8th in the morning. That’s a sure sign that fall has arrived on the island! Thank you to Peggy and John Leopold who are heading up the basket take down project and to the many community volunteers who help accomplish this task. Now the planning begins for next year's programs, as well as projects that will help beautify the island. The Garden Club has already decided that it will be hosting another House and Garden Tour next July.
For the final program of the 2015 season, Garden Club members traveled to Sandusky on September 10 where landscape manager Martha Beverick treated them to a tour of the Cedar Point Gardens. Since the park is closed on weekdays after Labor Day, Garden Club members were privileged to tour the park with no other visitors in sight. Landscapers were busy adding fall plants to the gardens in preparation for the HalloWeekends ahead. Hundreds of bales of hay and 50,000 pounds of fresh pumpkins had just arrived on site and would become part of the landscape for what Beverly described as the busiest weekends of their year. Garden Club members learned that only twenty-one landscapers, including six full-time mowers, maintain all of Cedar Point's beautiful gardens and landscape properties in Sandusky. Beverly discussed the care of the plants as well as the plant combinations in the various gardens. She and her crew are in charge of designing and maintaining the gardens, but she purchases the plants from various growers in the region. Participants agreed that the tour was an enlightening educational experience, as well as a wonderful peek behind the scenes at a naked Cedar Point Amusement Park. The Garden Club's annual meeting/potluck dinner was held on Wednesday, September 16 at the Yacht Club. New Board members, Pati Arth, treasurer, and Kathy Schroeder, social director, were welcomed to the Board. Thank you to Kate Ptak who provided the after-dinner fun with a Power Point of her original photos and a “Name the Flower" game that stumped even the stars! Garden Club members Jody Frimel, Susan Hildebrandt, and Sue Thwaite have been working with All Seasons Landscapers to design new gardens to surround the lift station areas in DeRivera Park. The work will be funded by the Village and in part by the Garden Club, and the gardens will be planted this fall. We are excited to be able to enhance the park’s appearance and create new focal points there for tourists to enjoy. And now on to winter. Enjoy the beautiful colors of October’s landscape. Remember to fertilize your lawn and shrubs the fall and to mulch your gardens before winter snows arrive. Let’s hope for a mild winter this year, but just in case, get that firewood ready! Warmest wishes from the Garden Club to you! See you next spring! Hordes of Mayflies, two Nor’easters, and early algal blooms have not deterred the Garden Club from continuing its beautification efforts on the island. The flower baskets survived the onslaught of Mayflies, thanks to the efforts of John and Peggy Leopold and Jody Frimel. These brave souls climbed ladders to remove the insects from the baskets and also experimented with placing netting “cages” over the baskets to prevent the mayflies from smothering the flowers. This tactic seemed to work, and design improvements will continue for next year. If you have design suggestions or ideas to share on the matter, please contact John or Peggy Leopold at (419)285-0160.
Storms in June and July ravaged the bathing beach, but thanks to clean-up efforts by the village and the Garden Club, the public is once again able to enjoy their picnics in view of the monument. The algae has arrived in force, however, and seems to favor that site, so we are grateful to the Village Council, who recently voted to hire an employee to remove the algae on a daily basis. The Council also appropriated funds to rebuild the swale that was damaged in the storm. The Garden Club wants to thank Jody Frimel, beach chairperson, for approaching the Council with regard to these issues, and for organizing Garden Club beach clean-ups throughout the summer. August cleanups are scheduled for 9 am on Saturdays, August 8th and August 22nd. Please join us for an hour of two of light clean-up work, weeding, and mulching. We will reward you with good conversation, water, and snacks. Garden Club meetings in June and July provided social gatherings at the Yacht Club, as well as good learning opportunities for those attending. Master Gardeners Rosie Daniels and Susan Hildebrandt spoke on Shade Gardening Solutions in June, and Justin Chaffin, PhD from OSU Stone Lab, presented a very informative talk in July on the Lake Erie Algae Problem. Both talks can be accessed on our website at putinbaygardenclub.com. Thank you, Kathi Spayde, webmaster extraordinaire, for keeping us all educated and informed through the website. Please note a change in date for the next Garden Club meeting, which will be held on Tuesday, August 18th, at 5:30 p.m. at the Yacht Club. Jody Frimel will present an “Herb Primer” highlighting popular culinary herbs. If you have always wanted to grow an herb garden, this program will get you started! Learn how to plant and care for your herbs; then learn how to bring their vibrant flavors into your kitchen. Enjoy a sampling of her herbal recipes at the meeting and receive a FREE herb plant. Hope to see you there! Please mark your calendars also for the “Behind the Scenes Tour of Cedar Point Gardens” which will take place at 11 a.m. on Thursday, September 10, at Cedar Point. Members are asked to provide their own transportation to Sandusky and are welcome to bring guests to this private tour, led by Cedar Point landscape supervisor, Martha Beverick. Please contact a Garden Club Board member if you need help with transportation. We want to encourage everyone to take part in this very special opportunity. The final event of the summer will be the Garden Club’s annual meeting and pot luck dinner at the Yacht Club on September 16 at 5:30 p.m. We look forward to seeing you soon! Susan Hildebrandt, Co-President, Put-in-Bay Garden Club The summer season has officially begun, and the beautiful lamppost baskets in the park are here to prove it! Huge thanks to Valerie Chornyak for organizing this year's basket planting, which took place on May 19 and 20. As always, it takes a village to accomplish this task, and we have so many generous people to thank for checking our irrigation lines, for providing the lifts, the drivers, the helpers, the refreshments, the coffee, the wheelbarrows, the ladders, and on and on. Thanks also to the many Garden Club volunteers who overcame their acrophobia to work on the lifts, and to those who braved the elements and served as ground crew preparing the baskets, delivering the plants, and providing supplies and water for those who did the planting. Participating in a project like this always reminds one of how lucky we are to live in a community with people who are so generous with their time and resources and so willing to help. Thank you one and all.
Now that the baskets are planted, the task of watering and fertilizing them has begun. Since the Garden club spends approximately $5,000 each year in plants and supplies for the baskets, we want to be sure they are properly cared for. We seek the help of Garden Club volunteers for that. Many hands make light work, so if you have an hour to spare and would like to help keep the baskets beautiful, please contact Peggy Leopold at (419) 285-0160 , or sign up on our website at putinbaygardenclub.com. Speaking of watering, we want to give a big thank you to Chan Stevens, who has so graciously provided the Garden Club with the golf cart we use to water the baskets. In addition to his generous contribution, Chan and his trusty sidekick, Steve Cooks, keep the cart tuned up and ready for us year after year. We so appreciate all they do! The first meeting of the Garden Club this year was held on May 9 at the Island Hardware Store. Jason and Chris Cooper instructed the group in how to make a mini-greenhouse from recyclable materials. Each participant then planted the greenhouses with seeds from four types of herbs. A good time was had by all sixteen participants. Please join us for the next meeting on Thursday, June 11, at 5:30 p.m. at the Yacht Club. Master gardeners Rosie Daniels and Susan Hildebrandt will present a talk entitled Smart Solutions for Shade Gardening: Care, Color, Texture, and Design. Refreshments will be available at 5:30 and the presentation will begin at 6:00. Hope to see you there! Susan Hildebrandt, Co-President, Put-in-Bay Garden Club It's official! Spring is here once again, so shake the spiders out of your gardening boots and get dirty!
The Put in Bay Gardening Club is excited to begin another season of outdoor fun, and we hope you will join us whenever you can. The first annual meeting of the Garden Club will be held May 14th at 5:30 p.m. at the Hardware Store. Chris and Jason Cooper have kindly offered to present a hands-on workshop teaching us how to plant herbs from seeds. Mark your calendars for May 19th and 20th when we will be planting lamppost baskets in the park. We can always use extra hands for this annual event. Val Chornyak has taken over as chairman of the planting this year, so you can sign up online at putinbaygardenclub.com or contact Val to let her know you will be part of the planting platoon. Our monthly meetings will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the Yacht Club on the second Thursday of each month. Programs this year may include Shade Gardening, Planting a Butterfly Garden, Lake Erie Algae and Responsible Gardening Practices, Fall Chores and pruning (hands-on), and again this year, two PIB garden visits with the pros. An off-island garden tour is also in the plans. Be sure to check the Garden Club website often to see what's new. Kathi Spayde continues to do an excellent job updating the site and adding pictures and information of interest to the PIB gardener. Visit the web page to renew your membership, to sign up to volunteer, or to offer suggestions to the Board for future programs or projects you would like the Club to consider. Looking forward to gardening with you soon! Susan Hildebrandt, Co-President, Put-in-Bay Garden Club The end of the season is here and no one on the island seems to know how it happened so fast! Sad, but true, it’s time for the Garden Club to take down the flower baskets in DeRivera Park. If you are still on the island and looking for a good time with good company, please join us on Tuesday morning, September 30. . There may even be a reward involved for participants, but you will have to be there to find out more about that.
Ed and Dustin Heineman gave a very informative overview of grape growing and harvesting at our September 11th Garden Club meeting. The discussion was held in the Heineman Vineyard on Mitchell Road, so participants were able to get up close and personal with the vines and the grapes and to ask questions throughout the presentation. A big thank you to our presenters who did such an excellent job of sharing their expertise! The last Garden Club meeting of the year will be held Thursday, October 9 at 5:30 when we will be learning about Monarch Butterflies and their amazing migration. Please check the Garden Club website for further details about the evening. (www.putinbaygardenclub.com) We’re embarrassed to say that we may have opened Pandora’s Box when we placed our Thank You ad in last month’s Gazette, attempting to remember every name of every person in the village who helped us make this year’s Garden Club activities so successful. Human frailty prevailed, and we forgot some very important names on that list. We would like to apologize for the oversight and mention a few more today. If there are still others that we have missed, please forgive us. We do appreciate you all so much! If you let us know who you are, we would love to put your name on the website for recognition. A sincere thank you goes out to Bill Boag, Bob Frimel, Joan French, Cathy Peter, Richard Gump, Eric Booker, Bob (from the DeRivera Park), Richie Meyers, Paula Garsteck, Beth Queto, George Hirkala, and Mark (from the Forge). We would also like to give a special thank you to Chan Stevens for equipping us with the watering golf cart for the fifth year in a row! There are so many generous people on the island and we are so blessed to be associated with them! Thank you one and all! October is a great month to plant bulbs, pull out and compost dead annuals, cut back perennials, and clean dead and diseased materials from your beds. Continue to water, when necessary, and don’t forget to bring in some firewood for those cold days ahead. Susan Hildebrandt, Co-President, Put-in-Bay Garden Club The Purple Martins have flown the coop and the crickets are cricketing, so it seems that fall is on its way. But the season still has a few highlights and the Garden Club has many people to thank for the wonderful summer we shared!
The Garden Club raffle for a free garden consultation was won by Jean and Bob Hilt and Christie Ontko Fulton. Their gardens were the focus of our August meeting when Garden Expert Jody Frimel and her team presented design recommendations, as well as solutions to pest or disease problems on each property. Meeting attendees were able to ask questions as well, so this was a wonderful learning experience for all who attended. Thank you so much, Jean and Bob and Christie, for opening your lovely gardens to us! We would also like to thank Jen and Todd Blumensaadt for gifting the Garden Club the proceeds from the Soup and Wine-Tasting party held recently at The Fish Bowl. There are so many ways that so many people have helped the Garden Club this year and we are so grateful for each individual. Please see the thank you page on our website, as well as the ad in this month’s Gazette entitled “It Takes a Village”. What a privilege it is to be a part of this great village. Please join us on Thursday, September 11, for our annual meeting which will be held at the Put-in-Bay Yacht Club at 5:30 p.m. After the meeting, attendees will join Dustin Heineman at one of the Heineman’s vineyards for an educational talk on grape growing and harvesting on the island. The October program will focus on Monarch butterflies and their annual migration. We invite you to go online to the “Contact Us” page of our website and fill out our Garden Club Survey. We sincerely desire your input regarding programs and beautification projects, as well as your preference for how you would like to become more involved in the Club’s efforts. Kathi Spayde, our incredibly talented web master, continues to update the page daily and to post pictures of all Garden Club events. The web address is putinbaygardenclub.com. Beach clean-ups will continue on Thursday mornings from 10 to 12 through the end of September. Come enjoy the comradery and see what a beautiful spot has been created as a result of these weekly efforts. If you have time to water the plants in the park, please contact Peggy Leopold at (419) 285-0160 to volunteer. Free coffee and goodies at the Bakery will be your reward! Enjoy these last few weeks of summer. September is a great month to plant bulbs and to divide and plant perennials. If you have tomato plants growing, cut off the tops of the plants to prevent more fruit production. This will divert the energy to those already formed green tomatoes, which still may have time to ripen. Enjoy the asters and sedum which are just beginning to bloom, as well as the Monarchs and the Hummingbirds now in our gardens. Hope to see you at our next Garden Club function! Susan Hildebandt, Co-President, Put-in-Bay Garden Club It is August and gardens remain in full bloom, nourished by lots of good sunshine and rainfall this summer. The Garden Club too remains in full bloom, having enjoyed a terrific trip to Kelley’s island in mid-July, with 130 people participating! Many thanks to the Jet Express for sponsoring the trip, and to Joan Booker and Mac McCann for organizing the day! Six Kellys island homeowners welcomed us into their gardens, and we were also able to enjoy Charles Herndon’s amazing sculpture gallery! Despite the chilly temperature, a good time was had by all!
Mayfly season is finally over, and for that, we are grateful! Some of the baskets in the park took quite a hit this year, so we are exploring options to remedy the situation in the future. The beach cleanups continue on Thursday or Saturday mornings (see website calendar for dates). Please feel free to join the crew as we weed and rake and continue to beautify our bathing beach. It seems to be well-utilized and enjoyed this summer by islanders and tourists alike. Garden Club Board members still have raffle tickets available for a free Garden Consultation by Jody Frimel and a group of gardening experts. Two winning tickets will be drawn on August 5th and the free consultations will be presented at the Garden Club meeting the following week. Please contact a Board Member or call Susan Hildebrandt at 2853908 or Peggy Leopold at 2850160 to purchase tickets ($2.00/each; 3 for $5.00). Don’t miss out on your chance to have an award-winning garden! The next Garden Club meeting will be held on Thursday, August 14th. We will meet at the Yacht Club at 5:30 and hold our annual meeting there before we head out to the two raffle-winning gardens. Participants will be able to learn from the experts as Jody and others address the garden owners’ questions and concerns. If design advice is requested, or if problems are in evidence, advice on plant selection, as well as remedies for pests and diseases will be discussed. Hopefully, this will be a good hands-on learning experience for all who attend. In September, please join us to learn about grape growing and harvesting. Monarch Butterflies will be the topic for our last meeting of the year in October. Please check the Garden Club website for details and also for pictures of recent Garden Club events. (putinbaygardenclub.com) Kathi Spayde updates the page almost daily, so there is always something new to discover. The links to gardening websites available through the web page also provide a wealth of gardening information. Thank you to all of our beach and watering volunteers, and to everyone who participated in the trip to Kelley’s. It is a delight to work and play together with so many interesting, active, and engaged people. The Garden Club provides just one more avenue to truly participate in the Put in Bay community and to widen our circles of friendship on the island. We hope to see you at the next meeting! In the meantime, get dirty and enjoy your gardens! Susan Hildebrandt, Co-President, Put-in-Bay Garden Club The Put-in-Bay Garden Club's second program of the season was held at the Put-in-Bay Yacht Club on June 17 when Susan Hildebrandt presented a slide show and lecture on "Low Maintenance Gardening" to a group of more than thirty enthusiastic gardeners. Pictures of the event and the gardening handout can be viewed on our website at putinbaygardenclub.com. The handout includes a chart showing deer and drought resistance, as well as sun and shade requirements of the low maintenance plants recommended in the talk.
Kathi Spayde, our web designer, also introduced the new garden club website at the meeting. She navigated through the site to the ooohs and aaaaahs of the crowd as she explained the site’s various links and capabilities. Please check it out if you haven’t already done so! On June 19, from 10am to noon, a group of 15 volunteers got their hands dirty at the Bathing Beach weeding the sand and flower beds there. We are grateful to the village for removing the seaweed and for raking the beach beforehand, which made the weeding task easier. Several hundred Mayflies, an enormous bullfrog, and a baby water snake were on hand to keep things exciting. A big thank you to everyone who participated in this sandy but satisfying task. Islanders and tourists alike will enjoy the progress we make weekly toward beautifying our bathing beach. Please join us any Thursday between 10 and noon as we continue with our beach clean-up. The task will become less daunting if we keep up with it on a weekly basis. An even bigger thank you is due to John and Peggy Leopold who spent four hours on ladders AFTER the beach clean-up scooping thousands of dead mayflies out of the lamppost baskets in DeRivera Park. The flowers were no longer visible due to the piles of mayfly carcasses coating the top of the baskets. In order to save the flowers, that dirty job was necessary, but certainly not fun! John and Peggy deserve a gold medal for the countless hours of work they have put into the flower baskets, the irrigation system, and the shed preparation work they have done this year! We are all so lucky to have them on board! Raffle tickets are on sale for a free gardening consultation at your island home. A team of experts will visit your garden to answer your questions and address problem areas, as well as to provide simple design ideas and recommend plants guaranteed to thrive in your location. Two winning tickets will be drawn on August 5th. Raffle tickets are available through any of the Garden Club’s Board members at a cost of $2.00 each or three for $5.00. They will also be sold at Garden Club events. Don’t miss out on your chance to have an award-winning garden! Joan Booker and Mack McCann are chairing the Garden Club’s fundraiser this year to Kelley’s Island via Jet Express. On Wednesday, July 16th, the Jet will leave Put in Bay docks at 12:15 for Kelley’s. You can choose to return from Kelley’s on the 6:15 or 8:25 pm Jet to Put in Bay. The cost of the trip is $30.00. This includes the Jet Express trip, golf cart rental on Kelley’s, and garden visits. The group will be visiting gardens at several island homes, a vegetable garden, a winery, and a sculpture garden and gallery. You can purchase your tickets online at our website or at the Island Hardware Store where the tickets are for sale. We look forward to seeing you and your invited guests at this great event! Please check the website for future program dates and locations. August meeting attendees will participate in and learn from the garden consultations at the gardens of our raffle winners. In September, we will tour some of our island vineyards to learn about the process of grape growing and harvesting. At our October meeting, we will learn about the Monarch butterfly and its amazing annual migration. Suggestions for next year’s programming and your comments are always welcome. Call Susan Hildebrandt at 285-3908 or Peggy Leopold at 285-0160, or write a note in the Comments area of the garden website. For the month of July, remember to water, feed, and enjoy your gardens! If you encounter any nasty pest or diseases on your plants, call the Master Gardener hotlines listed on our website. Describe your problem and they will prescribe a solution! Amazing! Enjoy! Susan Hildebrandt, Co-President, Put-in-Bay Garden Club |
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