From November 1 until midnight, November 8, the door is open for members to upload photographs of their entries for both the Flower Design and Horticultural exhibitions.

The door is locked. No more Flower Design or Horticultural entries for November! Entries with the judges' comments will be available for viewing on Monday, November 15.

Wall Street Journal writer Lindsey Taylor has been rescheduled from November to January 24. In her place, we are happy to welcome Steven Kristoph on November 15 at 1 pm as our scheduled speaker.. Steven received his Bachelor and Master’s degrees in horticulture from Rutgers University where he has taught as an adjunct professor of horticulture and Landscape Architecture for over 40 years. He owns and operates the Steven Kristoph Nursery in Millstone Township of Monmouth County NJ where he grows many types of ornamental trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials. Steve is passionate about plants and likes to share this with others. Plant walks with him are always an adventure. Taking time to smell all the roses is important to him and you can bet if there's indumentum on a rhododendron leaf close by Steven will take note. For his presentation Steven will regale us with a talk entitled Garden Getaways. Many gardens and arboretums can offer educational programs and conduct horticultural research which may include the introduction of new and exciting plants and hybrids. Over his lifetime Steve has visited many of these Gardens and he will provide images and information about each. His focus will be on Garden Getaways in the Northeast. And after being cooped up for so long we look forward hearing about these Great Garden Escapes.

Coordinated by our own Deborah Hirsch, the Montclair Foundation is putting on a four-day extravaganza from November 18-21. On Thursday and Friday, 18 of Montclair's most exciting and exclusive boutiques will solve all your holiday giving issues. (Thursday for Van Vleck members only.) On Friday, there will be a luncheon featuring Nancy Kitchen, renowned floral designer to no fewer than four US Presidents. 11 am: check out the boutiques; noon: lunch; 1 pm: program. Saturday evening, there will be a giant dinner and dance in a heated tent, honoring long-time Club Member Brenda Bingham. And Sunday is Family Day, honoring our member, Sharon Karlson, who was a faithful part of our Garden Therapy program, and an offering to Toni’s Kitchen for their clients. (See details of where to drop off the items you have been collecting.) See the invitation at left, and click here for the REALLY full details and the chance to snap up your tickets before they are all gone.

Only one week left to sign up for Maureen Sprong’s Dahlia Dig Workshop! It’s happening Tuesday, November 9 from 10:00am-noon at the club room and outside at Avis Campbell Gardens. You’ll be wowed by Maureen’s photos and hands on explanation for how to overwinter these beauties for your own garden. Dahlia names are fun as well from “Boogie Woogie” to “Giggles.” Look at this gorgeous dahlia Maureen shared recently! Please RSVP to Floss O'Sullivan.

Still need a few more volunteers for prep! sign up here. November 14 and 18, 1-4 pm. Also need volunteers for the actual Family Day on November 21 at Van Vleck. Sharon's family and friends will be there and are planning to provide lunch for our group between 1 and 2pm.Sign up here. Contact Sarah Olson or Susan Dumont with questions.

Dahlias at Avis Campbell Garden are showstoppers thanks to Maureen Sprong, our resident expert. On Tuesday, November 9 at 10 am, Maureen will share her pictures and expertise on dahlia care, as well as time in the garden lifting and storing dahlias for the winter. Watch the video! Bundle up and meet at Avis Campbell Gardens. Please RSVP to Floss O'Sulllivan.

Both the Flower Design and Horticulture October exhibitions are now viewable, with comments from the judges.

Don’t miss speaker Bruce Crawford on Zoom (see email for logon details) at 1 pm on Monday, October 18 and let him get you excited about adding some fun, interesting, and lesser-known plants into your garden. This year Bruce was awarded the National Garden Club’s highest honor, the Award of Excellence, for his innovation in education and landscape design. Bruce has been a well-known landscape designer, lecturer, and writer in New Jersey, having started his own garden design business, served as Director of Rutgers Gardens for fifteen years, and been the State Program Leader for Home and Public Horticulture at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. He recently became the Horticultural Manager for the Morris County Parks Commission. Bruce will share with us his innovative gardening ideas and knowledge of horticulture, highlighting 25 plants that have been planted successfully but to the point of near monotony. He’ll be suggesting instead some refreshingly fun alternatives (members only can click here to see the full list and print it out) to make our gardens more unique and enjoyable!

Check out two new photo albums — the provisional Flower Design Workshop taken on a glorious afternoon at Avis, and the recent visit to OASIS, the very special community center in Patterson. See them both by going to "Galleries" in the navigation bar.

Sadly, this highly anticipated workshop has been cancelled due to a conflict in the instructor's schedule. Stay tuned for the new date in the spring!

From October 1 until midnight, October 8, the door was open for members to upload photographs of their entries for both the Flower Design and Horticultural exhibitions.

The door is locked. No more Flower Design or Horticultural entries for October, but there's always next month! Entries with the judges' comments will be available for viewing on Monday, October 18.

Garden Therapy is looking for a few additional volunteers to assist at our flower arranging event at Oasis on October 13. We will meet there at 1 pm to begin setting up and the workshop will begin at 1:30 pm. The workshop will not last longer than an hour. The address is: 59 Mill Street in Paterson. Here are the Covid policies that Oasis is following as per their Director: The event will be held inside in their new large health and wellness room, so we can adequately space people out. The Oasis COVID policy is the same one the Governor has applied to NJ public schools. The staff is required to vaccinate or provide a negative test each week. (At least 85% of the staff is vaccinated.) All volunteers must be vaccinated as well. Everyone must wear a mask at all times. They do not require the vaccination status of students or clients (so they don’t know if clients are vaccinated). They are of course masked. They try to distance when possible. Interested club members should RSVP to Sarah Olson, or Susan Dumont, Oasis is very excited that we are coming back to work with their clients since it was so very popular when we did it in 2020.

AGRA-Wool has just arrived at the Garden Club Boutique! Also available is the 2022 Calendar “Vision of Beauty”. Explore the pages and find examples of wonderful creative flower designs. Most impressive is the cover, created by our president, Florence Leyssène. Great idea for holiday gifts. Please work with Susan Benner about delivery and total costs.

Some people have expressed a certain apprehension concerning the various IT options the Club has been using over the years. So we would like to know if members would be interested in a very informal (maybe half-an-hour or so) meeting on Sue Young’s porch next week to log on to the new website, and to go over how to exhibit their wonderful flower designs and horticultural specimens virtually. It would be next Tuesday, October 12 at 11 a.m. Coffee and Danish provided. Bring your laptops and/or phones, or look over the shoulder of another member! Please let Sue know if you are interested at syoung@ibisnetwork.com.

See New Jersey Department of Agriculture's and Penn State Extension's detailed accounts of what this insect does, how to recognize it, and how to manage it.

Out of the gate, I want to thank you all for joining me on this COVID-19 pandemic project journey. Given the fear and uncertainty of last spring and summer, I appreciate you all joining in for this long-haul horticulture ride, regardless of whether your leaves/plantlets made it to the finish line yesterday. Unfortunately the weather yesterday didn’t cooperate, so the judging was done inside by three judges in the (sort of) area who were kind enough to come to judge our little band of ‘contestants’, six in all. Two people who had hoped to bring their plants unfortunately could not at the last minute. And the winner is….Denise Silverman! Her Echeveria ‘Orion’ was judged the best with regard to size and form, given that the parent plant - as well as those sold commercially - is a single rosette, so it was considered the ideal form rather than a plant with two rosettes. I asked them to determine which they would consider 2nd and 3rd (even though there are no points being given) for our own edification, so you can see those in the photograph below. Congratulations, Denise! I’m glad we were able to wrap up this project with some successful outcomes. Even if your plants didn’t make it very far, I hope you enjoyed the challenge, as it was something new to try given all the time we unexpectedly had on our hands with no clear idea of how the pandemic would unfold/end. I appreciate your interest, curiosity and participation, and look forward to trying to come up with something else a little out of the ordinary for the next ‘Estelle’!

Until construction begins: Clear through Karen Whitehaus: Indoor activity in the Garden Club Room including: meetings (board meetings, committee meetings); program related activity; workshops Kitchen use (which may or may not be part of an event in the Gardens) No clearance necessary for: Any activity in Avis Campbell Gardens Bathroom use Quick visits to pick up information from the files or supplies from GC storage areas Under NO circumstances, use the dumpsters. They are privately owned.

Click here for instructions on logging on to the restricted pages in the new site. Please be aware that only members of the Garden Club of Montclair will be approved.