Author: kwillwerth

Seaside Garden Club Kicks off their Season with Books in Bloom and a Plant Swap!

~ kwillwerth
Books in BloomThe Seaside Garden Club kicks off their season with Books in Bloom and a Plant Swap on September 12th at the Manchester Community Center.  Doors open at 7:00 pm for social time and the program begins at 7:30.  Light refreshments will be served.  All are welcome, guests $5.  Annual membership is now open for $30.  Sign up now to get your name in our yearbook and enjoy some terrific programs. The club meets the 2nd Tuesday of each month through June.
Members are creating floral arrangements (can work in pairs) inspired by a book of their choosing. This is similar to the Art in Bloom at the Museum of Fine Arts. Have fun, get creative and expose the hidden artist inside. You can chose any kind of book as your inspiration: fiction, nonfiction, children’s, cookbook, travel book, any book that strikes your fancy.  We’re asking those who do arrangements to donate them for our raffle supporting the scholarship fund. Keep that in mind when choosing a container that you may or may not get back.
The club is also sponsoring a Plant Swap! Fall is a great time for transplanting perennials so bring a plant and take a plant. Let’s share the wealth with tried and true plants from our gardens. Anything goes here, bring whatever you have that others would like too!
Visit our blog:Seaside Garden Club or follow us on Facebook page: Seaside Garden Club Facebook

Seaside Garden Club Auction Thank You

~ kwillwerth

The Seaside Garden Club’s annual auction was a huge success this year!  A nice crowd filled the Manchester Community Center on Tuesday, May 9th for a chance to bid on the many items. A plant sale was added this year and preceded the auction.

Many wonderful donations contributed to the success of the auction.  Local businesses, including Ryan & Wood Distilleries, Brick End Farms, Sea Meadow Gifts, Neptune’s Harvest and Talbot’s donated generously to the auction.  Among the items generating heavy bidding was mulch donated by Pallazola Brothers Landscaping, hand crafted Garden Art pieces and beautiful hanging baskets from Marshall’s Farm Stand, Wolf Hill and Marini Farms.

Many other businesses donated beautiful plant material, including HerbFARMacy, Gordon’s Florist, Asbury Gardens, and Chapman’s Greenhouse/Juel Gifts.  The donated plant material complemented the many large healthy perennials from our members’ gardens.

The crowd will be dining out this summer on the gift certificates donated by local restaurants including: Seven Central, Windward Grill, Evviva Cucina, Serenitee Group, Ithaki Restaurant, Fortune Palace, Not your Average Joe’s and Shea’s.  The board members supplied light refreshments to nourish the hungry bidders.

The club members worked very hard planning and organizing this event.  Many created their own special garden art and used their garden know-how to put together lovey flowering baskets. A beautiful bistro set donated by a member help set the stage for the plant material. Susan Kelley of the Generous Gardeners organization stopped by to talk about her groups’ work on the newly opened Stacy Boulevard and to contribute Garden Tour tickets, tulips and other plant material.

This auction is the Seaside Garden Club’s only fund raiser for the year.  100% of the proceeds go the support the club’s community service projects and programs for the upcoming year. Among the club’s community service activities are delivering flowers to shut-ins, planting and maintaining window boxes at Beverly Bootstraps and the Manchester Community Center.  The club’s newest project is taking shape at the lower level of the Manchester Town Hall.

The Seaside Garden Club is very appreciative of all the business and member donations.  The board members are already hard at work planning terrific programs for next season.  The club is made up of members from all over the North Shore and we welcome new members.  They meet the second Tuesday of the month (September through June) at the Manchester Community Center. See our blog: https://seasidegardenclub.wordpress.com/about/ or visit our Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/SeasideGardenClubAuction 2017

Photo are board members assembling before the auction: Noeline Kohr, Beth Coz, Lenore Kepler, Maureen Terrill, Janet Groth, Kathy Ryan, Debbie DiGiovanni, Elaine Persons, Dot Sieradzki, Kate Willwerth, Sari Oseasohn, Lisa Willwerth, Deborah Willwerth, Peggy Finn and Lucia Darr.

Seaside Garden Club Plant Sale and Auction

~ kwillwerth

The Seaside Garden Club’s Annual Plant Sale and Auction is Tuesday, May 9th at the Manchester Community Center. This event is the Seaside Garden Club’s only fundraiser for the year.  Proceeds help fund their community service projects and programs.

This is a great opportunity to purchase tried and true perennials from the Garden Club Members’ gardens along with garden art and contributions from area businesses including:

  • Mulch (delivered!) from Pallazola Brothers
  • Ryan and Wood Distilleries
  • Neptune Harvest Fertilizers
  • Marshall’s Farm Stand
  • Sea Meadow Gifts and Talbots
  • Seven Central, Shea’s, Windward Grill, Ithaki and many more…
  • Gloucester and Rockport Garden Tour Tickets
  • Any much more…

6 pm – Plant Sale

7 pm – Auction starts

Auction

Seaside Garden Club Welcomes the Backyard Growers on Tuesday, April 11

~ kwillwerth

The Seaside Garden Club welcomes the Backyard Growers on Tuesday, April 11, 7 pm at the Manchester Community Center. Guests are welcome, $5 fee.

Backyard Growers (BYG) is a grassroots organization helping to reshape Gloucester’s relationship with food. We provide resources and support to establish vegetable gardens and accompanying programming at homes, housing communities, organizations, and schools. In the end we create life-long gardeners inspired by the power of growing one’s own food. Our mission has remained consistent since our inception, with new mission-driven programs and initiatives added each year to continue reaching a broader swath of our community over time.

Urban farmer Lara Lepionka founded Backyard Growers in 2010 as a way to help her neighbors stretch their budgets by growing their own food.  Since those first gardens were built, Backyard Growers has grown exponentially to include a suite of programs serving a broad segment of Gloucester’s low- to moderate-income residents with a focus on serving children and their families. From a school garden program operating district-wide to bring over 1,500 students Pre-K through high school out to their school gardens each year, to evening cooking classes for new gardeners, Backyard Growers aims to make access to gardening and fresh, healthy food an easy option for Gloucester residents.

During the 2008 recession Lara Lepionka and her family tore out their postage stamp lawn and started an intensive urban micro-farm, feeding their family of four and creating a model for urban farming in Gloucester, MA. Having caught the gardening bug, Lara founded Backyard Growers in 2010 with a $6,000 budget, helping a handful of families in her neighborhood start their own vegetable gardens. Her ultimate goal: creating life-long gardeners inspired by the power of growing one’s own food.

She has developed Backyard Growers into a grassroots non-profit organization with an annual budget of over $250,000. Backyard Growers provides resources and support to establish vegetable gardens at homes, housing communities, non-profit organizations, and public schools, and offers accompanying programs and initiatives that promote a love of fresh, local produce. Prior to her role as Executive Director of Backyard Growers, Lara has worked for the past twenty years in the non-profit sector focusing on education, the arts and food justice issues. Visit their website for more information: http://www.backyardgrowers.org/

Mark your calendars for our very popular annual plant sale and auction on May 9th.  We conclude our season in June with a Pot Luck and Book Club discussion.

Get social with the Seaside Garden Club and keep up with the latest news and happenings!  We welcome your photos, questions and ideas! Join our Facebook group Seaside Garden Club Facebook Group  and follow our blog: Seaside Garden Club Blog.

The Seaside Garden Club presents The Art of the Vignette

~ kwillwerth
cheryl-monroe
Cheryl Monroe

The Seaside Garden Club kicks off 2017 with The Art of the Vignette on Tuesday, February 14th at the Manchester Community Center.  Social time begins at 7 pm and the program starts promptly at 7:30 pm.   All are welcome.  Guest fee is $5.

The Art of the Vignette: A fun design presentation illustrating how to effectively use small spaces in the garden to convey a sense of drama and personal style and how to avoid common faux pas. Cheryl Monroe will teach us how to use color, design features and objects d’art to draw the eye and create fabulous vignettes that will have your visitors admiring your savior -faire.

Cheryl Monroe is one of the Seaside Garden Club’s favorite speakers.  Her entertaining style and plant knowledge make her programs memorable.  Cheryl is a self-taught gardener for 20 years, now a graduated Master Gardener specializing in clematis and garden design.  Cheryl’s portfolio of program and workshops is impressive.  A licensed adult educator, she follows the science, reading constantly and taking classes to stay current with the latest in plant research, new plant introductions and design trends.

Cheryl is a gardener who follows the motto “Pretty it up!” and strives to have beautiful pest free gardens on her 1 acre plot in central Massachusetts where she grows close to 100 clematis species and hybrids, dozens upon dozens of ornamental vines, hundreds upon hundreds of perennials , and a large variety of both deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs. Be sure to check out Cheryl’s entertaining blog (Garden in the Burrow) for more information.

The Seaside Garden Club is a fun, hands-on club that meets the 2nd Tuesday of the month (September through June) at the Manchester Community Center.  The club proudly sponsors an annual scholarship and has many community projects to beautify the surrounding areas. The membership comes from many towns in the North Shore area and beyond!  We welcome gardeners of all types from the beginner to experienced. Consider joining the club – annual dues are $25.

The club has a terrific line up of programs scheduled for this year.  March will bring us to Chapman’s Greenhouse for a spring container workshop.  In April, we have an experienced perennial grower giving us the inside scoop.  Our annual plant sale and auction is in May.  We conclude our season in June with a Pot Luck and Book Club discussion.

Get social with the Seaside Garden Club and keep up with the latest news and happenings!  We welcome your photos, questions and ideas! Join our Facebook group Seaside Garden Club Facebook Group  and follow our blog: Seaside Garden Club Blog.

Seaside Garden Club Presents Melissa Glorieux of Aster B. Flowers on October 11th

~ kwillwerth

 

The program will be held at the Manchester Community Center. Social time begins at 7:00 pm and the program begins promptly at 7:30 pm.  Light refreshments will be served.  All are welcome. $5 guest fee for non-members.

Founder, farmer and lead designer at Aster B. Flowers, Melissa Glorieux, will talk about her experience as a self-taught flower farmer and floral designer.  She will also discuss the Slow Flower Movement and how the locally-grown trend has been formative in the evolution of her farm and business.

aster-b
Melissa Glorieux of Aster B Flowers

For more information visit the Seaside Garden Club blog: https://seasidegardenclub.wordpress.com/

Seaside Garden Club Kicks off Their 2016/17 Season next Tuesday

~ kwillwerth ~ 1 Comment

The Seaside Garden Club is kicking off their 2016/17 program year with Medicinal Use of Native Plants demonstration on September 13th at the Manchester Community Center (Click here for directions). Social time begins at 7:00 pm and the program begins promptly at 7:30 pm.  Light refreshments will be served.  All are welcome. $5 guest fee for non-members.

Are you curious about the “weeds” growing around your property or neighborhood? Dr. Nicole will show us some local native and introduced plants and discuss some of their traditional uses. The goal of the program is to begin to identify, and build relationship with, some of our potentially edible, medicinal and useful plants (with a focus on weeds); so that we can correctly identify them in our own backyards and perhaps even grow some. The wild weedy area around the train tracks in back of the Manchester Community Center will be used to find and identify plants as they are seasonally available. Come prepared with bug spray and protective clothing. A reference handout will be supplied for further study.

A traditional medicine woman, community herbalist and family chiropractor, Dr. Nicole K. Andrade, CACCP has been studying and practicing natural healing techniques for 20 years.  She owned and operated Atlantic Family Chiropractic, PC in Gloucester for 13 years, was the founder of the Cape Ann Healing Center and a co-founder of Treetop Yoga Studio. She is certified from the Academy of Family Practice and the Council on Chiropractic Pediatrics and has studied reiki, shamanism and ethnobotanical and spiritual healing traditions for 10 years with indigenous and traveling healers of New England, New Mexico and of the Amazon regions of Peru, Brazil and Ecuador.  She currently works as an associate doctor at the Lydian Center for Innovative Healthcare in Cambridge, MA.

The Seaside Garden Club has a terrific line up of programs and speakers for this year, including: Aster B Flowers, All about Perennials with Steve Hebert and the Art of the Vignette with club favorite Cheryl Munroe. Always popular workshops are being offered, starting with a holiday workshop lead by Jackie Rich in November and an Outdoor Container workshop at Chapman’s Green House in the spring.  The annual Plant Sale and Auction is scheduled for May and our season concludes with a Book Discussion and potluck dinner in June.

The Seaside Garden Club meets the second Tuesday of every month (September through June) at the Community Center, Manchester-by-the-Sea.  Social time begins at 7:00 pm; programs begin promptly at 7:30 pm.

Renew your membership by the September meeting in order to be included in the annual Yearbook! Annual membership is $25.00. Guest fee is $5.00 per meeting. Make your check payable to: The Seaside Garden Club, PO Box 94, Manchester, MA 01944.

Be sure to “Follow” the Seaside Garden Club on their Blog: https://seasidegardenclub.wordpress.com/

Or to join our Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SeasideGardenClub

 

nicole-andrade

Seaside Garden Club presents The Art of Ikebana

~ kwillwerth ~ 1 Comment

The Seaside Garden Club presents The Art of Ikebana – Ikebana Demonstration by Kaye Vosburgh on Tuesday, June 14th at the Manchester Community Center.  Doors open at 7:00 pm for a social time and the demonstration begins promptly at 7:30 pm.  Light refreshments will be served. All are welcome.Displaying Art of Ikebana.jpg

The Seaside Garden Club is pleased to announce that this program is supported by a grant from the Manchester Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. The Local Cultural Council (LCC) is the largest grassroots cultural funding network in the nation supporting thousands of community-based projects in the arts, humanities, and sciences annually. The program promotes the availability of rich cultural experiences for every Massachusetts citizen. This grant enables the Seaside Garden Club to reach new audiences and provide quality programs that integrate the arts into community-based programs. http://www.massculturalcouncil.org

Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It is more than simply putting flowers in a container. It is a disciplined art form in which the arrangement is a living thing where nature and humanity are brought together. It is steeped in the philosophy of developing a closeness with nature.  Kaye will demonstrate 7 to 9 arrangements beginning with the arrangement that a new student would learn in class.  This classic style is similar to ikebana created hundreds of years ago.  The Sogetsu School of Ikebana is known for its creative and expressive designs.  Most of the program will be this contemporary style of ikebana that is popular in Japan today.

Kaye Vosburgh is a Sogetsu Ikebana teacher of the highest rank, Riji, as well as a Master Judge and Design Instructor for the National Garden Clubs.  She has won numerous medals and awards in the New England Spring Flower Show.  She teaches in New York where she used to live and in Massachusetts where she now resides.  She has demonstrated in New England, Central Atlantic Region, Florida and Ecuador.  She has traveled to Japan on several occasions for conferences and lessons at the Sogetsu School.  Her favorite activity is sharing creative moments with other designers and students.

This is the Seaside Garden Club’s final program for the year.  Membership is now open for the 2016/2017 season ($25).  The Seaside Garden Club is a group of fun, active, civic-minded and hands-on gardeners.  We invite you to become a member and enjoy our monthly programs which feature interesting guest speakers, creative workshops and a chance to socialize with fellow gardeners.  The Seaside Garden Club meets the 2nd Tuesday of the Month (September through June) and are always looking for new members.  Visit our blog https://seasidegardenclub.wordpress.com/ or like us on Facebook: Seaside Garden Club Facebook