Gardener's Sale May 30th

Members of the Chester Garden Club are gearing up for their annual Gardener's Sale, to be held on May 30th at the former Chester Train Station. The public is invited to check out the wide variety of plants and garden accessories that will be available on site. For more information, click on the link to the Gardener's Sale.

This year, something extra is being offered. The poster provides a view of the wooden deck chair that has been hand-painted by a local artist and that will be raffled off this summer. The scenic representation of "Gardens by the Sea" makes the chair a collector's item. Raffle tickets will be available at the Gardener's Sale, and from members throughout the month of June. The draw will take place at the Club's annual Flower Show and Tea, to be held at the Chester Legion on July 9th.

Proceeds from the raffle will go toward the costs of maintaining the two gardens in the village for which the Club has responsibility.
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Correction re May 18th meeting

Oops! What a difference a day makes (or in this case, a week or so!). Apparently, the guest speaker whose topic was "herbs" has had to bow out of the line-up for May and will be replaced by a different speaker on a different topic. Unfortunately, your blogger didn't get the memo.

The meeting date, May 18, remains as advertised but the new topic will be Planting for the Birds, and our speaker will be Brenda Hiltz, an experienced gardener with a talent for attracting birds to her garden. My apologies for the misleading information in an earlier post.

Spring weather has brought forth beautiful blossoms on trees and shrubs in the Chester area. The star magnolia above had undergone severe pruning by a house painter last summer but has managed to put forth a glorious array of blooms this spring, even if, the white tepals appear to be clusters of new snow!

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Chester Garden Club Cleans Up!

In the summer, Chester's Parade Square is one of the village's many attractive focal points, and the gardens are a particular point of pride for the Chester Garden Club. Recently, members of the Club were observed, hard at work, clearing away winter's debris and preparing the beds for the spring and summer flowering plants.

The small but stalwart group spent several hours weeding and pruning, both at the Cove Garden and the Parade Square area on May 4th. This annual spring clean-up of Chester's open garden spaces, which are maintained by the Garden Club, took a little longer than usual this year because of a smaller turnout of volunteers. With fewer members on the job, the weeders found they had to return the following week to finish off the work.

As one of the aims of the Garden Club is to add to the beautification of Chester, the members who volunteer their time to maintain the public garden spaces are doing so in the spirit of community.

Of course, there are also a few perks that go along with the job . In addition to benefiting from the healthy activity and the general camaraderie, the volunteers always finish up with a delicious lunch and lots of conversation on a wide range of topics. Following which, those who aren't exhausted by their morning's efforts depart to tackle similar chores at home.

A Reminder to members: Growing (and Cooking with) Herbs is the topic for the Club's next meeeting, on May 18th at 7:00 pm, at St. Stephen's Parish Community Centre.

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Oh dear, not the deer again!

Although most gardeners in rural Nova Scotia are familiar with the dietary habits of white-tailed deer (croccuses, tulips, eunonymous and yews), some deer in the Chester area have expanded their culinary regimes. This spring, their favourite salads have included day lilies, bearded iris and even hyacinths.

A common feature of gardens in our area is the chic "square tip" leaf that is seen on selected spring-flowering bulbs. In the photo below, note the exact line of the cut made at the growing tip of many the spears on this clump of iris. Our deer aren't slackers when it comes to precision work!

We welcome photos showing the pruning techniques of deer in your area as well as any gardening tips which we can pass on to followers of the blog. This week we have two tips submitted by members of the CGC.

First, when planning a new garden bed, remember to consider the amount of sun and shade it willl receive, the size of the flowerbed you can maintain and, of course, the height and the colours of the plants you want to grow.

Second, for those with established gardens that include large clumps of perennials, remember that summer-flowering perennials can be divided as soon as growth appears in the spring.

Sounds as though we can start right away (as soon as we spray an anti-deer potion around the beds!)

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