Installation Lunchon

 On May 5, the Norchester Garden Club ladies enjoyed lunch together to celebrate the installation of officers for the next year.

It's Been 15 Years

 It is very hard to believe that it was 15 years ago, in 2007 that members of the Norchester Garden Club cleared an empty space at the South end of Matzke Park and created the Butterfly Garden. We stopped by yesterday to add a bit of soil in the bare spots, and thanks to the indefatigable Miss Janet, the NE corner is being prepared for where the memorial to our veterans will be developed. If you would like a 16 min. slide show of the garden's development, Just click   https://youtu.be/YSDtotJKnuI  The music is soothing and many of the folks are still keeping things nice for the many visitors.

Valentine Fun

 The Norchester Garden Club Ladies know how to have fun!

With Hearts.. not just Flowers.

During the February meeting they enjoyed making valentines that were to be given to Nursing Home patients to be placed on patient trays.

Refreshments and door prizes are always a part of our meetings.

 

On March 3rd, at our next meeting, we will have a program on soils then we will be potting Plumeria's.  

 

Please Help Support the Butterfly Garden

 One of the ways the Matzke Park Garden is helped for its maintenance and new plants is through the Kroger Good Neighborhood program.   Every 3 months Kroger sends a check (about $45) to the garden's supporting organization as described in the heading of this blog.  It is done through the use of your Kroger discount card being linked to ABCS. Although surprising, at the current time less than a dozen families are linked to the garden. Most folks are just not aware of this option for help.  Your fuel points are not impacted by signing up.

Here is how to sign up for the Kroger Good Neighbor program.

1.  You can tell if you are already signed up to support the garden by checking the bottom of a Kroger paper receipt.  It will tell you what, if any, organization you may already be supporting.  If it is our garden club, it will say Association for Better Community Schools.  This is ABCS which gives all of this money to the garden club. If your receipt indicates you are supporting some other organization, you can easily change with the instructions on the Kroger website below. 

2.  Assuming you have a Kroger card, you then need to have, or to sign up for, a "Digital Kroger Account" .  This will get you an email or two a week that provides "digital coupons" that automatically discount the items when you check out with your Kroger Card.

3.  Then you will need to "link" your Kroger card to the desired organization

4.  The ABCS organization has the NPO Number  WT732  that is all you need

 

Here are the instructions from the Kroger website:

.https://www.kroger.com/i/community/community-rewards

Nov 4 2021 Garden Club Meeting

 Norchester Garden Club and guests enjoyed  a fantastic presentation  by Sheri from Plants for All Seasons.  She educated us on fall vegetables, soils and their needs, seeds, mulch, and Microlite fertilizer. Sheri is a gifted speaker and shared many gardening secrets. Plants For all Seasons provided us a very nice place to hold our meeting as usual. They also donated 3 Microlite products to our door prizes. Cathy C made our birthday carrot cake . Jennifer and Linda provided plants for the door prizes.. All gardeners are welcome to these meetings.  It will be well worth your time!  If you have an interest, drop an email to ABCS.Park@att.net for information,

Sep 1 Garden Club Meeting



The club met at Plants for All Seasons

Ray Allison, president of the American Plumeria Society was our speaker.  Ray brought 15 plumeria plants and 15 bags of plumeria seeds to give away.   Ray has 500 plumeria at his townhouse in Houston.  We have gotten a great deal of information and the Horticulture Chairperson will produce a March 2022 Horticultural Report with our learnings and also our plumeria seed challenge. Sep2 was Ray's birthday so Shirley presented him with a birthday cake (see picture).

We also had a new member join.  Marsha is a fellow teacher, friend to Jennifer and Shirley. Please welcome her to our club.

The board voted to buy items (plants, etc.) from Plants For All Seasons since we are meeting there at no charge.  These purchased items will become our door prizes.  We also decided to honor those who have birthday's with a birthday cake. Elecee provided a delicious chocolate cake.  September birthdays are Shirley, Arlene and Carol B.. October birthdays Kathleen and Jacque.

Door Prizes for September 1 Meeting

 

 

Summer Sunflowers

 

A fine batch of sunflowers keep watch over the tomato plans
in our garden.   Although it is hot, there is much to appreciate. 

Summer showers did bring flowers!

 From Norchester Gardener Cathy C. Rockland, Maine

Scilla siberica ‘Spring Beauty’

Norchester Gardener President Jennifer F. Houston, Tx  Has a butterfly hatching soon

Norchester Gardener  Carol B.  Kerrville, Tx Century Agave Cactus in Bloom 

Jennifer's Beauties

 

Jennifer is sharing some of her springtime blooms from her yard.  She is a long time member of the Norchester Garden Club and in particular loves begonias. 

Fairy Garden

Cowardly Lion

Judy Cook

Mandevilla

                                                      

                                                     Oriental Lilly

Columbine

Lemon Tree

Amaryllis

BEAUTIFUL HIBISCUS

 Sylvia is sharing some of her finds at Kroger's that were only $14.95.  Some very pretty hibiscus if you need replacements!

Enjoying the Butterfly Garden ?

The only financial support the Norchester Garden Club gets for the Butterfly Garden in Matzke Park is from ABCS through the Kroger Reward program.  It takes just a few minutes to sign up and link your Kroger card to the number WT732. Getting a Kroger account also provides you with generous monthly coupons for Kroger. It does not impact your fuel points.

You need a digital account to register your card for the garden support. You likely already have a card; you may need to create an account for it. 

Create or log into your Kroger account at www.kroger.com

here is all you need to do

         Sign into your Kroger Digital Account   

1. ·        Select ‘My Account’.
2. ·        Scroll down to the ‘Community Rewards’ section of your account page.
3. ·        Select ‘Enroll Now’ or ‘Edit’.
4. ·        Enter the number of the organization that you wish to support.
                Ours is WT732 Association for Better Community Schools (ABCS)
5. ·        Select it and click on ‘Save’.

You can tell if your signup is active and current by checking the very end of your Kroger Grocery Receipt.  If all is well, it will say you are linked to Association for Better Community Schools.

Kroger sends a check, four  times each year to ABCS, which then sends it on to the Garden Club Treasurer .   With only 5 or 6 loyal gardeners signed up this past year, the checks have been for  $33.51,  $37.42, $44.56, and $39.53.    Every little bit helps.   Please sign up and remind your friends and family. Your fuel points are not impacted by this. But it has a big impact on the garden. The money ABCS gives to the garden club is used exclusively for new plants and maintenance like repairs to the extensive watering system.

Texas Legacy Trees

Norchester Garden Club members have volunteered to adopt a needy child for the next two years.  The Texas Legacy Tree project was looking for individuals to care for some of the seedlings being raised by Mercer Arboretum.  And these babies really look like they need some loving attention, having barely survived our recent freeze.

NGC nursemaids are Kathleen, Joan, Janet, Cathy, and Carol.   

The trees are Sweetbay Magnolia. Carol picked them up from the Mercer Arborist, Laura.  Laura is managing this project for Mercer. 

Ms Laura is an A&M graduate and has been the Mercer Arborist since 2016.

(Masks removed for the picture at the request of the photographer)

The Legacy Tree project is fully explained at this link to the Mercer website..

 Once you open it, be sure to scroll down to the pictures and individual stories about the historic Texas trees that are being preserved through this work.

Click Here

The Sweetbay Magnolia Tree (Magnolia Virginiana) has glistening dark green leaves with a silver underside that has a frosted appearance. The 2"-3" creamy white flowers have a light lemon scent and are visible in late spring and early summer. It is very elegantly shaped and is a good choice for a specimen or patio tree. Bright scarlet-red seeded fruit ripens in late summer attracting many birds. Prefers moist, acid soil with sun to partial shade. They grow at a medium rate, with gains of anywhere between 13 to 24" per year, and will reach 10'-20' high at maturity with an equal spread. Magnolias can be trained as a tree form as well as a hedge or shrub, depending on your liking. The fruit is eaten by gray squirrels, white-footed mice, turkey and quail as well as a variety of songbirds including vireos, towhees, northern flicker and blue jays.

HEIGHT: 10-20'
WIDTH: 10-20'

Prefers full sun to partial shade

The sweetbay magnolia grows in acidic, loamy, moist, rich, sandy, silty loam, well-drained and wet soils. It will tolerate periodic flooding.

Could it snow in Tomball?

 N

No snow but some north of Houston. This is alyssum self seeded and Heliotrope Marine.
l s

 

Behold! Winners of the 2020 Christmas Cactus Challenge, Congratulations

 Thank you to our participants of this year's challenge.  See you again in 2021.

It is Getting Chilly Outside

 Yes.. great weather now, but for our plants it is a preamble to something much cooler.  It is not too early to start thinking about how to protect them  In her Norchester Garden Club reports in the past 5 years or so, the Horticulture Report Chair has produced three that are useful to review before a freeze sets in again.  

You may find all three combined into one PDF report you can open, download, or print.  It is good to have on hand.   The link is here: https://tinyurl.com/FrostProtect

Here is what we have constructed in our own backyard for this season.. 

For larger plants and/or areas... a simple frame of 1/2 in electrical conduit or 1/2 in PVC pipe works well with frost cloth over it.   1/2 in PVC Fittings for the corners.

The clamps are on Amazon...   (Don't know why they are called Muslin) 

FUDESY 10-Piece Heavy Duty 4.5 inch Muslin Spring Clamps

Planting Amaryllis bulbs for a Christmas Bloom

 Amaryllis bulbs are a favorite Christmas gift for Gardeners

    Amaryllis can be "renewed" with gorgeous flowers ever year.  Check out the Norchester Garden Club Horticultural Report for March 2020 listed here on how to "renew" an Amaryllis every year.

http://bit.ly/20-03AmaryllisRenew

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Left to right: Red Lion, Minerva, Bight Nymph, Showmaster and Baby Bright Nymph in front.

Bulbs are storage vessels, and the bigger the bulb, the more stored energy it has.   This is why a small amaryllis bulb can produce a single stem with 2 or 3 flowers, while the largest size bulbs is able to produce 3 stems, each with 4 or 5 flowers.

.

Stem strength also varies depending on bulb size. Larger bulbs produce thicker, stronger stems.

Here are how many stems and flowers each size bulb is likely to produce:

26/28 cm – 1 stem (occasionally 2) with 3 to 4 flowers

28/30 cm – 1-2 stems with 3-4 flowers per stem

30/32 cm – 2 stems with 4-5 flowers per stem

32/34 cm – 2 stems (occasionally 3) with 4-5 flowers per stem

34/36 cm – 3 stems with 4-5 flowers per stem

 

Norchester Garden Club enjoys an Outdoor Event At Matzke Park Butterfly Garden

  On November 5th the Norchester Garden Club met at Matzke Butterfly Garden for a presentation by Sherrie from Plants For All Seasons on Lawn Care.

Sherrie brought many of the products that are used on used on our lawns and answered any questions we had about our lawns or plants.  The weather was just perfect. 

This is the second event we had at the park.  RCW Nurseries came in September and talked about the different Butterfly Plants they had brought.  At the end RCW Nurseries offered the plants for individuals.  

Thank you ladies for giving us an opportunity to get together out doors and enjoy our beautiful Matzke Park Butterfly Garden which our membership takes care of.

Orange Amaryllis

Mamie Stokes Orange Amaryllis

Mamie was a long time member of the Norchester Garden Club and shared one bulb.  This morning  I have three bulbs with 25 buds on them.  

Some of you remember the house off of Cypresswood that had a yard full of orange amaryllis. The club at one time thought we could sell these to our neighborhood and have the same burst of orange in the spring.  

New Tree for the Garden

Thanks to the efforts of Carol Bennett, President of Association for Better Community Schools (ABCS), and to Jannet Carpenter, of Norchester Garden Club, Matzke Park Butterfly Garden has a hansom new addition. Having lost all of the fine mature trees due to age and storms, this Texas Redbud tree is an important investment to provide both color and shade as it continues to mature. ABCS donated the funds, Carol selected the tree at a local nursery, and Janet worked with Pct. #4 park staff to select a location and get the tree planted.  It is located between the gazebo and the path,  and supported by three metal stakes until it is well established.  It is blooming already. 

Redbud trees, with their vibrant, purplish-hued blooms, are an excellent indicator of warmer days ahead, and the redbuds are now ready to bloom  in Houston.  In the early spring, the tree is covered with different shades of deep rose, pink and purple or (rarely) white flowers resembling pea blossoms. The Texas redbud’s most notable attribute is its brilliant, purple-red spring blooms, for which it is widely recommended as a small ornamental landscape tree.

Texas redbud is usually found growing native along limestone slopes and other upland sites of Central Texas. Texas redbud typically has a multi-trunk with thick, leathery leaves that are slick and shiny green on the top side, and pale green below. Leaves are simple with entire margins. The redbud flowers before the leaves open. The bark is thin, gray or reddish-brown with white “spots,” and densely covered with lenticels.

Butterfly Garden Children's Program