Leaflet - June 2010 Leaflet - June 2010 Reasons to Be at Elm Bank in June

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Home Leaflet - June 2010 Leaflet - June 2010 Reasons to be at Elm Bank in June

Were you at the Gardens at Elm Bank in May? Then you saw the pleasures of spring in its full glory. Are you planning to come this month? It’s like a different garden altogether. The early summer sun brings perennials front and center in all their flowering, colorful glory. They’re everywhere, awaiting your discovery. Annuals – pampered in Elm Bank’s greenhouses during the past months – are being planted in every available space.

It’s a feast for all the senses. In the Italianate Garden there’s the sound of water in the fountain coupled with the artistic arrangement of annuals in the formal beds. In the trial gardens, there are rows of pots containing scented geraniums, each with its own exotic scent. In Weezie’s Garden, you can sit quietly by a gurgling stream. The Crockett Memorial Garden offers breezes cooled by the shade to relax. And the Bressingham Garden? It begs to be photographed and to send those photos to friends everywhere to astound them with its bursts of color.

Plan to spend at least one day with us this month. Admission is free to MassHort members.

These scented geraniums are Their final week in the greenhouse These pansies in the trial garden headed for the trial garden in early - these annuals will enliven the Elm will have run their course by early June Bank grounds for the summer. The June. banana trees will make their yearly pilgrimage to Weezie's Garden.

Elm Bank Antique Auto Show Scheduled for June 27th

Do you love old cars? Does the sight of a classic Corvette or a car with tail fins make you smile? Then be prepared to do a lot of smiling on Sunday, June 27 because that’s the date of the sixth annual Elm Bank Antique Auto Show.

Scheduled to run from 9:30am - 3:30pm, the show features hundreds of classic cars, from hot rods and pace cars to lovingly restored autos from the fifties and sixties, when cars were more than just something to get you from point A to point B. There are competitions for ‘best of show’ in multiple categories.

The day will be filled with more than just cars. There will be live music (oldies, naturally), food and drink, and a swap meet area where you can browse for memorabilia. In an era when all cars seem to look more and more alike, it’s an opportunity to renew your love affair with the automobile – or to introduce a new generation to the thrill of a GTO.

Admission (which includes all events) is $5, children under 12 are free.

If you have a car you’d like to display at the Elm Bank Antique Auto Show, contact Charlie Harris at 781-726-2830 or use the registration form.

Volunteer at MassHort This Summer? Imagine the Possibilities

Volunteers are the lifeblood of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. With the arrival of summer, their role becomes all the more critical because they help keep the gardens looking at their best. They’ll plant the All America Selection Trial Garden, weed and edge the Bressingham Garden, keep the Crockett Memorial Garden ready for picknickers and ensure that Weezie’s Garden delights children of all ages. And that’s just for starters.

At the end of May, Horticulture Director David Fiske works with a team of Master Gardeners to ready the Vegetable Trial Garden for planting.

You can be part of that volunteer corps. Whether you have a few hours a week you can devote on a regular basis or just one day when you can come prepared to garden, it all starts with a call or an email to Vivien Bouffard, volunteer coordinator. The payment comes in the form of satisfaction in helping make the Gardens at Elm Bank the horticultural beacon for all of New England.

A volunteer waters containers and flats of annuals that A volunteer helps keep the Italianate Garden in peak will be planted in the trial garden the first week of condition. June.

Vivien can be reached at [email protected] or 617-933-4988.

Admission Charge to Begin at Elm Bank June 1

As of June 1 it will cost $5 for adults to enter Elm Bank’s gardens. MassHort members need only show their membership cards to have the fee waived.

“The admission charge for non-members has been discussed for an extended period,” says Business Manager Peter Sigrist. “The trustees weighed the matter carefully and determined that an admission charge would provide revenue to both maintain and improve the gardens. They also felt that, by charging admission, MassHort would create a level of respect for the property that has been lacking in some visitors.”

MassHort will also honor reciprocal garden entry privileges with organization such as the New England Wild Flower Society which operates Garden in the Woods in Framingham, and Tower Hill Botanic Garden.

Fees will be collected by LINX employees operating from the former Flora store by the visitor’s parking lot and all entries will be through that building, which will also have water, soda, and assorted sundries for sale. Visitors will receive green bracelets to signify that they are MassHort members or have paid their admission.

This Summer, Elm Bank Is for Kids

From all-day camp to Friday mornings with Miss Gina, summertime is kids’ time at Elm Bank.

Beginning June 4 and continuing through August, Mass Hort’s own ‘Miss Gina’ offers Summer Story Hour every Friday morning beginning at 10 a.m. Sessions are held in the stone circle in Weezie’s Garden. There, children of all ages and their ‘adult friends’ are treated to stories, music and games, all geared to nature education. Sessions may include poetry, read-aloud stories and singing. They’re always followed by a group walk through the garden to explore nature.

Miss Gina – Gina Poole, on other days of the week – has a background that includes teaching for many years in the Natick elementary schools as a music teacher and a library chairperson. She is also a Principal Master Gardener and an accomplished singer whose talents will take her to England later this month.

The LINX Enrichment Club for Kids enters its second summer at Elm Bank starting this month. There are day camps in five age groups ranging from three and four through eighth grade. The program concluded its first season at the end of August with approximately five hundred day campers participating.

Education, and especially environmental education, is central to LINX’s summer camp concept. “One of the core messages we give to the kids is respect for the environment,” says Josh Schiering, who ran the camp and is an executive with LINX. “Our location within Elm Bank helps us get across that concept.”

LINX offers outdoor activities including canoeing, orienteering, fishing and hiking, plus yoga and language immersion. Beginning in mid-June, LINX will open a water activities center at Elm Bank, including six pools and a spray area. Click here for more information about LINX summer enrichment programs.

Kudos to a Special Group of Volunteers

MassHort prides itself on being a volunteer-driven organization. Volunteers plant and maintain gardens, sell plants and assist in the library. Volunteers ran every aspect of Blooms! at the 2010 Boston Flower & Garden Show. Without volunteers, there would be no Massachusetts Horticultural Society.

In the case of four special volunteers, there is a special element of truth in that last statement: they provided the professional services that saw MassHort through its most trying times in 2008, 2009 and the first few months of this year.

Michael J. Goldberg of the Boston law firm of Cohn Whitesell & Goldberg LLP structured and successfully negotiated a debt repayment plan with Mass Hort creditors. Armand Lucarelli, founder and Managing Director of Capital Restoration LLC, analyzed Mass Hort finances and then crafted a turnaround plan that would meet Michael J. the approval of both creditors and government agencies. Joan Lucarelli, Managing Director of JKL Partners, Goldberg LLC, conducted a search for the Executive Director and Development Officer. And Acton-Boxborough Attorney Liz Reinhardt offered corporate counsel and regulatory representation in the Attorney General’s Division of Public Charities. Armand Lucarelli Messrs. Lucarelli and Goldberg are members of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) Northeast chapter’s Pro-Bono Committee which, for the past two decades, has offered assistance to not-for-profit groups that found themselves in need of help. Each is a seasoned veteran familiar with the needs of companies and other entities encountering business difficulties. Liz Reinhardt is a former assistant attorney general and experienced lawyer specializing in non-for-profit corporate and regulatory matters. Joan Lucarelli is a well- known executive search professional. Each of the four provided a specific, time consuming service, aware they Elizabeth Reinhardt would be working without compensation. Several were already well acquainted with MassHort either through Joan Lucarelli membership or through association with one or more Trustees.

“MassHort’s situation fit the profile of a not-for-profit that TMA assists through its Pro-Bono Committee,” says Armand Lucarelli. “It’s how we give back to the community, and being of help to MassHort was eminently satisfying.”

“We owe this group a tremendous debt of gratitude,” says Betsy Ridge Madsen, president of the MassHort Board of Trustees. “Were it not for their efforts, MassHort might not have survived. They have earned our profound thanks.”

Michael Goldberg’s firm, Cohn, Whitsell & Goldberg, is Boston’s leading boutique law firm addressing the problems of distressed companies. The firm's practice extends throughout the northeast, and includes out-of-court debt restructuring, Chapter 11 reorganizations, acquisition of distressed businesses, all aspects of bankruptcy law and related litigation. Michael received his B.A. cum laude from Yale and his J.D. from Fordham. He is a frequent lecturer on bankruptcy topics and is active in charitable and community organizations.

Joan Lucarelli, Managing Director of JKL Partners, a member of Executive Match an International Executive Search Firm, has more than 20 years of executive search experience focused on information technology. She has placed more than 100 candidates in client companies for her current firm.

Liz Reinhardt provides legal and consulting services to non-profit organizations. Her firm, the Law Offices of Reinhardt & Reinhardt, offers consulting in the areas including start-up planning , organizational development, conflict of interest avoidance, fiduciary duty and board governance issues. As ‘outsourced’ in-house counsel, she also offers general corporate representation to a variety of charitable and religious organizations. Liz holds an undergraduate degree from Colby College and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law. She is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Public Charities Division.

Armand Lucarelli’s firm, Capital Restoration LLC with offices in Boston and Delray Beach, Florida, is an award winning corporate renewal firm providing crisis management, corporate restructuring and the forensic services. The firm has extensive experience in working with and representing banks, credit committees and companies. Armand received an MBA from Suffolk University, Masters in Taxation from Bentley College, and a Bachelors of Science in Accounting and Finance from Bentley College. Armand is a licensed CPA and CTP (Certified Turnaround Professional). Armand has written and speaks frequently on corporate renewal and fraud.

In Lunenburg, Horticulture Is Part of the Curriculum

Dawn Gearin holds up a pot containing a fern. “What kind of fern is this?” she asks the class.

“Maidenhair,” one of her students volunteers.

Dawn nods. “And what are these on the back?” She turns the fern around to show rows of brown dots across the back of the fern’s pinnules.

“Seeds?” someone volunteers.

Dawn Gearin leads a plant identification session

Dawn gives the student a look passed down from one generation of educators to another; a look that says, ‘you can do better’. “What happens when I get dust in my face?” she coaxes.

The student thinks for a moment, then the correct term falls into place. “Sori.”

“Right,” Dawn smiles. “The cluster of spores are called sori.”

Welcome to Lunenburg High School. Forty-four miles west of Boston, there’s a remarkable educational program underway, one of which only a few school systems in Massachusetts can boast. It’s a high school class in botany and horticulture, complete with a basic greenhouse.

Dawn came to this school sixteen years ago thinking she’d be teaching only biology, but found an active greenhouse on the premises. With a strong background in horticulture, Dawn said she felt she ‘had died and gone to heaven.’

Today, the Horticulture curriculum is both popular and well-established. Two, semester-long classes cover greenhouse mechanics, plant propagation, plant anatomy and physiology, and plant identification. In the second semester, students get advanced work in seed planning, planting and grafting. They learn integrated pest management and composting and study more than a dozen plant families. All students care for a selection of plants and maintain the gardens on the school premises. Independent study is a major component of the curriculum and the degree of self- direction is impressive.

The greenhouse is a hoop structure, fifty feet long. Every square foot is utilized; trays jam tables Lunenburg High School students Kelly Bingham and hanging plants are everywhere. The evidence of care is also apparent, a product of the hard and Felicia Sanborn inspect plants for signs of work by greenhouse manager Joanne McQuaid. infestation.

Each March, the students take their best work into Boston to be judged in the amateur horticulture competition.

“We started entering in competition fifteen years ago,” Dawn said. “And, except for when the flower show wasn’t held in 2009, we’ve been there every year.”

Students groom their best plants for weeks leading up to the entry date. Up to 30 plants are transported to the show site and submitted.

“Not in junior horticulture,” Dawn says, adamantly. “These students want to be judged against the best amateur growers.”

They enter, and they win. And, as a class field trip, they spend a day at the flower show to see

how their entries compared. Michael Marsden and Matthew Charpentier groom their plants in Lunenburg High School's greenhouse. One student shyly confesses that his best memory of this year’s show was hanging around in the plant display room where his entry had won a blue ribbon. “I just stood nearby, listening,” he says. “People would come up to the plant tier where my entry was located. I’d hear them comment on it – on my plant, saying how good it looked and how unusual it was. That made it all worthwhile.”

Whether or not Dawn’s students go on to study horticulture in college or to incorporate what they learned in her class into their chosen major, the course apparently makers a strong impression on those who take it. “The program has been threatened by budget cuts several times,” she says. “Graduates come back to advocate for the program to the school committee. They speak about what the program meant to them and how important it has been as a foundation to their education.”

Several students from the program work at garden centers during the summer months. “It gives us confidence,” one student said. “We know the plants and we know how they should be cared for. We’re able to speak knowledgably about them, something people don’t expect from someone our age.”

Back in Lunenburg on a May morning, groups of students shuttle between the horticulture classroom and the greenhouse. They’re looking for diseased leaves and evidence of insect damage. They’re taking plant cuttings to root and ensuring that their trays of plants have just the right growing conditions.

Somewhere among those plants are the entries for the 2011 flower show. And more than a few blue ribbon winners.

German exchange student Lidia Gugliuzza tends plants at Lunenburg High School's greenhouse.

Gardening Questions? Here’s How to Get Reliable Answers, Fast

The caller from Provincetown is confused. She has read that ‘milky spores’ – a treatment for Japanese Beetles and grubs widely touted in ads – are ineffective in New England. Yet many of her neighbors swear they work. Before she invests in the product, she wants some unbiased advice.

Master Gardener Tricia Singer listens and makes notes. Her first instinct is to warn the caller that milky spores are not a one-season treatment and that the naturally occurring bacterium, (Bacillus popillae-Dutky), isn’t likely to survive a New England winter. Unless the spores reproduce and spread year by year, they’ll have no effect on lawn and garden pests.

Then, Tricia thinks, Provincetown. While metropolitan Boston within I-495 is considered Zone 6 (and areas north and west of the highway are part of chillier Zone 5), the outer Cape is the most northerly outpost of Zone 7, the USDA plant hardiness designation that includes much of Virginia and the Carolinas. Milky spores can survive in those climates. After verifying the answer through a trusted website, she tells the caller that, unless the Cape gets a much colder than normal winter this year and next, milky spores are a reasonable treatment.

Master Gardeners Kristen Ward and Marcia Croyle discuss how to respond to a query.

Welcome to the Master Gardener Help Line. It’s a Friday morning in late May and, all over the region, residents are awakening to a new gardening season that, in turn, generates horticultural questions. In a cramped, first-floor room in the Education Building at Elm Bank, three volunteers from the Massachusetts Master Gardener Association are working through a day’s email and phoned-in messages to help provide reliable, unbiased answers.

Kristen Ward and Marcia Croyle are pondering an email message from a distraught homeowner that ‘something is eating’ her tomatoes. “What is it? And what do I do?”

The message is cryptic, yet it calls for a response. The response will be in the form of questions: what parts of the tomato plants are being eaten? The leaves? The tops? Is the area fenced? Does the fencing extend down into the ground? In the meantime, Tricia is already doing some research and finds that, in addition to deer, squirrels find tomatoes a tasty meal.

An email goes back, filled with questions designed to narrow the problem so that an appropriate answer can be provided.

Other emails and voice mail queries are processed. Some are easy. What’s that yellow stuff all over my driveway? “Pine pollen,” replies Marcia. “It will all be gone by the second week of June.” Another caller wants to know how to get a soil analysis done. The UMass website address is provided.

Some questions this morning take a bit more detective work. “Why aren’t my peonies blooming?” a woman from Newton wants to know. The most logical answer, Kristen says, is too much shade. But it’s not the only possible answer. Several books are consulted before the call is returned and questions for the homeowner are at the ready. If the peony bush is new or has been transplanted, it may take several years to bloom reliably. There are also fertilizer issues.

Master Gardeners work in four-hour shifts, three days a week from now until the end of the growing season in October. Kristen, Tricia and Marcia are ‘interns’. They’ve completed their Master Gardener classroom work but still need to complete supervised volunteer hours in various categories such as gardening. Manning the Help Line counts toward the 60 hours of post-classroom hours needed for certification.

Though still an intern, Tricia has already completed her required hours on the Help Line. She’s still here because she enjoys the research associated with determining the answers to gardening questions. Marcia and Kristen agree that, once they get their certification, they’ll continue to volunteer.

“Questions lead to more questions,” Marcia says. “It’s like being a detective solving a case. Ultimately, when you’ve asked the right question, you know the correct answer. Even if the answer is, ‘you need to bring in an arborist’ or ‘you need to take that plant to a good nursery to have someone look at it’, you’ve helped the gardener.”

The Master Gardener Help Line number is 617-933-4929. The email address is [email protected].

June Horticultural Hints

by Betty Sanders Lifetime Master Gardener

Your vegetable garden should be well underway now. The ‘warm weather’ crops - such as tomatoes and peppers – should now be planted while the early crops (lettuce, onions and peas, for example) are already producing or nearly so. Keep vegetable gardens from drying out with regular, deep watering Providing only a little water promotes shallow roots which dry out quickly during hot and windy days. Deep watering promotes deep roots that can sustain a plant during the scorching days that are sure to come in July and August.

Keep in mind that vegetables are generally heavy feeders. Even gardens that are well prepared with organic material need a fertilizer boost to produce large crops of tomatoes, corn and melons. Whether you use organic or inorganic fertilizer, remember to add no more than the recommended amount, and choose a fertilizer low in nitrogen (the first number in the three-number sequence on the package, such as ‘5-10-10’). You do not want to promote lots of foliage. Place it as a ‘side dressing’ to the plants, not directly on the root zone.

Speaking of corn, if you get great stalks but low yields, it may be because of the way you plant. Because corn is wind pollinated, it should always be planted in squares or rectangles with at least five rows in each direction. One or two rows of corn are insufficient to ensure good pollination.

The days and nights are now warm enough to move houseplants out for a summer vacation. As you place them outside, start in the shade of a tree or on a porch. Move them very gradually into more sun to avoid sun scald or even death. Wind and heat combine to quickly dry out containers so check frequently to ensure that your houseplants have sufficient water in their new environment. If you choose to replant now, remember the new pot should be no more than two inches larger than the old.

Company coming and no time to weed? Edging your beds is a fast way to make a great impression and it creates a crisp, clean look.

As the blooms of peonies, irises, rhododendrons and other plants fade, removing the spent blossoms has two benefits. First, it saves the plants the energy that would otherwise be used to produce seeds that are not useful to the gardener. Second, with plants such as peonies, dead blooms can lead to botrytis blight.

Late June is the peak season for roses. Invite friends and plan parties to share the beautiful flowers and lovely scents of your collection. With a seemingly endless variety of roses to choose from,.there are roses suitable for every garden and gardener. If you don’t know where to start, check out the new, low-maintenance varieties.

Well Contained Enthusiasm

by Neal Sanders Leaflet Contributor

I was at the Chelsea Flower Show a few years ago, standing in a queue for drinks. Directly in front of me in line were two gentlemen, both silver-haired and attired in gray, chalk-stripe suits that spoke of both good tailoring and good breeding. They said little during those few minutes I was behind them, but one sentence continues to ring in my ears with a clarity undiminished by time.

“Penelope,” one of the men said to the other, and then paused for just a moment before continuing, “has a £100 a week perennial habit.”

He said this with neither anger nor regret in his voice. It was a statement of fact; tinged with opinion only in his use of the word, ‘habit’ in describing Penelope’s voracious gardening budget. I swiftly did some currency conversion in my head: at the then-current exchange rate, Penelope was buying up $182 a week worth of salvia, astilbe and hosta.

When I returned and handed Betty her drink, I related what I had just heard and I said, “Don’t ever again fret over what you spend on gardening. You will always be a rank amateur.”

We had a pounding rain here overnight and one of my jobs this morning was to empty saucers from the various containers around the property. Saucers with water in them mean containers can become waterlogged, which leads to root rot.

Somewhere along the way, I began counting the containers surrounding our home. I found 52 and am not certain I got them all.

Now, one or two are just for show – unplanted behemoths that are in perennial beds strictly as focal points. Some others are long-term homes to plants that we overwinter, such as a beautiful burgundy loropetalum or the stone planter given by Betty’s garden club that is home to a fern that returns majestically every May.

The core group of containers – medium and large terra cotta, glazed ceramic or high-quality foam ones – numbers about 35. Betty has been diligently planting them for the past month, filling them with an amazing array of mostly annuals but also including perennials, tropicals and a few shrubs; none of them common.

Those containers are scattered around the property, bringing color to otherwise bare areas of asphalt, concrete or rock. Some are awaiting permanent assignment, such as a large, colorfully planted pot that will sit atop a clutch of prominently visible daffodil greens once those greens have started to yellow later this month.

There are multiple containers along the sidewalk that will fill voids in the perennial beds as June bloomers pass. There are six containers on our deck, turning an otherwise drab structure into a colorful annex of the garden below it. Two matching metal urns are overflowing with color on either side of the front door. Large containers bring drama to the spaces between garage doors and still others fill an awkward, dark corner.

Does this count as a ‘container habit?’

Hardly. And, were it so, then I would be the principal enabler. Betty takes me plant shopping at her peril. I’m the one saying, “Don’t you want another of those?” And, at container sales, I’m the one piling the cart to overflowing, with Betty ordering me to put them back.

It isn’t even a container obsession. Rather, it’s an appreciation for what can be wrought by mixing plants of differing heights, bloom size and color into a small space, and then massing the resulting containers into a pleasing arrangement. It’s art using a different palette and medium.

So, to the gentleman at the Chelsea Flower Show, I say, “Hooray for Penelope.” I hope that she, too, is still creating art of a different kind somewhere in the U.K.

Neal Sanders is a frequent contributor to the Leaflet. We encourage you to read his contributions to our In the Gardens Blog where he focuses on interesting cultivars that can found in the Elm Bank gardens. Neal's first novel, Murder Imperfect, has been published. You can learn more about it here or order it through Amazon.com.

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About the Massachusetts Horticultural Society

Founded in 1829, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society is dedicated to encouraging the science and practice of horticulture and developing the public's enjoyment, appreciation, and understanding of plants and the environment.