"PAX" AT THE LAKE Art Exhibitition

Club members had a great visit with Beverly Oliwa at Creative Fire Studio last meeting.  Her art pieces were beautiful and impressive.

She's inviting all to see some of her new works this weekend at Wabamum.  Details below for "PAX" AT THE LAKE.

The demonstrations on Saturday will involve creating garden art with T-Shirts.

Celebrate Pollinator Week 2016

It's National (US) Pollinator Week!

Celebrate by learning about and appreciating our pollinator friends (bees being only just one) between June 20-26, and spread the news.

Visit:

• Pollinator Partnership Canada (P2C) and read and share their "No Fear of Stings" brochure  

• Pollinator Partnership's Pollinator Week webpage for Pollinator facts and to order their "Trees for Bees" poster (preview below)
  
• Pollinator Partnership's Learning Centre to learn all about pollinators
  
• Wild for Bees (website sponsored by Burt's Bees) to learn about about bee hotels in Canada and download a kid's activity book.

Hal Hopkins: Building Bee Hotels

Join Highlands Garden Club in its commitment to helping our community protect pollinators and “Bee Friendly”. This is very important because native bees ensure the growth of the food we eat as well as the flowers we enjoy. To do this job they need food, protection from pesticides and shelter. We can all help by planting native heirloom plants, avoiding the use of pesticides and:

Building Bee Hotels

Highlands Garden Club invites you to hear guest speaker Hal Hopkins, a man who is avidly involved in studying native bees.

Date and time: Wednesday, April 13 at 7:00 pm
Location: Highlands Community League, 6112 – 113 Avenue
Admission: FREE or Bring seeds to share with your neighbors

Hal has set up and monitored bee hotels at the University of Alberta Farm and has collaborated with the Edmonton & Area Land Trust on bee hotels. He shared information in an article on bee hotels in the Fall 2015 issue of Alberta Nature magazine. Hal will now share with us his experiences on what the bees prefer and what they don’t like.

Note: Bee hotels are built for solitary bees which do not sting.

From Cell to Sell: Creekside H&G bedding plant plugs

On Saturday, March 12th, Club members took a field trip to Creekside Home and Garden (formerly known as Dunvegan Gardens EDM).

We were greeted by Roq (Rock) and his staff who provided a great tour of the garden centre.

It is quite amazing to see the process:

A machine plants seeds into cells by needle.

Seeds get planted in the starter cells (512 to a sheet).  Plugs are then finished as bedding plants. We often forget all the hard work that goes into the process and this trip was a great eye opener.

Photos by Erica.

Finished bedding plants in the garden centre.

Flowers! An Icebreaker.

Poster By Alvesgaspar, Tony Wills (10) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

My friend, an exasperated groom, once remarked, "There's no ugly flower!"  This did not help his bride-to-be choose her bouquet, because though none are ugly, there are certainly more beautiful ones in the eye of the beholder.

At last meeting, we found out just which flower struck each member's fancy. 

Here's our list with some online photos. 

Enjoy these blooms as we head through icy times.

• Daisies

• Siberian Iris

Siberian Irises from Canadian Iris Society

• Lilies

• Milkweed

• Peonies

• Poppies

• Old English Roses

Can you match the member (Dionne, Erica, Janice, Lana, Lori, Margaret, Vivianne) with their floral favourite?

Lilies from 2009 Lily Festival By Shahnoor Habib Munmun - Own work, CC BY 3.0 

Monarch butterflies on Common Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca from Make Way for Monarchs

'First Lady' peonies by Tracy Cox from Canadian Gardening "Peonies on Parade"

Icelandic Poppies from Decor8 blog

"Golden Celebration" from David Austen Fragrant English Roses

Soil Carbon Cowboys

Plant diversity, carbon capture, soil, and ranching?  All linked with pollinators too!  Vivianne had us intrigued at our last meeting when she talked about "Soil Carbon Cowboys".

Here's the video:

SOIL CARBON COWBOYS from Peter Byck on Vimeo.

The whole thing is fascinating.  For more on how this can transform the way we combat climate change, read Fast Company's article "Restoring Global Soil Quality Is One Of the Best Things We Can Do For Climate Change"

Thanks for sharing, Vivianne!

January - For the Birds

January's meeting kick-started event and activity planning for the year.  Exciting things are certainly ahead!  

After sharing our ideas for themes and possible tours, we created pine cone bird feeders.


Lori brought the supplies (along with some treats for us!):

- Pine cones
- String
- Unsalted peanut butter and lard mixture (2:1)
- Knife or spoon for application
- Plates and plastic bags for transport  

We then:
1. Tied string to the pine cone
2. Dipped the pine cone into the unsalted peanut butter and lard mix, and used a butter knife to get more into the cracks
3. Set the coated pine cone onto a plate and placed it outside in the cold to set

After another cup of tea... voila!  Our bird feeders were done.

The whole craft was easy and fun to make (only slightly messy).  And a perfect treat for all the birds we've been seeing out and about!



Have you a variation on this simple bird feeder?  Send in your stories and photos.