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Program Comments - 2003

A reminder about The Garden Hints Programs

BloodRoot in flower photo by GN member Louise Peacock

Note: Between March and November,

The Gardening Network organizes and hosts free gardening talks and events in the Etobicoke area. The Garden Hints programs have become popular with local garden enthusiasts.
In case you missed an event, we are providing you a commentary on recent past programs. Programs comments from 197 - to 2001 have now been archived and are available upon request.

Just Click on the month to get the comment, or to move to a different year. click on the main index page:

Comments from 2003 Programs

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March 11/03

Larry Sherk, former Head Horticulturist for Sheridan Nurseries came and gave us a super talk on vegetable gardening. He gave step by step directions on how to start such a garden and how to successfully grow and maintain your veggies. Larry is an entertaining and well informed speaker with a wicked sense of humour. Those in attendance had a great evening.

We were disappointed at the poor turn-out since we had a full list of people signed up, but we suppose that the wintery weather turns many people off the idea of going out ......

April 8, 2003
Container Gardening with Paul Zammit, Perennial Manager at Plant World
As usual, outstanding presentation by Paul. We had more people register than we could seat (because some people didn't bother to call ahead as we had asked ....) so unfortunately we had to turn people away.

Paul gave a stunning slide show showing off the various ways in which plants can be grown to advantage in containers, and how you can make better use of what space you have in the garden.

Paul also introduced the group to some new and interesting plants and explained how to carry your perennials through the winter in containers. It was a wonderful talk and everyone enjoyed it immensely.

GN display at Montgomery's Inn Victoria day 2002

May 19, 2003
Victoria Day Festival at Montgomery's Inn
What a lovely day it turned out to be - bright sun, blue skies and a record turnout at the Inn. We ran short slide shows from 1:15 and had plenty of people sitting and watching and asking questions.

Our guest speaker, Phil Matthewson arrived early and since the group were keen to hear him, we decided to have him give his talk on Organic food and certification at 2:00 instead of 2:30.

It was really interesting hearing him explain about what we need to look out for when purchasing so-called certified organic products. A little scary too ...just because it says on the label that it is certified organic, doesn't necessarily mean that it is free of certain undesireable elements.

Phil explained about some of the processes that organic product must go through before reaching it's end consumer (organic milk was one example) ...it is indeed a serious concern that government regulations are almost set up in direct opposition to supporting an organic process.

The talk was well received.

At 3:00 we began to run our slide shows again, and we covered growing your lawn without chemicals and composting. The time flew by with people asking tons of questions and hopefully getting the answers they hoped for.

Before we knew it, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria was dropping by for a quick visit before departing the Inn, that was fun, then we were packing up and bidding the Inn farewell.

Beautiful premises, lovely people and a super nice day.

May 31, 2003
The Gardening Network Annual Fundraiser Plant Sale

This was great fun. Even though the day was a bit murky and they were threatening rain, we were able to make it through the sale without getting wet. Norma and Caroline were helping and we soon had sold about 2/3 of our plants. the interesting thing was that although we had fewer customers, most of them bought large quantities of things.

We made just over $500.00

GN Plant sale 2001

September show of Love-Lies-Bleeding (Amaranthus)

September 4, 2003 - Montgomery's Inn Annual Cornroast

GN participated in this fun event by manning the Organic fruit and vegi table with produce from Phil Mathewson....

The weather cooperated, it was a sunny day, and pleasant temperature. Mosquitos were kept at bay with some extremely strong natural anti bug spray. The stuff is so strong it keeps everything away - including people (seriously, it works really well - I got it from Phil Matthewson).

Phil' organic beef sausages on organic buns were moving well, along with the ears of sweet corn he brought. The beautiful baskets of pears, apples, peppers and squash proved to irristable to visitors who left triumphantly with bagsful of produce.

We were just asking for donations for the produce and people really got a good deal.

It was a fun event and although attendance was down a bit from the previous year, we did very well.

This is an Ian Rabenda photo of the gorgeous Opuntia humifusa. If you'd like to learn more about native Cacti or about the Ontario Cactus and Succulent society, visit the site at this link: CactusSociety

September 9, 2003

Special Guest speaker Ian Rabenda of the Cactus association

A really excellent talk. Ian Rabenda is passionate about his subject and takes really excellent slides, so as he led us through the different varieties of hardy Cacti we were treated to some wonderful images.

It was outstanding to see these exotic looking plants - which one would normally associate with Arizona desertscapes - happily growing in southern Ontario gardens.

We learned that there are many colourful and interesting varieties and that you can get some pretty bright colours from the flowers.

October 7 /2003 - Attracting Wild Birds to your Garden

October 14/2003 - Herbs as Ornamentals and Sensate Plants

November 4, 2003 - Indoor Plants for Winter Colour in the Home

Page updated September 30/ 2003

Contact the Gardening Network

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Toronto, Ontario M8X 2Y8

email: gardeningnet@wezel.com

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