Flower Arrangements for Residents of Manor Care

 For our November meeting, we met at Trudy's. Since it gets dark so early, we met from 4 - 6. The gazebo was a great place to set up and get to work. We made small arrangements for the residents of Manor Care Nursing Home. We brought flowers and greens from our yards and also used  flowers that were donated from Trader Joe's. We made a total of 59 arrangements! Robin delivered them to Manor Care the next day, they were very appreciative.

October 19 Meeting - Tablescapes

Sixteen of us met in Trudy's backyard for our October meeting.  Carey gave a great talk on how to easily decorate our tables using things we already have around the house. She gave us lots of ideas. Thanks Carey and thanks Trudy!

At our September meeting some of us signed up to design a table for a specific season. We put everything together at our October meeting. Here are the results. 

The spring table created by Michele, Kathleen and Theresa.

The summer table created by Robin, Jennifer, Pat and Cathy.

The fall table created by Laura and Kelly.

The winter table created by Donna, Louise and Sue.

 

 

 Eagle Scout Pollinator Garden

We were approached by a young man who is planning to plant a pollinator garden in Reston for his Eagle Scout Project. The garden is to be approximately 1650 square feet and will have 700 plants. 

We agreed to donate 15 blue lobelia and 48 purple cone flowers for the garden. Most of the plants came from the yard of Robin W. 

Many thanks to Theresa, Olga, Donna and Robin for digging and potting up the plants. The scout's father picked up the potted plants and the garden was to be planted on October 10. The picture shows just a few of the plants that we donated.

Here is the finished garden, now all it needs is time.

PANDEMIC WANDERINGS III

An afternoon jaunt to Tudor Place, a 5 acre homesite and garden, smack dab in the middle of Georgetown. We discovered wonderful use of hardscape and garden statuary. The garden design included so many nooks and crannies, while still maintaining a large yard in front of the main house. The large green lawn highlighted some wonderful old trees and bees. 🐝 We highly recommend you stop in if you are in Georgetown as the parking is free and so is the admission! And within a block is Dumbarton Oaks which is a lovely garden to visit as well. 

 

Pandemic Wanderings II

Another lovely day of exploration in the countryside. We were treated to two garden tours today. The first tour was the country home of Peg Emmling. She has a collectors garden where she has amassed a large collection of trees. She enjoys trying out new plant finds and doesn’t mind moving plants if they are not happy where they are originally planted. Peg  also has perennial and shrub beds that were full of happy pollinators today! We all were impressed with her large binder of information about her plantings and left promising to get our own more organized. A gracious hostess. We are thankful for her hospitality!

A short drive led us to Wollam Gardens which is a commercial flower farm. They sell flowers to local floral businesses as well as at farmers markets. We were very lucky to meet the owner, Mr. Wollam who shared his story on how he bought the house. We had lunch in the event space that is on the property. Due to covid many of their wedding events have been cancelled this year so we felt extra lucky to be able to walk amongst the flower beds today. It was fun watching the employees and interns putting together bouquets to sell this weekend. And of course, being able to grab a sweet bouquet to take home made our day! I think many of us will be back for the fresh seasonal flowers.

June Library Clean-up

On Friday, June 19th we worked on the flowerbeds at the Centreville library. We did some weeding, pruning and planting. A female police officer stopped by and complimented us on our work!

PANDEMIC WANDERINGS

What could be better for soothing quarantine fatigue than a drive to the Shenandoah Mountains! A delightful visit to the home of gardener Elaine Faucher was the highlight of the day. She shared her bountiful perennial borders where she lovingly introduced us to her plants by name. Since 2011 she has been building a wonderful collection of not only perennials but also grasses, shrubs, trees and interesting annuals and tropical plants. Even on this warm day the cool breeze from the river provided the perfect temperature as we enjoyed scones and tea provided by our gracious hostess.

Virginia State Arboretum, Blandy, was our second stop of the day. We enjoyed our bag lunches before exploring a bit of this vast property. Many of the plants were name tagged which made the visit so educational. If you go take a picnic blanket as the tables were not available for seating due to caution during the pandemic.

We are lucky to have gardens as a wonderful respite from our homes where we have been quarantining since March. Until our next wandering.....