Garden Club Topic- Help!
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Posted: Jan/07/2008 9:35 PM PST
Hello All, I'm hosting our next Garden Club meeting and am seeking advice on planning the program. Our club is well established. However,over recent years, we've had lots of young moms join and the club has become more of a social gathering than garden club meeting. I'd like to do something fun, exciting, interesting and different. Our last meeting was a wine tasting- you know, grapes come from vines which are plants... Anybody out there with a great idea that this mediocre, gardening mom of four under ten can pull off?????!!!! Thanks so much in advance! Taylor |
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Posted: Jan/09/2008 3:06 PM PST
What about edible flowers? The moms can learn what flowers they can add to a salad that might intrigue their children into growing flowers that they could eat for supper. I know pansies and nastersiums blossoms are both edible and go wellin salads of for garnishments. Rose petals can be candied and eaten. Dandelion blossoms can be battered and deep fried like you would do mushrooms. Things like that. |
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Posted: Jan/10/2008 6:09 AM PST
I saw a reciepe for daylilly buds on an asian cooking site once. |
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Posted: Jan/10/2008 11:53 AM PST
It has been my experience that garden club members (and their children) love the whole concept of creating fairy gardens. Large ones, small ones, miniature ones, floral ones, herbal ones,ones using artificial materials - the possibilities are endless. This would be a delightful thing to pursue for your next meeting. |
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Posted: Jan/10/2008 6:22 PM PST
Taylor, those are some realy good ideas that have been posted. Maybe an idea will come to me after I think on it some. Have fun. |
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Posted: Jan/12/2008 12:39 PM PST
I was always inpressed with the large projects the local garden club pulled off. I purchased several of those hypertufa pots from one of them. Apparently, they got together, rented a mixer and made a whole bunch of them! They made containers for themselves, and others to sell. WOW! My bf said that they probably served Margaritas while the bf's ran the mixer. Lol. (I like that idea too, so ...) Often, a few of the members have a real showcase of a garden. A garden tour is always kewl. There are local places to tour as well. Seasonally, I gather some wild plants from my garden right out of my lawn! If someone is good at identifications, this can be fun. A lot of my garden plants seed into my lawn too. I get extra Pinks that way.  It is fun to go places to collect certain plants to replant if it is not destroying any habitats or removing any plants that are endangered. Some people have properties with an overabundance of certain plants.Also seasonal, the spring and fall plant swaps! Don't forget seed swaps too! There are a lot of special topic areas. Are there any local people for speaking invitations such as gardening with wildlife, gardening with birds, that sort of thing. In most places, gardening with (without!) deer could attract a crowd. How about a local winter gardening scope out? A field trip to the farmers market in spring to buy plants? BYO picnics at places with plant identification trails? The garden meeting can be out too. How about local meeting at Barnes and Noble for coffee and gardening books? Drying flowers... Picking flowers... Natural bug control topics... Worms... A lot of these are on the hard side, but I was brainstorming. |
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Posted: Jan/12/2008 6:17 PM PST
Those are a lot of good ideas to start with. Brainstorming is often a great way to get a lot of ideas going. Evonnestoryteller got me going... Elaborating on the dry flowers...I know my 10 year old son and I love doing pressed flowers and making craft projects out of them. This is something that takes a few months for planning ahead but can be a great late summer or fall project. I can provide more details of the kind of thing we did if you are interested. 
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Posted: Jan/12/2008 6:25 PM PST
oh, I also just thought of the fabric printing too. You can use white COTTON woven fabric and "print" real flowers and leaves onto it for doilies, handkechiefs, etc. You need a hard smooth surfice to work on, a rubber mallet, your fabric piece, parchment paper and your flowers/leaves. On your work surface, lay down a piece of parchment paper, your fabric, your flowers/leaves, and another layer of parchment paper. Now carefully pound all the flowers/leaves with the rubber mallet. As you do this it realeases the liquids in the plant pieces and they are aborbed by the fabric. When you are done press with a hot iron and as long as you laundry as a "gentle" item with no bleach, they are actually permanent. Oh, and using flowers and nuts etc. to make fabric dies like our pioneer ancestors did. |
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Posted: Jan/12/2008 6:54 PM PST
Great!!!!!!!! Now I have to go buy a rubber mallet! LOLI saw that Hobby Lobby has plain T-shirts in quite a few different colors for $3.99. GREAT IDEAS everyone! |
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Posted: Jan/13/2008 12:23 PM PST
It is fun just make sure you hit work surface and not your thumb. 
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