​Despite being over 300 miles away, Longwood Garden is known to many people in Grantham.  Often when I told fellow garden club folks that I had visited Longwood, their eyes would light up as they told me of their trips there.
 
Two of the aspects of the garden that stood out to me were the army of docents peppered throughout the property eager to point out hidden gems and interesting facts. The other was the water fountains including small, medium, and huge ones.  The fountains were the idea of Pierre de Pont, the wealthy entrepreneur who purchased the land in 1906 to prevent the arboretum on the property from falling into the hands of a greedy logging company. 
 
When Pierre was six years old, he visited the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia where he saw a huge water fountain display.  He used some of his fortune to have elaborate fountains installed at Longwood.  Visitors were drawn to the fountains on that hot summer day when I visited. Little children ran in and out of strategic locations to get optimally soaked by splashes from the fountains.  Pierre would have smiled at the sight.

Now that I've visited Longwood in late summer, I'm anxious to return in spring, and autumn, and...  

The Grantham Recreation Department runs Music in the Meadow which is a quintessential small town event. where families bring their lawn chairs and listen to talented performers. After their picnic dinners, they often are up for something sweet, and that's where the garden club comes in.
 
Each week a couple of volunteers don the GGC aprons,  load up a table with home baked goodies, and accept donations for the scholarship fund in exchange for the sweets.  They chat with the performers, the food truck folks, soccer moms and dads, couples, and lots and lots of children.
 
I love it when a tot comes to the table clutching a dollar bill and picks out the cookie of his or her choice.  The parents aren’t there (though I suspect they’re watching nearby) as the child has his or her first solo purchasing experience.  Definitely a rite of passage!
 
Five-year-old Sutton is a regular at our table and calls us the Olive Garden Ladies according to her mom Emily Rinde-Thorsen who runs Grantham Rec. Another regular, four-year-old Ludo recommended that we make enough cookies to give one to every single person in the large crowd.  He and his pal Darby had an absolute blast at the first event this year when a sudden downpour interrupted the music. They ran around the field getting as wet as they could and then figured out that could get even wetter if they stood under the edge of the GGC awning.  They ran to each side begging the tall grownups to push the awning.  In true GGC spirit, we obliged. 
 
Over these two summers, we have doled out more than a thousand cookies and brownies. Imagine the hours of time the volunteer bakers have clocked making their sweet treats. None of this could happen without them.  Last summer, Kristina Cole attended a concert and offered to bake cookies and she wasn’t even a member (then).  
 
If you haven’t had a chance to attend Music in the Meadow yet, consider coming on August 22nd or 29th.  Bring your appetite ;-) 

​Environmental Educator is one of Michael Caduto’s many impressive credentials. Michael travels around the world educating people about important topics such as riparian buffer zones which was the topic on a blustery afternoon in May in Eastman.  Michael led a group of 25 intrepid folks on a walk along the riparian buffer zone located between South Cove Beach and East Lake Beach.  Michael pointed out that the gusty winds clearly showed the areas where the water was slapping onto the shore resulting in lots of organic matter compared to the clear water beside areas with trees, shrubs, and plants. Algae bloom is one of the potential results of organic matter and nutrients entering the water. Plants are needed to slow down the rain so it safely seeps into the ground.  An added benefit is that the roots absorb pollutants. 
 
The good news is that the solutions are right next to the problems. Michael encouraged us to "look around and see what is growing successfully." He gave an example of a nearby willow tree and suggested that hundreds of little willow branches could be stuck in the ground, many of which would grow. He recommended that invasive species gradually be replaced with native plants like serviceberry, yellow birch, hobblebush, and dewberry.
 
One of the worst erosion areas on the walk was at the entranceway to the lake trail at the East Lake Beach end.  Michael suggested that this would be a good spot to create a rain garden and protect it with a walkway. Michael said that the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture offers grants for projects such as that.
 
To learn more about Michael Caduto and his important work visit his website at www.p-e-a-c-e.net     

Moth Balls? ​Yes. Just as there is a Christmas Bird Count and a Fourth of July Butterfly Count, there is a Moth Week where families, communities, and science centers hold Evening and Midnight Moth Balls where white sheets are spread out and lights kept on to attract moths and make them easier to see and photograph. Some use incandescent and UV (Black) Party lights, and some even sport a professional’s Mercury Vapor light, but you don’t need one. 
 
To get involved, leave all your outdoor lights on (normally a no-no) until bedtime to see what is in your neighborhood (from July 22nd to 30th). Take phone photos, identify them with iNaturalist, and SHARE them with iNaturalist so that they can be counted. And if you didn’t SHARE your Pollinator Week discoveries with iNaturalist, you can do it now. Your GPS will identify the place and time of your photo. They will still count.
 
For more information, check out https://nationalmothweek.org/
 
And don’t forget that New Hampshire’s First Annual Butterfly Monitoring Project using 
iNaturalist goes right through the fall.
 
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/nh-butterfly-monitoring-network

June 19–25 is National Pollinator Week, an annual event initiated and managed by Pollinator Partnership. In the decade since the US Senate authorized National Pollinator Week, it has become an international event, and this year the theme is Pollinators and Climate Change. In support, the Sullivan County Conservation District is asking all of us to photograph every bug we see and submit ”bioblitz” data to iNaturalist during National Pollinator Week because floral resources for pollinators are changing due to climate change.
 
This is the second year that New Hampshire Conservation Districts, including the Sullivan County Conservation District, have provided ”bioblitz” data. Check out the most comprehensive iNaturalist information for New Hampshire counties. Prizes will be awarded for the most sightings, so this is a great activity for kids to participate in this summer!
 
Additionally, a new New Hampshire Fish and Game (NHF&G) state initiative into climate change, biodiversity, and habitat protection is monitoring butterflies. NHF&G is asking everyone to photograph every butterfly we see this year and submit our pictures to iNaturalist. There are 130 species of butterflies in our state, and they are excellent markers of our changing environment.

The NHF&G has formal training and specific “Butterfly Counts” being held throughout the summer, but you need no special training to provide them with valuable information. All you need is a camera and iNaturalist!
 
Did you know that iNaturalist began as a graduate thesis in 2008 and was incorporated by the National Geographic and the California Academy of Sciences in 2017? These days if you use a different nature-identifying application, it probably feeds into the iNaturalist global database. To be sure your data is used to help NH, download the iNaturalist App onto your phone. If you prefer to use your own camera to take pictures, you can upload them to iNaturalist from your computer once you are home.

​GGC members may remember the years when the club completely filled the Town Hall’s lower level with Jolly Farmer annual flowers to sell to support the club’s scholarships, grants, and programs.  At the last such sale in 2019, customers from Grantham and beyond flocked to the sale where a frenzy of buying ensued. 
 
This year, the club is running a more varied plant sale out doors in the Town Hall parking lot. Plants will include two tables of Jolly Farmer annuals, two tables of succulents, two tables of vegetable plants, one table of Van Berkum perennials, plus some Siberian Irises.
 
The Jolly Farmer flowers are being ably cared for by Ray Miner and Pete Lepre who ran the Jolly Farmer sale. They repurposed pallets from their recent solar panel delivery by putting them on wheels and covering the platters with flowers.  They roll out each of the pallets from their garage for ease of watering.
 
The club is also selling succulents nurtured by Tina Gleich who is ‘The Succulent Whisperer.” Tina can coax a tiny, sad looking succulent into a thriving plant with many adorable children.  Along with Tina; Elise Kendall, Amelia Lantz, and Kathy Houghton babysat succulent plants for over a year. Tina is generously donating all 75 succulents to the club to sell at the yard sale. They range from cute $1 minis, to potted groups of multiple types of succulents, to large jade plants.
 
In addition to running the Jolly Farmer sale, Ray and Pete are donating all these vegetable plants they have grown from seeds:
65 tomato plants--cherry and full size
50 pepper plants--sweet and jalapeno
18 four-packs of cucumbers
18 four-packs of summer squash
18 four-packs of zucchini
If you’re planning to buy vegetable plants soon, consider holding off until you can buy some of these healthy plants at great prices and also help out the club.
 
The club will also be selling some perennials from the Van Berkum perennial sale.  New club member Cheryl Wilson took up the reins from Nancy Crocker who ran the Van Berkum perennials, (and huge Jolly Farmer annuals sales for years.)  Nancy is happily busy with her grandchildren.  The perennials arrive on May 23rd. Those not ordered by members will be cared for by Cheryl until the June 10th yard sale.
 
The Siberian Irises that will be for sale used to grow in the Triangle Garden; and some of their relatives still do.  Kathy Hougton, who heads up the Triangle Garden team (giving former head Janie Clark more time to concentrate on her work as president of the Friends of the Library) is housing those iris plants for the sale.
 
I’ve watched these volunteers in action and am blown away by their hard work and dedication.  What I enjoy most is hearing their laughter when they work together toward a common goal.  The GGC is an amazing club.  

​​For the Grantham Garden Club’s May event, Program Director Emma Kalaidjian arranged for a field trip to visit Jenny Cooke’s exceptional garden in Lyme, NH. Jenny is a member of her local garden club with the adorable name Pardon My Garden. Her club holds no meetings, has no budget, and certainly needs no apologies. They simply visit one another’s gardens.  If the other members’ gardens are even a bit as beautiful as Jenny’s, they are very beautiful indeed. 
 
Twenty-four club members wandered around Jenny’s extensive gardens through delightful pathways and charming alcoves, and were amazed at the volume and variety of flowers, shrubs, and trees.  Jenny’s is a garden of lovely sights, smells, and sounds—the sight of the flowers, the smell of the spice bush blossoms, the sounds of 20 different species of birds singing their spring songs.*
 
Jenny patiently answered questions about gardening, her water feature, and the stones that crops up artfully throughout her garden.  I have no doubt that club members will take some of Jenny’s ideas into their own gardens.  When asked about a mushroom-like stone structure, Jenny had an unexpected answer.  Jenny explained that they were staddle stones, which were made and used in England and other European countries beginning in the 1500s.  Farmers supported their granaries with four staddles to protect the grain from hungry vermin.  I googled ‘staddles’ and learned from Wikipedia that today they are much sought after garden ornaments and found the picture below of a staddle-supported granary.    
 
The club wants to thank Jenny for inviting us into her fabulous garden and being such a delightful hostess.  She has inspired us all.
 
*Marty Gearhart used Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology free Merlin app and identified these 20 birds species in Jenny’s garden:  Bobolink, Tree Swallow, Robin, Crow, House Wren, Song Sparrow, Goldfinch, White-crowned Sparrow, Yellow Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Common Yellowthroat, Baltimore Oriole, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-eyed Vireo, Blue Jay, Tufted Titmouse, Savannah Sparrow, Indigo Bunting, and Red-bellied Woodpecker.

Tulips, Speedwell, Daphne, Trilliums, Japanese Peony, Lentin Rose, European Larch, Hepatica, Summer Snowflake, Magnolia, 

Jenny Cooke with some of her stone art; Jenny's staddle; granary on staddles from Wikipedia

In 1904 Robert and Jennie Butchart moved to Vancouver Island to build a cement plant on a rich limestone deposit. Within eight years, most of the limestone had been removed which left a huge, ugly hole.  Jennie decided to transform that hideous space into a garden that evolved into the now famous Sunken Garden.
 
The Butchart Gardens have expanded to include a Rose Garden, Japanese Garden, Italian Garden, Bog Garden and a Mediterranean Garden.  Each is lovely but for me the view looking down on the Sunken Garden was the most jaw-dropping. 
 
On its 100th anniversary in 2004, the gardens were designated a National Historic Site of Canada.  Today, people come from all over the world.   If you haven’t seen visited yet, I recommend you add the Butchart Gardens to your bucket list.  

Proclaiming that spring has arrived in Southern California is pretty easy. The Flower Fields of Carlsbad have been announcing spring’s arrival for over 40 years.
 
Taking a trek to the fields between March and May is something you will never forget. The colors and sheer expanse of fields is captivating.  Giant Tecolote Ranunculus flowers make up the 55 acres at Carlsbad Ranch in Carlsbad, California. If you find yourself in Southern California at this time of year, it is a must see. There is a cost and you do have to purchase tickets on line before you go but if you are a lover of flowers or photography it is well worth it.