The Plantation Garden Club met on a lovely fall day at Cindy and Jim Pennington’s home out amongst the heavy-laden pecan trees on Highway 3, a perfect setting for our fall program.
Guest speaker Carol Bullard, a master of everything from growing, designing, judging, showing and involving hands in dirt, needed no introduction.
We sat in rapt attention while Carol sent around so many varieties of sun-loving caladiums, red ones that looked like valentines, some bought for the clever names from Proven Winners Bottle Rocket, Clowning Around and Raspberry Moon.
Shade-loving varieties such as Lime Lite, Carol Martin and Flash from Florida Boys with lime lite being a bright star for your shade areas.
Next, Carol presented us with the program, “Putting Your Garden to Bed in the Fall.”
This weekend would be the perfect time to divide perennials such as Hostas. Best tip: Dig up entire hosta, find the natural break of new growth from the root ball and replant to the new home.
If your heart leans to bulbs, when temperatures dip below 60 degrees will be the time to plant tulips, daffodils or crocuses.
For normal cleanup around the yard, start with weeds and last a good long time with leaves. You don’t want to give diseases an excuse to grow with dried fruit and debris.
While you’re out there removing and draining hoses, keep your eyes peeled for any interesting limbs, roots, bark and such that you can shake the dirt off and bring to your next flower show. You never know who will judge you and you heard it here first.
Ginger Burnham and Sherry Clark were co-hostesses, serving a frozen ice cream dessert and other goodies on Cindy’s fall decorated table cloth of brown with burlap under metal pumpkins of various heights.
