Who Says You Can’t Look Great Getting Dirty?
NOTG Heart of the Park volunteers help plant twenty new live oaks in City Park!
NOTG Flower Show Award Winners
BEST IN SHOW : Sybil Favrot & Anne Milling 1ST LAP AROUND THE PARK (FLORAL DESIGN): Lynne White 1st LAP AROUND THE PARK (HORTICULTURE): Molly Baumer 1st LAP AROUND THE PARK (PHOTOGRAPHY): Karin Giger Floral Design Class 1: Traditional Mass Design 1st – Ethel Clay & Pierce Jonassen 3rd – Ruthie Frierson & Betsy Nalty Class 2: Contemporary Design 1st – Sybil Favrot & Anne Milling Honorable Mention - Elizabeth Bush & Shameen Wrighton Class 3: Modern Line Design 1st – Lynne White Honorable Mention – Mary Clare Conwill & Helaine Benjamin Class 4: 2nd – Catherine Freeman & Anne Goliwas 3rd – Flora French & Harriet Nelson Photography Class 1 3rd – Ashley Bright Honorable Mention – Laurie Williams Class 2 1st – Karin Giger Class 3 1st – Maria Wisdom Botanical Arts AWARD OF APPRECIATION: Pierce Jonassen & Betsy Nalty Katie Rafferty & Barbara Rosenberg Elise Merlin & Pierce Young Judges Commendations Katie Rafferty – for her expressive and creative graphics Beth Favrot – for her excellent participation as a first time scribe
A Walk in the Park Horticulture Award Winners
Class 1 2nd – Sidney Thornton (Coleus) Class 2 1st – Helen Wisdom (Cypress Tree) 2nd – Karin Giger Class 3 2nd – Catherine Freeman (Cast Iron, Live Oak, Spanish Moss) 3rd – Paige Morrison (Purple Coneflower) Class 6 Honorable Mention – Sidney Thornton Honorable Mention – Catherine Freeman Class 10 1st – Cathy Pierson (New Dawn Climbing Rose) Class 11 2nd – Paige Morrison (Knockout Rose) Class 12 1st – Paige Morrison (Ginger Butterfly) 2nd – Sidney Thornton (Texas Sage) 3rd – Flora French (Fried Egg Plant) Honorable Mention – Harriet Nelson (Hibiscus) Class 14 1st – Courtney Freeman (Satsuma) 1st – Paige Morrison (Kumquat) 1st – Paige Morrison (Holly) 2nd – Sara Gaines (Kumquat) 2nd – Cathy Pierson (Tabasco Pepper) 15 2nd – Cathy Pierson (Coral Honeysuckle) 3rd – Shane French (Bleeding Heartvine) Honorable Mention – Paige Morrison (Wild Morning Glory) Class 17 2nd – Beth Favrot – Tarragon Class 19 2nd – Cathy Pierson (Zebra Cactus) Class 26 – Milkweed Challenge 1st – Pamela Pipes 2nd – Flora French 2nd – Chrisie Kelleher 2nd – Ashley Bright 3rd – Catherine Freeman 3rd – Virginia Rowan Honorable Mention – Paige Morrison, Katie Rafferty, Sidney Thornton Previous Next
Joint Flower Show a Success!
What a wonderful day together. On November 13, members of the New Orleans Town Gardeners and Garden Study Club of New Orleans were welcomed by Poydras Home residents, family, and friends for "A Walk in the Park” joint flower show.Poydras Home was a beautiful setting to showcase several categories of floral arrangements, photography, horticulture classes, and the new Botanical Arts category. Poydras Home residents participated alongside NOTG and GSC members in a floral arrangement category. The reception was a warm, lively event with members and friends ooh-ing and aah-ing over the entries.Great thanks to the many hardworking volunteers who planned and manned the event and to all the who entered. A special “Hip Hip Hooray” to Linda Miller and Molly Baumer for serving as the NOTG cochairs of the event.
New Shed for the Dreamkeeper Garden
Excerpted from the Edible Schoolyard New Orleans websiteThis year, Langston Hughes Academy’s Dreamkeeper Garden has a new garden shed; students are excited about their responsibilities of collecting tools from, and returning their tools back into the shed. In addition, the fencing for the animal area has gotten an update. Not only does this mean Donkey the goat can't escape, but more importantly, the goat and pig area is now wheelchair accessible for our students!Thank you to the New Orleans Town Gardeners and the Fair Grounds Race Course for making these improvements possible!
October Meeting Brings Out Our Competitive and Creative Sides!
Inside Virginia Rowan’sbeautiful home was serenity itself with Catherine calmly wielding the gavel, head hostess Chrisie Kelleher and her committee keeping everyone well fed, and members enjoying the simple and elegant arrangements dotting Virginia’s home.Outside was another story as two teams of members vied for victory in the Great Grocery Store Flower Arranging Battle of 2018! Teams were given brightly colored fall bouquets from local grocery stores and challenged to make interesting and innovative arrangements. Laughter, creativity, and goodnatured competition ensued. Three cheers all around for the competitors and for the beautiful day we shared outside!
C-Change Conversation Draws a Crowd
Guest speakers Kathleen Biggins and Harriette Brainard held the crowd’s attention and shared information about climate change at the recent C-Change Conservations Primer at the Pavilion of Two Sisters in City Park on Tuesday, October 16. The conservation and education program was co-hosted by New Orleans Town Gardeners, Garden Study Club, and the Junior League of New Orleans Sustainer Garden Club. GCA members from the Princeton Garden Club and Millbrooke Garden Club developed the program, which is presented across the country to interested groups.One objective of the C-Change Primer is to present scientific information in an atmosphere that promotes conversation. A coffee before the lecture and a presentation style that invited discussion among those present met that goal and gave attendees a chance to explore the concepts presented with fellow GCA members.Over 20 NOTG members attended. Special thanks to Conservation Committee members Carro Gardner, Caroline Milling and Elizabeth Roberts for providing treats for the reception.The presenters offered suggestions for personal actions individuals can take to make a difference:Plant treesRestore wetlands and meadowsConduct an energy audit of your homeUse LED lighting and Energy Smart appliancesConsider solar and geothermal energy sourcesReduce household wasteEat locally (this one should be easy for us in New Orleans!)
How Can I Make a Difference?
Reduce the use of “single use” plastics in your daily life. Each of us has the capacity to “reduce, reuse, and recycle” in our daily lives, but the task can seem overwhelming. A simple way to get started is to consider the number of “single use” plastics in your daily life. These are items—often packaging—that are designed for one time use and then go straight in the trash can, landfill, and eventually, our air and waterways. Trying to do everything at once can be a recipe for failure when best intentions are too overwhelming to implement. Start with simple changes and train yourself to think differently about the packaging you purchase—because when you buy an item, you are paying for its packaging, too. Here are a few tips from the most recent issue of GCA’s ConWatch that can help you to reduce the single use plastics in your daily life: Use fabric shopping bags and washable mesh bags for your vegetables at the supermarket and farmer’s market. Be creative in switching from plastic containers to other materials: use glass mason jars for buying foods in the bulk aisle of grocery stores and for storing them in your pantry and refrigerator. Try new alternates to plastic film wrap like Bee’s Wrap™ or similar products. Go back to corn husk brooms with wooden handles instead of plastic. Buy the largest container possible of cleansing gels and decant to smaller, reusable containers. Better yet, go back to bars of soap in paper wrapping! Buy eggs in cardboard cartons, not plastic. Bring your own reusable mug, water bottle, container, or flatware for take-out food and drinks instead of using disposables.
Everyday Things: Straw Wars
The following article by Fidela Schneider is excerpted from GCA’s ConWatch publication. Never in the past did we imagine that straws were a danger to our environment. Indeed, if straws are made from paper, bamboo, glass, or stainless steel, they are reusable and practical. However, if they are made from petroleum based polypropylene as single use plastic straws to be thrown away, they constitute a deadly threat to the marine and aquatic life in our oceans, lakes, and rivers. Plastic straws never degrade. Instead they contribute to the grave environmental damage caused by non-recyclable, non-compostable, and non-degradable trash that litters our beaches, chokes our oceans, and overwhelms our landfills. How big is the problem? According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium: 8.8 million tons of plastic enters the ocean every year, the equivalent of a full dump truck every minute. Plastic waste of all kinds averages 200 pounds per person per year. Nearly 700 species including all sea turtles and more than 50% of the seabird and marine mammal species have ingested or become entangled in plastic debris. Microplastics replace nutritive algae in the diet of plankton and thus enter the bottom of the food chain to rise to significant concentrations in the bodies of larger edible fish. Plastic pollution also damages our rivers and lakes and landfill seepage threatens our groundwater. Straws are only part of this enormous amount of plastic debris circulating in our oceans, but their impact is still significant. In the United States we use and discard 500 million straws a day according to the Plastic Pollution Coalition. To make that statistic meaningful consider that a half billion straws laid end to end would encircle the Earth 2.5 times. It is not surprising that the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup data reports that straws rank as the fifth largest category of beach litter for the last three years.
Botanical Arts Workshop
New Orleans Town Gardener Courtney Freeman and Garden Study Club member Liz Sloss arranged a recent Botanical Arts Workshop at the New Orleans Fine Arts Academy. The workshop was led by Marsha Cannon, a member of the Garden Club of Jackson and a respected botanical arts expert. The beautiful jewelry featured below represented Marsha’s craftsmanship and artistry with natural materials.Six NOTG members and six GSC members participated to hone their skills. We can’t wait to see their handiwork at the November Flower Show!