Our Programs

2023

Our programs are offered primarily for our members, and are held in conjunction with our monthly business meeting; however, anyone is welcome to attend as our guest. If an event interests you, and you would like to attend, please get in touch and we will provide location and other details including Zoom details. This enables you to choose whether you wish to come for the program only, or also for the members’ meeting.

February 14, 12 noon

“The Three S’s: Socializing, Sharing and Swapping”

Once again we will kick off the new gardening season with this informal meeting in which members can learn from each other. We will begin with a pot-luck lunch, so bring a table-ready dish to share. After a short business meeting, we’ll have a “potluck” of gardening tips, tricks, and favorites. Don’t be shy about sharing! Here is some “food for thought” to get you started:

What was your favorite plant in 2022? Any tips to make it thrive? Do you have a tool you just can’t live without? Did you start a new bed in your garden? Come up with a new combination for pots? Discover a better way to start with or save seeds?

There will also be an opportunity for each committee to share their plans for an exciting 2023 as well as a swap table. If you have a duplicate catalog, gardening tool,book, houseplant or other garden-related item, bring it along. Your discard item may be a “treasure” to another gardener!

March 21 6:00 pm

Pollinator Pathways: Creating a Safe Haven

Jim Sirch, Education Coordinator at Yale University’s Peabody Museum, will discuss the history of the Pollinator Pathway Project. Since its beginnings in 2007, the project has expanded to over 200 towns in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The NS Garden Club is currently working with the town of North Stonington to establish a Pollinator Pathway along Main Street. Find out how you can help the declining bee and butterfly populations by learning more about the Pollinator Pathway endeavor. By establishing and promoting pollinator-friendly practices in each of our gardens, we can create a contiguous pollinator corridor between neighboring gardens and towns.

April 18, 6:00 pm

Snipped: A Floral Design Mystery Challenge

Trish Manfredi, a CT Federated GC noted designer and instructor, will create four to five floral designs from “mystery” flowers, foliage and containers supplied by the club, in the manner of Food-TV’s “Chopped”. She will also share some secrets of the mechanics of flower arranging that will make arranging easy, successful and environmentally friendly. Trish will compare how the elements and principles of floral design are used in creative design versus traditional design.

July 18, 6:00 pm

“Plant Swap”

This popular event began as a Horticulture project in 2019, and now, for the fourth year, isscheduled as a general meeting. The concept is simple: you bring a plant, and you take home a plant! Start thinking about a favorite or unusual plant of yours that another membermight enjoy. Stories welcome! More detailed instructions will follow as the time draws near.

August 15, 6:00 pm

Designing with Bulbs

Christine Darnell from Christine Darnell Gardens in Lyme, will show us the best ways to interplant with bulbs. Interplanting is the art of combining, in a very naturalistic way, perennials and flower bulbs with blooming shrubs and trees. No planting is complete without bulbs. In spring the beauty of early bulbs brings welcome color and highlights emerging perennials. Summer bulbs accent and harmonize with the perennial communities they are a part of and extend the gardening season. Most bulbs are fun to grow, easily planted, and great mixers. She will focus on creative ways to use bulb combinations, which bulbs are great naturalizers, and the underutilized species bulbs.

September 19, 12:00 noon

Celebrating the Winter Garden

Warren Leach is the owner of Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth, Mass. He will provide a PowerPoint presentation on the winter garden, which is truly a low maintenance affair and a time to enjoy no weeding, no watering and no deadheading! The winter landscape may be quiescent but the garden need not be bleak. Plants with brightly colored berries, twigs, stems, foliage and even winter-blooming flowers shrug off the snow and cold. Warren will showcase gardens he has designed that celebrate the winter season as well as planting design ideas for your own garden.