Members had a unique opportunity for an exclusive preview before Smithgall Woodland Garden opens to the public! Smithgall is a 168-acre satellite garden of the Atlanta Botanical Garden. It is located in nearby Gainesville, where collections of trees and shrubs are grown and studied. The Smithgall Woodland Garden expands the Botanical Garden’s current native plant conservation program, and endangered plants are propagated on the site. Additionally, plants are grown from seeds collected in Asia and evaluated for their suitability to southeastern landscapes. Many of us have purchased some of the wonderful plants propagated at this site. We received an educational demonstration on propagation of plants by cuttings and seeds to learn how they do it. After the demonstration, we received a behind the scenes tour of a new garden before the grand opening! We then traveled a short distance to McMahan’s Nursery. McMahan’s is a rare plant nursery specializing in…
Wilkerson Mill Garden and Nearly Native Nursery Field Trip – March 1, 2012
Elizabeth Dean of Wilkerson Mill Garden entertained and enlightened us with her presentation on hydrangeas at our January meeting. GCMGA members and guests followed up the presentation with a field trip to learn more and shop! Elizabeth provided a tour and educational demonstration. After learning more about the selections available, many of us took advantage of the opportunity to acquire a variety of hydrangeas and companion plants in order to establish them for the spring blooming season. Elizabeth’s advice is to plant early and, although there is the possibility of a late freeze in March, it is manageable with young plants. After touring Wilkerson Mill, we traveled to Nearly Native Nursery for a picnic lunch, workshop, and tour. Nearly Native Nursery is a specialty nursery that promotes and propagates southeastern native plants for all types of landscapes. They offer a wide variety of native plant life that is tough, versatile,…
Start a tradition – Eat your vegetables
With our busy lives, who can take the time to grow a traditional garden? Who has the space in their HOA mandated landscape to grow vegetables? While I passionately embrace gardening, I have never, ever embraced a love of hoeing, watering, or for that matter, straight rows! I grew up in the 1960’s in rural America, the youngest of 4 girls whose father grew a huge garden. We planted rows of beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and potatoes. My father, being an equal rights man as he had no sons, taught his daughters to garden as he had been taught by his father, who had been taught by his father. He was a stickler for details, such as his straight rows which made the garden beautiful every year. He would cut the potato pieces so each piece had exactly the same amount of eyes. He would hand us the bucket…