Hammond Garden Club Learns About Native Plants
Happy spring, everyone! Hope yours is bringing you plenty May flowers after our plentiful April showers!
I wish you could have attended our May meeting when we learned all about wildflowers! The guest speaker was Patty Zebrick, a St. Tammany Parish Master Gardener and MS Coastal Master Naturalist, who also belongs to the Pontchartrain Basin Chapter of “Wild Ones” which has 75 members since August 2022.
Wow! We didn’t know we knew so little about native plants and flowers! Even crepe myrtle, which some of us thought was a native plant, as well as azaleas – only the wild ones you see in the woods are native.
She told us about planting many different things that would attract birds and butterflies or milkweed to attract caterpillars which eventually become beautiful monarch butterflies.
And the sad thing is, if we don’t get back to planting wild flowers that attract the bugs and the caterpillars we will finally lose our ability to grow food since these insects are the pollinators which make our vegetables and fruits grow and produce.
She had a slideshow presentation to show us how beautiful completely native gardens could be – so absolutely lovely. And if you own acreage, leave part of it as wild, not as a mowed lawn; this is where the insects exist.
Well Ms. Zebrick left us with wanting to remove all our flower gardens and plant native, wild flowers, especially milkweed to be the breeding grounds for some not-so-pretty caterpillars but whose life cycle grows into an awesomely painted monarch butterfly!
If you ever have the chance to hear Patty Zebrick speak, you may want to join the “Wild Ones” chapter in St. Tammany. Look it up on the internet … I promise you it will be one of the most interesting talks about native plants and wildflowers you’ll ever hear!
President Jennifer Allen then called the meeting to order. Chaplain Mary Thornhill said the opening prayer, and the membership stated the Pledge of Allegiance. A copy of the minutes by Secretary Karen Granier had been sent out and voted on, and all were in favor. Juanita Pearson then gave the treasurer’s report in the absence of Phyllis diBenedetto.
Jennifer called on Phyllis Mire to announce the winner of the Garden of the Month which she said was awarded to Michael and Rachel Rogers of East Charles Street.
Phyllis said the gardens were wonderful as were the lawn and yard. She called on Mona Crapanzano for the Link Award, which Mona said was awarded to Dr. Megan Currier on West Morris; she said that the property, which contains a new building, is beautifully landscaped.
In the absence of Pat Graves, who is the committee chair of the Second Annual Arts In Bloom, Jennifer reported for her that it was a wonderful event.
So many things were part of that event, like a Barbershop Quartet singing all over downtown Hammond, some great plays, the fantastic flower lectures, the spectacular judged flower arrangements; everything seemed to go as planned and is ready to go again next year.
During the course of the meeting, which was held at Oak Knoll Country Club, Mary Monteleone’s staff served the meals we had ordered to the beautifully decorated dining room, tables dressed in white linen cloths with navy and white runners topped with a simple green plant in the center. Food as usual was enjoyed by all as was the comradery after with our friends.
I want to leave you with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who among many other things, was a poet and a predictive champion of the pressures of society. This was in a copy of Southern Lady magazine:
“I awoke this morning with great thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
I hope we all can awake each morning with this same thought. We should always be grateful for having friends; sometimes they even take the place of family.
The Hammond Garden Club is a proud member of District VI, Louisiana Garden Club Federation Inc. and the Deep South Garden Clubs Inc. We are doing our best to unify and beautify our homes, gardens, our city and our nation every day to the best of our ability.
God bless America, and God bless the City of Hammond!
by Linda Broussard
she is a member of the Hammond Garden Club
Happy spring, everyone! Hope yours is bringing you plenty May flowers after our plentiful April showers!
I wish you could have attended our May meeting when we learned all about wildflowers! The guest speaker was Patty Zebrick, a St. Tammany Parish Master Gardener and MS Coastal Master Naturalist, who also belongs to the Pontchartrain Basin Chapter of “Wild Ones” which has 75 members since August 2022.
Wow! We didn’t know we knew so little about native plants and flowers! Even crepe myrtle, which some of us thought was a native plant, as well as azaleas – only the wild ones you see in the woods are native.
She told us about planting many different things that would attract birds and butterflies or milkweed to attract caterpillars which eventually become beautiful monarch butterflies.
And the sad thing is, if we don’t get back to planting wild flowers that attract the bugs and the caterpillars we will finally lose our ability to grow food since these insects are the pollinators which make our vegetables and fruits grow and produce.
She had a slideshow presentation to show us how beautiful completely native gardens could be – so absolutely lovely. And if you own acreage, leave part of it as wild, not as a mowed lawn; this is where the insects exist.
Well Ms. Zebrick left us with wanting to remove all our flower gardens and plant native, wild flowers, especially milkweed to be the breeding grounds for some not-so-pretty caterpillars but whose life cycle grows into an awesomely painted monarch butterfly!
If you ever have the chance to hear Patty Zebrick speak, you may want to join the “Wild Ones” chapter in St. Tammany. Look it up on the internet … I promise you it will be one of the most interesting talks about native plants and wildflowers you’ll ever hear!
President Jennifer Allen then called the meeting to order. Chaplain Mary Thornhill said the opening prayer, and the membership stated the Pledge of Allegiance. A copy of the minutes by Secretary Karen Granier had been sent out and voted on, and all were in favor. Juanita Pearson then gave the treasurer’s report in the absence of Phyllis diBenedetto.
Jennifer called on Phyllis Mire to announce the winner of the Garden of the Month which she said was awarded to Michael and Rachel Rogers of East Charles Street.
Phyllis said the gardens were wonderful as were the lawn and yard. She called on Mona Crapanzano for the Link Award, which Mona said was awarded to Dr. Megan Currier on West Morris; she said that the property, which contains a new building, is beautifully landscaped.
In the absence of Pat Graves, who is the committee chair of the Second Annual Arts In Bloom, Jennifer reported for her that it was a wonderful event.
So many things were part of that event, like a Barbershop Quartet singing all over downtown Hammond, some great plays, the fantastic flower lectures, the spectacular judged flower arrangements; everything seemed to go as planned and is ready to go again next year.
During the course of the meeting, which was held at Oak Knoll Country Club, Mary Monteleone’s staff served the meals we had ordered to the beautifully decorated dining room, tables dressed in white linen cloths with navy and white runners topped with a simple green plant in the center. Food as usual was enjoyed by all as was the comradery after with our friends.
I want to leave you with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who among many other things, was a poet and a predictive champion of the pressures of society. This was in a copy of Southern Lady magazine:
“I awoke this morning with great thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
I hope we all can awake each morning with this same thought. We should always be grateful for having friends; sometimes they even take the place of family.
The Hammond Garden Club is a proud member of District VI, Louisiana Garden Club Federation Inc. and the Deep South Garden Clubs Inc. We are doing our best to unify and beautify our homes, gardens, our city and our nation every day to the best of our ability.
God bless America, and God bless the City of Hammond!
by Linda Broussard
she is a member of the Hammond Garden Club