Christmas is Coming!

We're looking forward to our holiday luncheon December 10 (remember it starts at 11AM).  And we'd be remiss if we didn't invite you to share our website archives at 2015 Web Archive on the Resources page; we've also put a link to the 2015 Archive in the home page sidebar under Home Page Posts & Archives.  This month, look for our article, A Break from the Holiday Hoopla, in the Creekline and Honey in the Mornin', Honey in the Evenin' in this month's St. Johns Sun.  See all our published articles at Our Published Articles in the sidebar on the About Us page.

Don't forget to shop 'til you drop!  (Just kidding.)  But if you want to shop and support FFGC or NGC, see the  Support Our Affiliated Organizations section on the Resources page.

Now's the time for thinking about those New Year's Resolutions.  Here's one you might consider:

Get involved in a National Garden Clubs affiliated garden club and enjoy events like those at the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs.  If you are interested in joining our garden club, why not be our guest at a few meetings?  See our Meetings and Events section at our website, and if you'd like to participate in an activity just contact us using the email address provided.  We want to have enough space (and enough munchies) for you.  Ask for or download our Membership Application if you'd like to become a member.  We saving a seat for you!

In The Garden and in the Kitchen - Happy Thanksgiving!

The month of November took us to the Westminster Woods Community Garden, courtesy of St. Johns County Master Gardener, Jerrel Powell.  Jerrel has done something pretty special to take the sweat out of gardening.  He has installed a vertical hydroponic garden system.  After explaining the science behind the hydroponic garden, we enjoyed a visit to the garden where residents were growing anything from flower, to herbs, to some really amazing vegetables.  See the photos at the end of this article.

During our business meeting Arlene shared her latest visit to Julington Creek Elementary in her Junior Gardening report.  Sarah discussed the Florida Water and Land Legacy and the need to keep the pressure on our legislators to honor that commitment.  Mickey updated the club on the Monarch Butterfly Committee's accomplishments; see Year End Report from Butterfly-Monarch Conservation Committee.

November's bounty inevitably leads us to the kitchen, and our president, Claire Fioriti, gave us some inspiration when she served up her roasted kale chips at the meeting.  See our our Holiday and Any Day Recipes posting on the Resources page for her recipe and for other ways to use local and seasonal produce.  Our Publicity Chair, Dianne Battle, wrote an article, Honey in the Mornin' Honey in the Evenin' for her Master Gardener column in the December 2015 St. Johns Sun on her  adventures on Tour de Farm and shared an unusual cookie recipe.

Click on the Read More >> link below to see some holiday ideas that support our affiliated garden clubs.  Don't forget to enjoy the pictures of our visit to Westminster Woods Garden!

Saturiwa: A Habitat for Longleaf Pine and Monarchs!

In October we enjoyed a trip to Saturiwa.  Mike Adams, the owner, was gracious enough to take some of our white aquatic milkweed plants to establish a Monarch Waystation on his property this summer (see the milkweed in the photo).   This milkweed (also called white swamp milkweed) is a moisture-loving native perennial.  It seems to enjoy the spot its occupying and we'll have to wait and see how it does next year.  We will cross our fingers because there are no guarantees in nature.

Read about Saturiwa and our November field trip to Westminster Woods community garden in our Events posting from September.  Read about Monarch Waystations  in our home page posting for September, "Protecting Our Pollinators!" which includes a link to the September 2015 Issue of The Creekline, "Monarchs on the Brink."   They will tell you about the Garden Club’s project to reintroduce native milkweed to our area and establish Monarch Waystations. 

 And October isn’t October without a few festivals.  The District IV GardenFest was at the St. Johns County Extension Center this year, with Doris and Claire ably manning our table.  And we also participated in Old Settlers Day at Alpine Groves Park.   Thank you new member, Misty, for running this event!

November will find us in Westminster Woods exploring the vertical hydroponic system that Master Gardener Jerrel Powell installed in their community garden.  In December, the club will be celebrating Christmas with a luncheon at Town Center.  It’s truly an out-and-about season for us!

Protecting Our Pollinators!

Our program year begins this month, and we're looking forward to an autumn filled with exciting field trips and enjoyable events.  See what's ahead by browsing our Events and Calendar page posting, "Hittin' the Road October and November."

But don't think we've been on vacation this summer!  Our pollinators are in trouble.  So much trouble that one species, the American monarch butterfly, may be listed as an endangered species by the end of this year.  Our Monarch Committee was busy this summer learning about butterflies, contributing to the general store of knowledge about them, and providing native milkweed habitat for the monarch in particular.

In June we held our first butterfly count in Alpine Groves Park as part of the NABA 4th of July Butterfly Count.  We published our adventure, Butterflies Count, in the local Creekline, and wrote a follow-up article, How High Does the Swallowtail Fly? for the August edition on how to identify the butterflies commonly found in this area of the county.  Our companion posting at this website, Butterflies, Our Blog, and a Full Moon, features a slideshow of the butterflies that call our Freedom Butterfly Garden home.

In the meantime we were scouting all available sources for native milkweed in order to create Monarch Waystations to support the monarch's life cycle.  In July we finally hit paydirt:  white aquatic milkweed (aesclepias perennis).  The article, "Monarchs on the Brink," in the September 2015 edition of the Creekline describes where and how we established these native milkweed at Trout Creek Recreation Center and at a longleaf pine farm and conservancy near Racey Point, Saturiwa.  Summer camps were still running at Trout Creek and we partnered with the county Master Naturalist, Ayolane Halusky, to explain the importance of native milkweed to monarch caterpillars.   Many of the children not only knew about the monarch butterfly lifecycle, but were also aware of its precariously low population numbers.   We were able to show them some very happy caterpillars lunching away on the milkweed we'd installed!

To find out more about Monarch Waystations and the great "Native vs. Tropical Milkweed" debate, click the More link below.

Butterflies, Our Blog, and a Blue Moon July 31st

Butterflies

The months of August, September, and October are prime viewing times for butterflies.  Our article, "How High Does the Swallowtail Fly?" featured in the August Creekline describes how to identify some of the butterflies you'll see at Alpine Groves Park, especially in the Freedom Butterfly Garden.  As a companion to the article, the author also created a slideshow featuring the many butterflies you can see at this time of year.  Click here to open the Butterflies of September posting and slideshow.  (Other slideshows are featured in the sidebar on the Awards and Projects page.)

Our Award-Winning Blog

This website is a weB-LOG, BLOG.  It and our membership brochure won us two awards from the National Garden Club.  Read about our Certificates of Merit on the Awards and Projects page.    We also won an award from the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs for our use of this blog as a newsletter.  Get a free copy of our monthly posting by subscribing.  Our first meeting is September 10 at the Bartram Trail Library, at 10AM.   Come on down and meet us for our kick-off to the season!  Email switzerlandgc@gmail.com if you'll come!

Blue Moon July 31st

This July stargazers will be treated to a rare sight:  the second full moon in the same calendar month.  In popular parlance, this event is called a "blue moon."   It will happen on July 31. 


Before 1946, the term "blue moon" had a different meaning:  the third of four full moons in an astronomical season (which is defined by the solstices and equinoxes).  Three full moons a season, is the norm, but when that third full moon is one of a series of four, it is then called the "blue moon."

A blue moon (meaning the second full moon in a month) happens on July 31, 2015.  The last time it happened was August 31, 2012, and January 31, 2018 is the next.   However, the dog days of summer include a lot of clouds and rain in the evening, and for those of us who happen to be in northern Florida on July 31 that is what we can expect on this occasion.  The best we can do is read about it and plan for the next one - in 2018.  See Blue Moon at the TimeAndDate website.    TimeAndDate, among other features, has a calendar of moonrise/moonset times and moon phases for major cities in the world.

Butterflies Count - And So Did We!

One of our Monarch Committee's projects includes is to participate in the North American Butterfly Association's (NABA) Annual "4th of July" Butterfly Count. 

 

On June 2, Mickey, Linda, Beverly, Nancy and I met at our Freedom Butterfly Garden to hold our first count.  An article on the count appears in the July 2015 Creekline; click here for a PDF version of the submittal.

What the article did not include was a detailed accounting of the species and numbers we saw in the garden and around the river, the historic farmhouse and the Ruth Bennett Garden. 

·        Giant Swallowtail:  4

·        Palamedes Swallowtail:  1

·        Spicebush Swallowtail:  1

·        Black Swallowtail:  1

·        Tiger Swallowtail:  2

·        Gulf Fritillary:  4

·        Zebra Longwing:  3

·        Phaeon Crescent:  1

Although we did not see any skippers or hairstreaks that day, these butterflies are frequent visitors to our garden, and possibly throughout the park.  Beverly told us about the Spanish Needle growing in the Freedom Garden and its importance as a nectar source over those many months when pollinators have very few blooms available.  We discussed the garden's role as a butterfly sanctuary, and as a result of her talk, I highlighted the Spanish needle in the Butterflies Count Creekline article (thanks for the editorial suggestions, Beverly).

Our team was not "charged" with counting other pollinators, larvae, or birds, but we saw some grand examples of the wildlife that can be enjoyed if we give it the space to survive. 

Nancy contributed to the effort to give our native species a chance by pulling up some invasive coral ardesia.  See the article, "GardenerBeware:  Those Charming Invasives" submitted to the St Augustine Record for publication.

We plan to expand our "counting party" next year.  Hopefully, we'll have enough participants to also survey the Julington-Durbin Preserve, which is also in our NABA Bartram Trail Butterfly Circle.  If you are interested in joining us, send us an email; use this contact info (also shown in the right column of the home page). 

For more information about the North American Butterfly Association (NABA), go to their website www.naba.org  - the links below describe the 4th of July Count and the mission of the NABA:

·        About the NABA 

·        Butterfly Count Resources

·        Frequently Asked Butterfly Count Questions 

·        US/Mexico Map of Butterfly Count Circles  

·        How to Start a New Butterfly Count  

The sources for our butterfly identifications included, "Butterflies through Binoculars,"   available for loan at the Jacksonville public library, "shadowing" trips to GTMNERR to learn about their butterflymonitoring program, and discussions with Janet Koehler, who kindly provided resources from the University of Florida that they used to start their program.  

See our other articles published in our local newspapers.

IN MEMORY OF CAROLYN C KELLIHAN

Our long-time and most dear garden club member, Carolyn Kellihan, passed away peacefully on June 18, 2015. Carolyn's serene presence was always at our meetings, and she was the very first member to renew for 2016.  Although she was quiet, you always knew that she was attentive to everything, and always gracious.

Carolyn taught elementary school for many years and retained an interest in education after her retirement.  She was an active member of her church and a true lover of animals and wildlife in general.    Our garden club was blessed to count her among us.  And the long and lasting friendships she made will always be with us.

Plans for a Celebration of Life are not complete.  Carolyn is survived by a daughter and family - Kathy, Mark, Kelly, and Travis Jones - with whom she lived.   There are several nieces and family members living in the state.

We all will miss Carolyn but take comfort in the fact that she is now free from all cares and pain.

Our May Luncheon Closes out the Season

We celebrated the close of our season with our annual pot luck buffet at Sarah Bailey's NeedMore Ranch.  The weather was idyllic and the food excellent! 

Many thanks to our members who renewed and newbies who joined the club.  Your prompt dues payment makes the membership process SO MUCH EASIER now that the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs (FFGC) has put the member roster online!  We had a drawing for an appreciation gift to those who got their dues in that day.  Carolyn won the gift of a bluebird themed shopping bag, tea towels, journal, and accessory boxes.  Very appropriately won because she was the first member to submit her dues.  Enjoy, Carolyn!

May is our last meeting until September, when our 2015-16 season begins.  In the meantime, our Monarch Committee is sponsoring our first Bartram Trail Circle NABA Butterfly Count on 6/2 at Alpine Groves Park.  Over the summer you can find us tending to the Freedom Butterfly Garden and enjoying the wildlife it supports.  Consider stopping by to see the butterflies and other pollinators enjoying a sanctuary garden just for them!  If you take a photo, or have a question, please send it along to switzerlandgc@gmail.com  With your permission, we'll feature your picture (with you as the photographer) on this website.   You can also subscribe to our site.  Then you'll get the latest updates on what our local gardeners and our wildlife in the area are up to!
 

The first meeting is at the Bartram Trail Library from 10-noon on September 10 (2nd Thursday of the calendar around July to see what we have lined up.  And, of course you can email switzerlandgc@gmail.com for more details.
month).  We traditionally do not have a guest speaker for the first meeting, but you never know.  Our Executive Committee is gathering in early June to decide the schedule of events, speakers, and activities, so stay tuned!

Happy Summer!

A Bloomin' Busy April

April just flew by with a bloomin' bouquet of activities and awards.  Our boondoggle meeting at Alpine Groves was crowned with perfect weather for business and pleasure.  Our nominating committee requested the club vote for officers for the next two years, and we accepted their recommendations, voting Claire Fioriti president, Linda Mosier vice-president, Mickey Fraser secretary, and Dianne Battle treasurer.  In preparation for the Bartram Bash, Mickey brought in some grape vine cuttings and Beverly (pictured here) and Dianne busied themselves trimming lengths of it and making wreaths for our birds-nest soup wreath making activity.  "Lucky Claire" won the bluebird windchime that was raffled off; after winning the orchid in February and the wind chime in April, Claire has also become the "Lucky" member of the garden club.  Better luck next year, Louise!

Our garden was already humming with the wings of pollinators, including this weathered monarch, sunning itself (perhaps laying eggs) on a milkweed.  The condition of its wings suggested it has over-wintered here (the season being milder-than-average) or had encountered some disturbance (probably human, given that monarch's "poisonous" nature keeps it off the wildlife menu).  
 

While Dianne was taking these photos, she had the opportunity to talk with a mother and son about the monarchs and the gulf fritillary's special affection for the passionflower vine that was leafing out.                                                                                                



                                   











Our plans for the Bartram Birthday Bash and District IV Member meeting were well met in fact.  We did ourselves proud at the Happy Birthday Bash for William Bartram and were very proud of Beverly Fleming for winning the Fellow Man and Earth Woman 2015 award from the Stetson Kennedy Foundation.  Our officers attended the District IV meeting in Callahan and received on behalf of the club the FFGC Newsletter/Magazine/Publication award and the FFGC Digital Photography Award - Butterflies for Dianne Battle's photos of butterflies in her garden and in the club's Freedom Butterfly Garden; see April Awards for Our Garden Club. 

FFGC has been on top of several environmental issues, including the Florida Water and Land Legacy Amendment, which passed last November.  It has issued two Position Statements:  Ban Hydraulic Fracturing in Florida and Reduce Marine Plastic Pollution.  They are summarized on our Taking a Position for the Environment posting in the Resources section, and can be accessed by clicking on the document links here and in the right-column News on the home page, www.switzerlandgc.org.

Our next meeting on May 14 will be the members' Spring Potluck at Sarah Bailey's Needmore Ranch.  We'll share not only the news and happenings with you, but some of our garden club members' recipes that'll make you want to become a member.  And why not join us?  Membership drive begins on 5/18 and is only $20.  Contact SwitzerlandGC@gmail.com for more information, or see our Let's Stay in Touch Link.

Eat Your Yard Jax and the Monarch Committee Takes Wing

EatYourYardJax was our guest presenter for the March meeting.  We were treated to a shopping spree featuring unusual edibles for us to "grow our own" and an array of succulents and cacti. Our guest speaker was a student at UNF studying nutrition, and she told us about some of the more exotic edibles on the cart.

We also learned how EatYourYardJax is advancing the green building movement.  They planted the rooftop garden at breakinggroundgreenroof this past spring.  The garden is also used by local Jacksonville schools as a teaching garden.  EatYourYardJax has a history of community involvement, winning a HandsOnEarth award from HandsOnJacksonville in 2013.

EatYourYardJax took over the business from Fruit Cove Cactus and Foliage, hence the unusual product combination.  We had a full house of shoppers, including guests.  Nice to meet you, Nancy, Pat, Jerrel, and Amy, and to see you back, Kelly!

Other Items

Our committees reported in.  Arlene from the Junior Gardening Committee related her experiences with Julington Creek Elementary School the prior week.   And we had happy news that the county Board of Commissioners approved historic status for Alpine Groves Park.  Congratulations to the Friends and many supporters of that initiative!   

Click for the Garden Slideshow

Inspirational
 
To welcome a new beginning in our butterfly garden, Dianne showed her slideshow of the flora and fauna in the Freedom Butterfly Garden spring/summer 2014 (please turn on your speakers for the 7-minute show).

April with the Garden Club 

Come on down next Thursday 4/9, for our annual Boondoggle and the Bartram Bash.  The Garden Club Boondoggle is our annual "al fresco" April meeting to plan for the Bartram Bash.  Weather permitting we'll be at the Butterfly Garden in Alpine Groves Park.  No speakers are planned for the meeting, but feel free to drop by.  Find out where we'll be and what we'll be doing at the Boondoggle and the Bash!


Our Monarch Committee and Other Winged Wonders

This author got a chance to tag along with the Butterfly Monitoring group at GTMNERR on 3/24.   The group does a monthly count which it submits to the Florida Butterfly Monitoring Network.  They also do annual butterfly counts and submit them to the North American Butterfly Association Butterfly Counts.   Despite the inhospitable weather, the team I was with managed to identify 11 butterflies:  5 buckeyes, 5 phaon crescents and 1 ceranus blue.  The woodland team had better luck, finding 44 butterflies.  Thanks to Janet Koehler and the volunteers at the GTMNERR Butterfly Monitoring project.

During the first meeting of our garden club's monarch committee, we  discussed doing something similiar to GTMNERR's annual count for NABA in our area.  So the count at GTMNERR was my first lesson in butterfly observing.  The skill will serve our garden club well as the monarch committee begins its work. 

Read about the first monarch committee meeting on 3/18.  Remember, you heard it here!

Romancing the Orchid

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Master Gardener, Mary Ann Bell paid us a visit escorted by her beautiful orchids.  It was a real treat and a great way to take our minds off the predicted freezing temperatures on Valentine's Eve.  Orchid lovers are passionate about their flowers, and even the most casual aficionado can't help but fall under their spell in the presence of these beguiling flowers.  Although February is not a particularly auspicious time for blooming orchids, Mary Ann did bring us a lovely sampling of different species and summarized their horticultural requirements.  She has no greenhouse so hers is truly a labor of love.  It almost seemed that we could grow them ourselves, with a little help from her group, the St. Augustine Orchid Club.

Her first topic was how the orchid got its name.  Before we explain that, let's examine the Greek myth that explains the presence of orchids.  The Greek myth tells the story of a young man, Orchis, the son of a nymph and a satyr who came upon a festival of Dionysus (Bacchus) in the forest.  He drank too much, and attempted to rape a priestess of Dionysus.   For his insult, he was torn apart by the Bacchanalians.  His father prayed for him to be restored, but the gods instead changed him into a flower.  Mary Ann did not share this story, but she did cite the word's etymology, coming from the Greek name for an organ of male anatomy that motivated Orchis' rash actions.   The bulbous roots of the orchid bear resemblance to this organ, hence the word was used to indicate the class of plants whose flowers seem irresistibly seductive.

Before you get lost in the flower show, don't forget to check out the Recent and Upcoming Events paragraph at the bottom of this posting.  We made an exploration into the natural world of birds and bones (making fossils at JCE).  And we learned about the environment and ways to protect it in the District IV's first ESS Course, The Living Earth.  On March 7th Master Gardeners Dianne Battle (GCoS member) and Mary Ann Bell (shown above) will be presenting a day of horticultural topics at the IFAS Spring Blitz.  And come on down for our March 12th meeting featuring a presentation on succulents, and an evening presentation from our sister organization, the Bartram Scenic & Historic Highway, on Archeology Along the St. Johns River.

ESS Class I, Day 2

There was a lot of interest in Deirdre Irwin's presentation on Sustainability using Green Building as a case study.   She has an in-depth presentation; click here to see the entire slideshow on Sustainability.  If there are additional questions, you can email them to switzerlandgc@gmail.com and we'll pass them along to her (and post the Q&A on this website).

Deirdre Irwin and Jennifer Gihring both work at the St Johns River Water Management District.  There is a personnel directory at the site if you need to contact them directly.

Environmental Studies School Class I, Day 1

We had some great speakers on our first day of ESS class.  Our first presenter, Kenneth Rainer, wanted to pass along these two links in answer to class questions:

1. The Value of Estuarine and Coastal Ecosystem Services
2. GTM NERR Community Oyster Shell Recycling and Living Reef Restoration Project  - Kenneth will have a better answer to the question of using oyster shells in freshwater environments after he talks with one of the subject matter experts.

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

Our garden club got started off on the right foot with a full house of guests and members looking forward to Arbor Day in Florida, January 16.  Here we are looking back over our shoulders to greet our guest speaker, Master Arborist, Chuck Lippi.  There is nobody better qualified to entertain and educate us with humanity's foibles when it comes to planting and "caring for" trees. He had photos galore of the mistakes that professional landscapers, arborists and nurserymen routinely make, all in the name of giving the paying public what it should know better than to ask for.   Bad arboriculture will never die as long as there is a buck to be made from it - especially since its effects might not show up for years. The sad truth is that Mr. Lippi has made a steady, if not princely income doing triage on abused trees.

The author has a few tales of her own, and one  has even won her a prize by exposing the barbarous practice of crepe (and other species) murders in her "pruning" exposé, "The Killing Fields in Mandarin:  Secret of Winn-Dixie Plaza" - my winning photo was featured on the front page of the 2014 Southern Living Crepe Murder Contest (please go there and Like it).  Now is the time YOU can best appreciate this year's new crop of atrocities and even photograph them.  Submit your photo to the Grumpy Gardener's 2015 Crepe Murder contest  between 2/2 and 2/21/2015.  Like me, you could win an appropriately sized crepe myrtle for your special picture like the one here.

In addition to the meeting's informative presentation by Mr. Lippi, our members were treated to Arlene's recounting of her elementary students' reaction to the Story of Pedro's Beard, a folktale about the origins of Spanish moss. The club was reminded that the Arbor Day Tree Seedling Giveaway (featuring several of our members) is on 1/16, 8:30-11AM at the Bartram Trail Library.  Claire told us that District IV of the FFGC will be installing a Blue Star Memorial Marker at Jacksonville Memorial Cemetery 1/24 at 10AM, (see our Calendar).  The St. Johns Sun published its inaugural issue with an article, "Right Tree, Right Place - The Right Thing to Do".  Carolyn won our raffle tickets to the Jacksonville Symphony - yea!!!  Beverly is back after her surgery (here she is telling us about the native Florida persimmon) and she shared her plans to install the bluebird houses we made in October - stay tuned.

While you're still here:  did you sign up for the ESS Course, The Living Earth?  By February 2, it will be too late.

This month's recycling tip:  save the beautiful cards you get from friends and family.   You can cut the pictures into interesting decorations for wreaths, ornaments, gifts, and labels.  A good family or rainy day project that your recipients will appreciate!  Send us your ideas to Reuse the Refuse!

Suggestion for the New Year:  Let's improve stewardship of our trees; plant an appropriate one or two - can you say, "free seedlings," - and practice good maintenance.  If you didn't do it twenty years ago, the second best time is now.