PROGRAM: Orchids Around the World

Presented by…Gene Crocker – Orchid Hybridizer and former Vice President of Carter and Holmes Orchids, Newberry, SC

Back To Basics….Things I’ve Learned About Hybridizing and Growing Daylilies Since 1970 – Gene Crocker

Garden Hints for January • Clean daylily beds removing all dead foliage, cutting back any green foliage and destroying it. This is recommended to help control rust. • Keep flowerbeds weeded and mulched before the winter weeds set seed. Apply a pre-emergent herbicide to prevent new growth. Preen or Snapshot (Treflan) works well on daylily beds. • Check plants for labels and rewrite or replace as necessary. • Design new flowerbeds and re-design existing ones on paper. This is the time to dream. • Map out the location of cultivars to be planted and make labels. This saves a lot of stress when those new plants arrive. • Check out catalogs as they arrive and order plants, seeds, and supplies. • Turn garden soil over during deep cold of winter to expose any insect larvae. • Take soil sample now and avoid the spring rush. • Prune summer flowering woody ornamentals such as butterfly bush, crepe myrtle, vitex, althea, etc. Muscadine and grape vines should be pruned now. • Fertilize spring bulbs as soon as tips emerge from the ground with 3 pounds of 5-10-10 per 100 square feet of bulb bed. • Fertilize pansies every two weeks with liquid fertilizer such as 20-20-20 and keep spent blooms removed. Blood meal is excellent fertilizer for pansies and helps keep rabbits and deer away! • Add fragrance to your landscape by planting one of the great shrubs with seasonal fragrance such as winter Daphne, wintersweet, winter honeysuckle and Edgeworthia.

Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod and waits to see it push away the clod, He Trust In God…Elizabeth Y. Case

The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies…Gertrude Jekyll

February 17, 2013

PROGRAM: Horticulture 201

Presented by…Jim Young H. L. Shealy Feed & Seed, Gilbert SC

Back To Basics….

Garden Hints for February

 Remove winter mulch from roses, prune and replace mulch with fresh organic covering such as mushroom compost.

 Prune established blueberry bushes, cutting back to four or five main stems.

 Last call to cut off old foliage on liriope and ornamental grasses before new growth appears.

 Fertilize evergreen shrubs and trees with a good slow-release fertilizer such as 16-4-8.

 Start a collection of gallon-sized milk jugs. Washed, with bottoms cut off, they make cheap hot caps for young tomato and pepper plants if cold weather threatens after you plant them this spring.

Anticipation is one of the joys of gardening and if you know how and where to look you can find signs of each season long before the calendar confirms it…Nancy Goodwin

March 17, 2013

Program: The Hybridizing Program of John, Faye and Elizabeth Shooter

Presented by…John Shooter Marietta Gardens Fairmont NC

Back To Basics….

Garden Hints for March • Early in the month, apply a complete fertilizer such as 10-10-10 or 8-8-8 as daylilies break dormancy. Better yet, use a slow release fertilizer such as 16-4-8 which will slowly release over a period of three to nine months. Use ¼ to ½ cup per clump depending on size. Work into the soil, away from the crown. • Fertilize emerging perennials lightly with a handful of 5-10-5 encircling each plant or mulch with old horse manure or mushroom compost. • Plant cannas, dahlias, gladioli and caladiums after threat of frost. • Dig and divide those daylily clumps that need it and any other perennials that you did not get to last fall. Use 3 to 5 divisions of each cultivar placed close together to make a good show the first year. • Plant new ground covers where grass is difficult or impossible to grow. In sunny Areas, low growing sedums make an attractive display. In the shade, cultivate a moss garden. It will usually appear in acidic soil in the shade anyway. • Apply pre-emergent crabgrass prevention to the lawn before the dogwood trees bloom.

Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful: They are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul…Luther Burbank

April 21, 2013

Program… Browns Ferry Gardens Georgetown SC Hybridizing with Charles and Heidi Douglas and Gene Tanner

Presented by…..Charles and Heidi Douglas

Back to Basics….

Garden Hints for April  Early in the month, spray daylily foliage with water soluble fertilizer. This can be repeated at 2 week intervals throughout the blooming season. Add one ounce per gallon of liquid seaweed or fish emulsion for trace elements and ½ ounce liquid soap as a wetting agent. Keep beds free of weeds. Use a good heavy mulch of 3 to 4” of old partially composted leaves, pinestraw, wheat straw, etc., to discourage weeds. Any weeds that do manage to germinate will be easy to pull out.  If rain is not plentiful, water daylilies to depth of six inches or one inch of water per week. Soaker hoses are very efficient. Remember that water is the single most important element to producing good daylily blooms.  Begin to pinch mums monthly until August to keep plants compact.  Prune azaleas and camellias and fertilize with 5-10-5 for acid loving plants as soon as they finish flowering.

To grow daylilies is to love them. And to love them is to want as many different varieties as possible…….sooo beware!! If you are susceptible to their attractions, daylilies can rule your garden and, sometimes , your life….SydneyEddison

May 19, 2013

Picnic and Auction

TYLER GARDENS Elaine and Walt Tyler Blythewood SC

Hosted by…. Members bring a picnic friendly covered dish. Paper products and beverages provided by May hostess committee

Annual Plant Auction

Garden Hints for May

Continue the fertilizer program started in April and be sure to water regularly.

Check your newly planted daylily purchases as they bloom to be sure they are the cultivars you purchased. If not the plants you ordered, let the grower know. Remember that first bloom is generally not as large or as tall as it will be when established.

Keep your garden weed-free and remove spent blooms from the daylilies unless you are hybridizing. A well-groomed garden is less prone to disease and harmful insects.

After bearded iris finish blooming, remove spent bloom stalks with a sharp knife flush with the top of the rhizome on a dry hot day so the cut will heal. Do not cut off leaves. This will sap the accumulating energy of the plant.

Stay on the lookout for bagworms on evergreens, particularly arborvitae and junipers. Cut off the bags with scissors or knife and discard in the trash.

To get things off to a good start, one qualification for life membership in the gardening fraternity is banishment of the word “dirt”. The substance you dig and plant in – the good earth – is called “soil”. Dirt is what you wash off your face. Joan Lee Faust

September 15, 2013

Program: Tom Bruce Carolina Daylilies Lexington SC

Back To Basics….

Covered Dish Luncheon – Members bring your favorite covered dish. Paper products will be provided by the club.

Garden Hints for September  Repair or rework daylily beds correcting soil ph to slightly acid at 6.3. Follow directions from soil test. Add plenty of organic matter such as mushroom compost, finely ground bark, rotted manure, your own compost, peat moss, etc. Cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal, bloodmeal and bonemeal are all good slow release organic nutrients which can also be added to improve the soil.  Divide overgrown daylily clumps and replace each with two or three fans. Plant 18 to 24 inches apart with at least 6 hours of sunlight. Be sure to plant with no more than one inch of soil over the crown.  Fertilize established cultivars early in the month. Use about ¼ cup of 5-10-5 per clump.

The late summer garden has a tranquility found no other time of the year… William Longgood -

The spontaneous energies of the earth are a gift of nature, but they require the labors of man to direct their operation…. Thomas Jefferson

October 20, 2013

PROGRAM: Therrien-Zahler Gardens Conway SC

Presented by…Ed Zahler and Duane Therrien

Back To Basics….

Annual Plant Swap

Please bring plants to swap, no daylilies please. Perennials, Shrubs, Trees, Seeds Be sure to put in a container and label.

Garden Hints for October

• Transplant seedlings from flats to garden early this month. Tag for identification. Cull any that do not have a good root system. Continue to water while new growth is evident. • Cut shrub and tree roots invading flower beds. • Dig and divide perennials. • Fertilize clematis, hellebores and dianthus with lime. Fertilize deciduous flowering trees and shrubs with 0-20-20 and established bulb beds with 5-10-5. • Begin to plant early spring bulbs, enriching the soil with cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal and 0-46-0 or 5-10-5 when planting. • Rake leaves and straw to use as mulch or to add to your compost pile. • Clear out all vegetable crops that have finished producing and place in compost pile. Destroy any diseased plants. Clean and store cages and stakes used with tomato plants, peppers, etc. Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn. Elizabeth Lawrence Not a gardener has crossed my path whose work or advice has not in some way enriched me, and each encounter has created an indelible bond of friendship, of experience shared…Pamela Jones

November 17, 2013

Program: Favorite Daylilies 0f 2013 - Power Point Presentation of Club Members Favorite Daylilies

Presented by…Gene Crocker …..Please submit your entries to Gene at twocrockers@gmail.com or give CD to Gene at September or October meeting

Back To Basics….

Annual Photo Contest

Complete contest rules on next page.

Garden Hints for November  Remove dead foliage from daylilies as they die back. Move labels closer to the crowns so that you can easily find them under the mulch in the spring.  Shred leaves and twigs to use later in the winter as a mulch or add to the compost pile.  Winter months of Nov., Dec., Jan. and Feb. are the very best time to plant new trees and shrubs or move existing ones.  Sow seeds of poppies, larkspur and other hardy wildflowers in your flowerbeds for bloom next spring and summer.  Plant pansies and snapdragons to ensure they get well established before cold weather hits.  Cut off canna plants to just about ground level, especially if your plants were infested by leafroller insects. Remove all the debris because this is where the dormant insects would spend the winter.

In summertime one never really knows how beautiful are the forms of deciduous trees. It is only in winter, when they are bare of leaves, that one can fully enjoy their splendid structure and design…Gertrude Jekyll

December 8, 2013

Annual Christmas Party And Chinese Auction

GIFTS: Please bring a garden-related gift valued at between $15 and $20 for the Chinese Auction.

Covered Dish Dinner

All members please bring a covered dish. The Club will furnish paper products and utensils. December Hostess Committee will furnish beverages, tablecloths and table arrangement.

Garden Hints for December Check plants on warm winter days for aphids which can be resistant to cold. Spray with Safer’s Insecticidal Soap, malathion or diazinon. Renew membership to AHS and local clubs. Continue to remove and compost all dead plant material which can harbor insects and diseases during the winter. Keep wet leaves off your grass. Matted, wet leaves will kill those precious blades this winter. It is not too late to plant spring bulbs.

…..I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Luke 2: 10 & 11

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!