Our garden club met at the Union Bridge Community Center in November. Our hostesses were Vicki, Marjorie and Judy who were riffing off the theme of the November program: Honey Bees. The arrangements were made of natural found materials like dried teasels and native milkweed plus some pops of seasonal flower color. and were pronounced to be very appropriate to the season plus we very much admired the design of the containers.
The ladies made a feast with sliced ham, pineapple casserole, southwestern bean salad and a veggie platter plus cornbread.
The desserts were quite clever with the little bee toppers!
Vicki, who was the lead hostess, went so far as paint this wonderful picture to go with the theme!
For horticulture, several people brought plants to show: kalanchoes, alstromeria, Schlumbergera truncata (Thanksgiving cactus) and a red Amaryllis. Another item of interest was described as Jewels of Opar (Talinium paniculatum) which has pink flowers and an interesting seed pod.
People also brought in their favorite tools: a bucket with pockets to hold tools, a couple of mattocks (one from the World Wars), a hand trowel, garden claws with varied handle lengths, swiss knife pruner, a drill for planting daffodil bulbs and a collapsible bench. Another person said their favorite tool was a golf cart!
Brenda brought in a humongous leaf from her ten foot tall castor bean plant!
The program was all about honey bees. My camera battery died so thank you to President Terry for making her photos available to the blog.
Our presenter was Larry Truchon, the President of Carroll County Beekeeping Association and EAS Certified Master Beekeeper with his wife Margo assisting.
He gave a very interesting talk which discussed how the bees differentiate their roles, about the physiology of bees and how hives are utilized. He and his wife brought honey for us to taste which was quite delicious.
These are just a few of the illustrative slides he had prepared for us.
