Oakland Garden Club News

Twelve members of the Oakland Garden Club met in the Rosen room at the Oakland auditorium at 2:00 p.m., on Thursday March 12.

Hostesses Tammy Waters and Cathi McMurtry decorated with a shamrock table runner on front desk with green candle with wrapper at base with Irish symbols, green & white butterflies and served a green poke cake cake with green whipped cream.

Members gave pledge to the American flag and read the Garden Club Creed from their handbooks. Each member answered roll call by naming a blue flower they had grown. Bachelor button and iris were the most frequently mentioned.

Cathi McMurtry read the minutes from the February meeting. Treasurer Audrey Unwin the treasury balance as the same as February but with membership dues not yet deposited.

For old business, Audrey Unwin reported that she had provided coffee for this meeting but would buy a decorated canister of ½ caffeine coffee, mark it and put in the kitchen for Garden Club.

In new business, Lela Heineman announced a change in the schedule. The April lesson will be moved to September, and the April meeting will feature Ina Glaubius who will give tips and tricks for photographing flowers, birds, and insects, She has won awards for her work at the NE State Fair and will be bringing some of her works for display. The public is invited to attend this activity.

Debbie Rosenboom reported on a meeting of representatives of organizations in Oakland planning for the 150 anniversary in 2018 of the founding of Oakland. They are looking for a catchy slogan to promote it and also want each organization to plan how best to prepare for it. The big promotion will be for Memorial Day weekend when many people traditionally return for family and school reunions. The suggestion for the Garden Club was that with advance notice they could have the park beds looking fantastic by the end of May in 2018. Audrey Unwin suggested that that meant planting tulips. Rosenboom reminded members that this was separate from the Swedish festival and did not need to include Swedish flowers. Also, she reminded them to be thinking of possible slogan or slogans.

It was reported at the Chamber of Commerce meeting of the expense of insurance for the gator for watering pots on the main avenue. Deb Rosenboom wondered if the Garden Club could use it for watering at the park as the many hoses were heavy to drag to flower beds. We will ask Michael Nissen about insurance cost for that. Audrey Unwin moved and Tammy Waters seconded that we donate $100.00 to the Chamber of Commerce for the pots and their watering on Oakland Avenue. The motion carried.

Audrey Unwin reported that Sean Linder wondered if we could put sprinklers in the park flower beds. Audrey Unwin will ask Linder to check into cost for doing so.

Members commented on the bed next to the gazebo originally built by Boy Scouts who tended it for about two years. The entire bed needs torn apart and rebuilt. It might possibly have a layer of RR ties underneath it.

Lela Heineman moved and Laverne Osterndorff seconded that we provide a single rose in bud vase at the funerals of Doris Anderson and Laurine Bush, long members of Garden Club. The motion carried.

Audrey Unwin reported that the Burt County Fair may be requiring all entries to the fair be made on Thursday night so that the judges could complete judging Friday morning and the exhibits be open to the public on Friday afternoon.

Laverne Osterndorff and Lela Heineman gave a $10.00 donation for Lorine Bush.

Marie Daubert presented an old clipping mentioning blackberry lily some had asked about. It has now been classified as an iris, but after blooming its fruit and berry look like a blackberry. It dates back not just to George Washington’s estate but also is found in Chinese literature of 25 A.D. A hot new trend is planting succulents. Mix up types and shapes in your planters for attractive gardens.

She read about buying newer plants disease resistant and mildew resistant, and also said that butternut was more resistant to squash bug infestation than other squashes because of their strong stems squash vine borers couldn’t penetrate. A looming threat is the emerald ash borer. Its infestation is nearly impossible to detect until it is too late to save the tree. It is spread by people moving trees and firewood. The beetles can fly about ½ mile. A professional preventative treatment for an average size tree would cost about $100.00.

Members read the Garden Club Benediction, and Audrey Unwin gave the lesson on Swedish flowers. The national flower of Sweden is the Linnea Borealis or Twinflower, a delicate wildflower about 1 inch high, smelling of vanilla, and growing in the forests which cover over half of Sweden. The flower is named after Swedish Carl Linnaeus, the man who 300 years ago developed the taxonomy or system of classifying plants and animals, a taxonomy used today relatively unchanged.

Sweden has big countryside with the landscape wide and open even in cities with fruit, vegetable and nursery stock in the open. Pot plants, cut flowers, and bedding plants and herbs are grown under glass. Sweden historically had 25 provinces that now have no administrative function, but remain historical legacies and the means of cultural identification and used in colloquial speech while administration is reduced to a lower number of counties.

Each province has two flowers or plants representing it. Each was assigned one, but in cases where they did not like the assigned one, they picked another. Eventually, each province gained two representative plants—assigned or chosen. By seeing the English common name, you will recognize most of them as plants or flowers growing here. Listed first is the traditional province name, then the plant. Blekinge: English oak and great mullein. Bohuslan: honeysuckle. Dalarna: Scottish blackbell and spreading bell flower. Dalsland: true forget-me-not. Gotland: English ivy. Gastrikland: lily of the valley. Halland: creeping broom gold. Halsingland: common flax. Harjedalen: pasque flower and Alpine yellow violet. Jamtland: black vanilla orchid. Lappland: white dryad. Medelpad: Norway spruce and globe flower. Norrbotten: Arctic raspberry. Narke: cowslip. Skane: oxeye daisy. Smaland: twinflower. Sodermanland: European white water lily. Uppland: Kings meadow lily. Varmland: chickweed & Arctic starflower. Vasterbotten: lousewort. Vastergotland: shrub heather. Vastmanland: European mistletoe. Angermanland: viola tricolor. Oland: hoary-rock rose. Ostergotland: cornflower or bachelor button.

Cathi McMurtry, Secretary