Gardening - such a happy peaceful pastime. It starts with following people like your grandparents around watching them as they tend, with loving hearts, that sunny colourful oasis where you love to play. A few years go by and you move to your first home with what seems like a mere pocket handkerchief of a back garden. With your heart beating fast, off you go to the local garden centre where you purchase your first plants - just a few - a couple of perennials and a rosebush say. So easy - dig 3 holes and stick them in. Just like Grandma. Then it starts --- you look at your new garden with critical eyes. “Well, I’m going to need some compost, a cushion grip spade, a trowel, some gloves, some knee pads and a hose. And then, a pruner and shears for the rose. And I’m thinking there’s so much more space, I could put in a whole new flower bed. The Cohasset Three H’s as Eric calls them - hosta, hemerocallis (day lilies) and a hydrangea or two. For the next few days you are extremely happy. You go out and talk to your new plants, you revel in the beauty you created --- until you find the yellow leaf. “I think my pH may be off” you mutter. Once more, you grab the car keys and leave, returning an hour later with your boot full again. It means so much more to deal with a setback than dealing with success - shows what you are made of. “I got a moisture meter, some root feed, and this forty-tests-in-one soil tester. I want to make sure my soil acid is high enough and that my potash is correct.” All is well once more --- until you find the hole in a leaf. “Oh no, those pesky, pestilent pests. They’re eating the leaves and my plants will die” you scream in anguish. You grab the car keys again and dash out the door. Soon you are back, once more unloading the car ... Finally when it’s

so dark you can’t see any more you come in - you haven’t showered; your clothes are dirty; your hairstyle is ... unusual. Does any of this sound familiar? To misquote President Kennedy - “I realise that the pursuit of a perfect garden is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war, but we have no more urgent task.” Being president of a garden club is much the same. There is always something more you can do to make things even more perfect. (Is there a standard beyond perfection you ask? Of course there is - at least in a

garden and it’s accompanying garden club.) And it’s because we’re gardeners that we increased Junior Gardeners to 30 kids, but that wasn’t enough so we started an after school garden club at the middle school and we’re helping create a courtyard garden and school wide

composting project at the high school. Whether they realise it or not, all those kids

are being brainwashed by you. Those times spent with you gardeners, whether in the garden or the canteen, will stay with them through their lives and will influence them in their turn to become gardeners and to care for the global garden in which they will live their lives. At the other end of the age scale, we added another set of Garden Therapy programmes for a different set of seniors. And it goes without saying, that we’re planning for a new garden for the seniors too. A very happy moment was the wonderful March workshop with our juniors where several of you taughtthem how to look at a book and interpret it using flowers. You staged a Books in Bloom for them in the school library and The Mariner devoted a whole page of the newspaper to it.

COMMUNITY GARDEN CLUB the

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Then we staged our own Books in Bloom at the Paul Pratt Library, where several of you who have never done something like this before, exhibited for the first time with arrangements of great imagination and artistry. That was such a very pleasing moment, made even more special when more than a third of our juniors wanted to exhibit too, complete with bright turquoise flowers, liberally sprinkled with glitter and unseen in nature. This time, we made the front page of The Mariner. Whether it’s the plant sale growing ever more professional each year - and this year’s was outstanding and raised the most money ever - or the Yuletide House Tour where nothing short of excellent will do - and our last one was so fantastic I’m still receiving compliments about it - everything we have done together has been fabulous. Gob smacking as my fellow countrymen might say. I’m told that our President’s Luncheon is one of the most popular in the district as it is always of such a high standard - warm and welcoming, very hospitable, and gracious. Even our club’s history project, finally completed this year, brightens a corner of the Historical Society’s dull and dusty shelves with bright pink, orange and glittery green files. A sign of how successful we are as a club, but much more importantly, how much fun we have, is the number of new members who have joined us in these last few years, bringing with them their energy and vitality and lots of new

ideas and suggestions. Already they are following the lead of our longer serving members and throwing themselves into and helping lead our many activities. It is wonderful watching this happen and seeing our club blossom and bloom. We have thought about our projects carefully and worked our fingers to the bone to achieve a standard way beyond perfection. We make the choice to work together, to do something that engages our hearts as well as our minds - or our backs in many cases. Together, we work hard, we are warm, kind and loving to each other and, as a result, amazing things have happened. Together we have accomplished much. I have found that life as your president has been an improvisation. I often had no idea what was going to happen next, but together we made it work as we went along. Thank goodness I had such a wonderful set of supporters and advisors on the board and amongst all of you. Together, with furrowed brows, we have blithered and blathered our way through the complexities of life in a garden club, accompanied every step of the way with laughter. I have laughed until I cried. I have laughed so much this past two years, it will be my abiding memory of my time as president of your garden club. It’s been a great privilege to be your president for these last two years. Thank you all so very much for such a very precious gift. Linda

Summer Gardening at the LightkeepersBy Terese D’Urso

Did you know that our club maintains gardens on the grounds of the Government Island Historic District (1994) on the National Register of Historic Places? Twenty years ago our club installed the seaside garden according to a plan by landscape designer Peggy Connors of Duxbury. Today our club maintains three gardens on the site. Our garden club landscaping committee began working in the gardens a few weeks ago, after the Lightkeepers Corporation completed their annual spring cleanup of the grounds. The committee will work from 9 - 11:00 on Wednesday, May 28 and will continue every other Wednesday until October 1. The dates are: June 11 and 25, July 9 and 23, August 6 and 20, September 3 and 17, and October 1. Please join in on the fun and get to know your fellow GC members. Wear sunscreen and a hat, and bring your gloves, a weeding tool, pruning shears, and a pail. Please note that all new members are expected to work at least 4 hours a year on club landscaping projects plus 6 hours on other club projects. All regular members are expected to work at least 10 hours a year on club projects. The following members have garden service hours to complete:

Karen AherneKim AndrewHelen ArnoldNancy AuensonBerit RightmireJane Corriveau

Maura CosentinoSarah DuffieldElizabeth DurantKelly FricanoSusan GilmoreAnn Helbock

Grace KerriganElizabeth KissickMelanie LelioTania McCannJayne MedwidBecky O'Connor

Eileen PackardAnne QuintinPat RanneyDana RobertsMary Ward

If you are unable to complete your service hours on Wednesdays, please contact Terese at 781-383-1143 or tdurso@aol.com to arrange an alternate time. Thank you.

Thank you all for another great year of contributions (pictures, articles, cartoons, recipes, words of horticultural wisdom, etc.) to the newsletter. A special thanks goes to Mary Eisenhaure who edits the NL each month so it all makes sense. I look forward to working with all of you for another 2 years. Have a great summer, and remember, when you see something you think will be of interest to fellow members, send it my way. ! ! ! Pat

Honorary member, Owen Clark, is dancing for joy over the amendments to the bylaws. He is an honorary member because he attends more meetings than most of the members.

Garden Therapy by Dolores Roy

Thank you to all the club m e m b e r s w h o participated in Garden Therapy programs these past two years. Your commitment, your help and your conversation and caring brightened the day for the residents w h o c a m e t o o u r monthly sessions.

Craft Workshopsby Judy Dickstein

I've heard from a number of people that there’s a good deal of interest in continuing Craft Workshops. If you are one of those people I'd like to hear from you. Since no one is interested in chairing the program, we could organize a cooperative group where one or two ( or more) people would lead one workshop out of the year. If you have an interest in keeping crafts alive, let Judy Dickstein know and we can meet to organize the program. Judyd617@comcast.net

Fran O’Toole Herb Garden at Glastonbury Abbey

The 2014 Presidents' Awards winners are as follows:

Tish Trophy - Gretchen SheetsBarbara Dillon Award for Horticulture (The Dillon Digger) - Judy DicksteinLee Drew & Dolores Roy Community Cup - Barb Canney

Citations of Merit:Maureen Adams - unsung heroPat Cammett - newsletter Lee Drew - house tourMartha Gjesteby - long & tireless service to the clubJulie Hess - junior gardenersGail Saccone - club's history & service to the club

Congratulations!

!

Conservation Notes by Adrienne DuBois

! A big thanks to all of the garden club members who heeded many of our conservation recommendations. Some of you scheduled MASS SAVE (866-527-7283) energy audits, others started using green cleaning products for personal and home use (Shaklee cleaning products – D&D Healthy Solutions: Donna Jewett at 508-563-5617), others bought rain barrels, compost bins, took their used pills to police stations, recycled plastic bags and in doing so became stewards of our earth. ! Please note that ferryboat service will begin running on weekends into Boston from Hingham Shipyard starting on Memorial Day and going through Columbus Day weekend. Let’s make a concerted effort to use the boats this summer. The MBTA needs to recognize our interest in getting cars off the road. Have a great summer.

Field Trip to Art In Bloomby Claire Tinory

! On Monday, 28 April, fifteen members went to Art in Bloom at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Beautiful floral interpretations of art were on display by many garden clubs and professional designers. The gorgeous triplet of topiaries to the left was supplied by our own Dana Roberts. ! Some members also attended a floral demonstration and lecture by Emily Thompson, based in New York City, whose innovative arrangements combine her love of nature with classic ornamental design. Her designs are shown on the next page. ! An Elegant Tea was enjoyed in the most elegant “Koch Gallery” of the museum. Thank you to all who drove. It was a great field trip on a rare beautiful day.

Emily Thompson DesignsArt In Bloom

Plant Sale 2014 Memories

The Garden Club of NagoyaActivity Report of May 2014

! Our May general meeting was a field trip to Mikata Goko (grouping of five lakes) located on the east shore of Wakasa Bay Quasi-National Park in Fukui Prefecture. The Bay has beautiful, saw-toothed coastlines with water that is amazingly clean and clear because there are no major rivers feeding into it. Goko means ‘five lakes’ with sizes between 2.6 to 0.6 square miles. All lakes are connected with a narrow channel or a canal. This is the most popular scenic site in the park which is about one hundred miles northeast of Nagoya. The famed beauty of seasonal change at these lakes is described in the ancient anthology of “ Manyoshu” compiled in 759 A.D.! In 2005 they were registered under the “Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as

Waterfowl Habitat”, which is designated to protect important wetlands worldwide. Each of these five lakes has a different water quality and depth, displaying five various colors. These colors change in each season and they are therefore called “the lakes of five colors”. The waters in each exhibit different salinity characteristics, such as fresh, salt or brackish. !

CGCC221 Massachusetts Avenue #1018Boston, MA 02115

! The lakes also play an important role as wintering habitat for more than 10,000 water-birds including Steller’s sea eagles and White-tailed sea eagles. Since 1993 Lake Suigetsu (“water moon lake”) has been attracting the attention of scientists because of the undisturbed sediment layers on the lakebed revealing climate change history which goes back more than 50,000 years. The only inflow to Lake Suigetsu is through a shallow channel from the neighboring Lake Mikata and there is little outflow. Consequently only the finest sediment comes into the lake, thus it is possible to identify the annual deposits of silt in a similar manner that tree rings are identified. Since 2006 an international project team of English, German and Japanese scientists led by Associate Prof. Nakagawa of Newcastle University, England, has been carrying out academic research on this special lake. In July 2012 Lake Suigetsu was reported in the journal Science as a ”New Radiocarbon Yardstick” and allows for more accurate carbon dating back as far as 52,800 years ago. Recalibrations using Lake Suigetsu sediments is now considered the world standard.!! Many remains from Japan’s prehistory (The Jomon Period, 13,000-300 B.C.) have been found around Mikatagoko, including Torihama shell-mound dwelling structures, which show that Mikatagoko area was an ideal environment for those early people. ! Our chartered bus trip provided us with beautiful, panoramic views of the lakes and Japan Sea. From the lake center we got on board a cruising boat for an hour and enjoyed the surrounding scenery. While cruising we saw a few herons standing at the water’s edge. 　! After lunch at a cozy lakeside hotel restaurant commanding another scenic view of the Bay Park, we traveled on the Saba Kaido, the old Mackerel Highway, which runs from the City of Obama via Kumagawa Juku to Kyoto. Since ancient times the seafood caught on the Sea of Japan has been carried to Kyoto on this road, hence it’s name. Kumagawa Juku, a town on the Macherel Highway, was an important post town for traffic and military strategy and was exempted from taxes by the ancient district lord. As a result, the ancient town prospered and resulted in over 200 houses being built along the highway. Kumagawa Juku is now designated as one of the National Preservation Groups of Historic Buildings. We stepped back in time to the Edo era while walking around the town with no electricity or telephone poles. The murmur of the Maekawa River running nearby was very soothing.! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Takako Kohri ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Recording Secretary