Town and Country Garden Club offers lecture series
COSHOCTON – With the cold and snow of an Ohio winter, many people start dreaming of spring and gardeners start preparing for this year’s gardening season. There’s no better time than now to think spring and start planning your garden with some helpful tips from experts at the first Town and Country Garden Club Garden Lecture Series.
The Coshocton Town and Country Garden Club is the oldest gardening club in Coshocton County and one of the few that are left. They currently have 18 members.
“What I like about the Town and Country Garden Club is it’s a nice mix of men and women and it focuses completely on gardening,” said Ed Kiefer, member of the club. “Some gardening clubs put emphasis on floral design, but Town and Country always has been about gardening. I have talked to other garden club members and they are always amazed that we have men in our club, and I think how we accomplish that is our programming. We have a diverse set of speakers that centers around gardening.”
This three-part garden lecture series will begin on Thursday, Jan. 11. All lectures will be at 7 p.m. in the Frontier Power Community Room. Reservations are highly suggested.
“What we wanted to do in having these lectures is letting people know that we’re still out there and we’re still viable as a club,” said Kiefer. “We also want to try to build our membership and get people out of the house on a cold day. We want people to know about Town and Country Garden Club but also we like to garden so we think this will be a nice community project. We just wanted to have a nice event.”
The lecture series is open to the public and a $5 fee is required for each lecture. The money will go into the club’s general fund. Town and Country Garden Club has a lot of community projects including maintaining plantings at the fairgrounds and the Pomerene Center for the Arts. They also upgraded the round house at the fairgrounds where the fair flower show is hosted.
The first lecture in January will be The Ohio Heritage Garden at the governor’s mansion. Guest speaker Mary Lewis of Friends of the Heritage Garden at the Mansion will share information about the history, design, and maintenance of the garden.
“This is kind of one of Ohio’s best-kept secrets,” said Kiefer. “The governor’s mansion is a beautiful place and it’s a nice place to start things off. I’m really looking forward to her talk.”
The next lecture will be Thursday, Feb. 8 and will feature Mark Miller of Franklin Park Conservatory speaking on home garden care, planting the right plant in the right place and pruning.
“If you haven’t been to the Franklin Park Conservatory, you need to go,” said Kiefer. “It’s absolutely phenomenal. I can’t say enough about it. It’s a wonderful place to go on a cold and snowy day too. He [Mark] should be invaluable with tips to impart to us.”
The last lecture of the series will be Thursday, March 8 with Mike Ecker of Dawe’s Arboretum speaking on the best shrubs for the Midwest.
“This will be appealing more to the home landscaper,” said Kiefer. “Everyone will be out and ready to dig in the dirt by this time.”
Lectures will last approximately 45 minutes to an hour with time at the end for questions.
“I hope people get a little education out of these lectures,” said Kiefer. “I don’t know how many calls I field. People consider me to be knowledgeable on anything that’s planted, and I guess I am, but these are experts in the field. It will be nice to have experts come in and listen to them. Personally, I like going to a garden lecture. If I walk away from a garden lecture with one little tip, I’m happy.”
Category: Clubs & Organizations
