Thursday, September 02, 2010

From Store to Show Violets

The upcoming show has a new category. The GROCERY STORE violet. What do you do with what you typically get at the store?

This one is from the home improvement store actually, but you see a bunch of stuff wrong with it.

It has baby leaves, broken leaves, spent flowers, suckers, what doesn't it have wrong?

 First, the baby leaves come off.

Look for the small leaves that are directly under the largest outer row of leaves. The outer row should logically have the biggest, oldest leaves. When they are little you know that they are from the starter plant and they are babies.
 Take off all the spent blossoms, the  broken stuff etc.
 Look deeper under some of the leaves. See the small plantlet that is starting in the center. It's the little thing with three leaves  and it is NOT the center of the plant, as you can see the center is further back not in focus right now.









 Here is that small three leaved sucker removed. You could plant up that portion to make a baby plant.








One of the lower leaves is rotated to the right. If we reposition it, it might straighten up in a couple of weeks and fill in the gap.

 Toothpicks work nicely to gently move the leaf into the position you want it to be in.
Now the cleaned up, and groomed plant is under lights and we'll see if it can be taken to the show as an example of what you can do with a plant you just purchased from a regular store but want to look like a "show plant"

Please feel free to comment.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

June 16, 2010 Meeting Minutes

Ten members showed up for our fun potluck supper. Sandy took the time and gave us a tour of their beautiful garden. It is nice to see spectacular plants especially the Martagon lilies. Her daughter and only grandson were staying at her house so we finally met them after knowing Sandy all these years. The grandson is great, a very busy cute boy!




The potluck turned out nicely. It was a nice combination of appetizers, main courses and deserts all, which was very good.



The club decided to donate $15 each to the Boyce Edens fund, AVSA Building fund, and the AVSA booster fund. The next bank CD is coming due in June but with such a low interest rate of 1% we decided it is not worth the effort to renew it but put the funds in the checking account.



A lot of time was spent revising the fall schedule omitting edged and geneva edges and putting the trailers in a separate section. We may not be asking members for donations and may not give any cash awards, just ribbon awards.



Respectfully,

SJ