Cyndi Nelson & Marjorie Abbas Bonnie Lachowicz & Carolyn Drummond
RECORDING SECRETARY CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Cheryl Nordsted Arlene Polacheck
Inside this issue:
Gwen Allen
M e m b e r o f T h e N a t i o n a l G a r d e n C l u b s , I n c . , D e e p S o u t h R e g i o n ,
F l o r i d a F e d e r a t i o n o f G a r d e n C l u b s , I n c . — D i s t r i c t V I I
WELCOME BACK!
Youth Activities:
COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS
1 2 3 BD Bonnie Lachowicz & Carmen Levine
4 5
15 16
25 26
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HOSPITALITY: Baked Goods: Greeters: Nancy Kelly Sharon Lane Crouch Carmen Levine Gwen Allen Carolyn Drummond
FLORAL DESIGN:
Margaret Kirkpatrick
SEPTEMBER MEETING
10:00 AM: Meeting
Longwood, Florida
“Sixty Years of Great Gardening”
GENERAL MEETING
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2019-2020
Welcome Back SWOGC members. I hope you all are well and ready
to enjoy our 2019 - 2020 year of wonderful programs, field trips and
projects all bound together with the friendships we share with each other.
Our fund raising projects started out with our Floral Arrangement auction at the Welcome Back Coffee and a Plant Sale in late October. Start making your cuttings to
pot now.
In January we look forward to our famous Card Party with all the fun raffles, silent
auction, entertainment and yummy luncheon.
Our Garden Fair Chairman and crew have been working thru the summer setting up
budgets, working on vendor and sponsor lists and are ready for another fabulous Garden Fair at Protegrity Place, on February 29 and March 1.
These fundraising efforts provide scholarship monies for the University of Florida Horticulture students and Wekiva Camp sponsorships. The young adults and children
who are awarded these scholarships are very appreciative and deserving. We also contribute to several environmental charities including the Sanford Zoo and Wekiva
Wilderness Trust.
Your hard work and contributions as members provide a wealth of learning and happiness to many people. Thank you for your involvement.
Here’s to cooler weather coming… eventually. May all the weeds in your garden turn out to be wildflowers!
Regards from the garden,
A Word From Our President
September 2019 Sweetwater Oaks Garden Club, Inc.
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Beginning Again… A Gardener's Glimpse Into The Future This may be the first you've thought of garden club activities during the summer
recess, so I politely apologize for this call to action. For me it seems too soon and there
is so much more to do to escape the summer heat. Our garden year began with our
Welcome Back Coffee, a beautiful occasion to be excited about a new beginning and
the opportunity to see our gardening friends again.
You may be wondering, “What will the future bring for Sweetwater Oaks Garden Club members?” As
your program chair just returning from seven weeks vacation, I wondered the same, but one short week
of determined effort has developed into the following programming for 2019-2020. I hope you will see
activities that pique your interest. Mark your calendars for SWOGC the second Monday of each month.
The Welcome Back Coffee is always a beautiful occasion. We thank Marcia Miller for opening her
lovely home in Maitland for the event on August 26th, our first day of new beginnings.
September 9 will be our first meeting at the Sweetwater First Baptist Church and Tom MacCubbin has
agreed to start our year off with “Sixty Years of Great Gardening.” MacCubbin, Master Gardener,
renowned radio program host, popular speaker for our garden fairs, and a loyal friend of SWOGC, will
jump start our efforts to refresh our gardens in the fall. We are so fortunate to have him as our guest!
There will be two field trips this year — one in October, and the other in February. They are totally
different experiences, neither of which you would want to miss. They are planned so that nearly
everyone can participate. Mark them on your calendars as special activities you plan to attend.
On Monday, October 14, we will meet at 8:30 am in the church parking lot to carpool to Blue Springs
State Park near Orange City. This first field trip is a cruise on the back waters of the St. John's River.
The two hour narrated adventure in a covered pontoon boat will be an opportunity to learn about the
history of the river, its plants and wildlife. Bring your camera. It is possible we may see manatees!
There is a reduced fee for the cruise of $20 if we have at least 20 people. It is very important that you
register for the trip and turn in your check at the September meeting. There is a $6.00 entrance fee to
the park for up to 8 passengers in a vehicle—the reason we should carpool. Carpoolers should plan to
split the cost with the driver.
After the boat trip, we will gather at a designated place in the park for an outdoor lunch. Let's “brown
bag” it so you can bring whatever you like. Water will be available. We should return back to the church
about 2:00 pm.
Probably the highlight of this year will be our Christmas luncheon. Gretchen and George Smith have
invited us to their home in Alaqua. When Gretchen proposed the idea, I was speechless and overcome
with this generous offer. This is truly a holiday gift of love. Gretchen describes their home for the
holidays as their “Christmas House” and wants to share it with her garden club friends. There will be
more information later in the fall but we definitely have a special treat in store for us in December.
Once you scan the program highlights below, you will notice that we will have a bit of fun to relax
after completing yet another garden fair. The “do it yourself” activity will be painting a flower pot. Plan
to pick up an interesting plant at the fair and save it for your personally designed and painted pot.
We're going to have a great time together at Rae Martin's home.
The year is full of amazing activities planned especially for your enrichment and enjoyment! This could
be another great year for SWOGC! Let's embrace it wholeheartedly!
Bernadine Delafield
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September 9 Speaker: Tom MacCubbin, “Sixty Years of Great
Gardening”
October 14 Field trip: St John's River Cruise, Blue Springs State Park
November 11 Holiday Floral Designs
December 9 Christmas Luncheon: Gretchen Smith's home
January 13 Speaker: Gene Perry, UF Horticulture Department
“Day Lilies 101 for Central Florida”
February 10 Field Trip: Seed to table experience with Edible Education at the
Emeril Lagasse Foundation Kitchen House and Culinary Garden,
Winter Park
March 9 DIY Activity: How to design and paint a flower pot
April 13 Speaker: Jason Pilowi, Wild Birds Unlimited
“Gardening for Attracting Birds to Your Backyard”
May 11 Spring Luncheon, Location TBD
Bernadine Delafield
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Dear Garden Club Members:
Thank you for all your hard work last year which helped us to succeed in being able to provide scholarships and charitable donations to the worthy recipients listed below.
Thank you for all your efforts.
Claire Griffis Sweetwater Oaks Garden Club, Inc. President
September 2019
CHARITABLE DONATIONS
University of Florida Scholarships
Total
2018-2019
$ 50.00
50.00
50.00
100.00
700.00
100.00
6,000.00
$ 7,050.00
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The May Junior Gardeners program was presented by Lynn Griffs. She brought pots, soil and begonia plants for the students to put together for a Mother’s Day gift. Louise Gould and Pam Frisbey supervised the way the students finished the
project. The mothers had to be happy with their beautiful potted plant. When the students finished that part of the program, we gave them an article on matches. Several of the students read an article about the invention of the match. The friction match as we know it today was invented accidentally by John Walker of England in 1826. He was mixing a batch of
chemicals and noticed that the mixture ignited when
he rubbed it against a rough surface. Up until the early 20th century, Swedish factories produced most of the matches in the world. The chemically coated end of the match is called the “head”. The students had a match word search puzzle. The student who solved it first won a prize.
This was our last meeting for the school year. We plan next year to start with the August garden. The students won a award this year for the garden.
May Volunteers: Pam Frisbey, Lynn Griffs and Louise Gould. We meet the second Tuesday each month at 9:30– 10:30 AM at the Starchild Academy.
Ann Todd Junior Gardeners Chairperson
JUNIOR GARDENERS
Hospitality
Hello Ladies,
Bonnie and I just wanted to share our heart warm THANK YOU!!! You all made this coffee a
success. The floral arrangements were stellar! We truly appreciate everyone that help put it together, bringing food and cleaning up. Many thanks to Marcia for allowing us to use your
lovely home again.
We are looking for help for our monthly meetings, September is covered.
On another note myself and a friend of mine will be having an online share on hydroponic/
aeroponic gardening. If any of you are interested in learning there is a flyer in this newsletter.
It’s on the phone so no need to meet anywhere.
Carolyn Drummond and Bonnie Lachowicz
3rd Vice President - Hospitality
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Plans are already being made for our 15th Annual Garden Fair to be held on Saturday, February 29 – Sunday, March 1, 2020. Our successful event will again be held at Protregrity Plaza on Wekiva Springs Rd. This is one of
largest fund raisers and community outreach program for our club. We know you will want to help us to make this our most successful Garden Fair
ever.
We continue to grow each year in attendance, vendors and sponsors. We will need to have everyone’s support in obtaining new sponsors and
advertisers in our 8-page section of the Orlando Newspaper and digitally
online.
With the expanded Garden Fair, our expenses are greater, so it is very important we obtain as many advertisers and sponsors to increase the income to support our student scholarships. It is not too early to start talking to the businesses that you visit about this.
Flyers and Sponsorship forms will be available at our September General Meeting.
Happy Gardening,
Margaret Kirkpatrick
Chairperson - Garden Fair
Welcome to another exciting garden club year! We have lots of opportunities for
you to learn and enjoy creating floral arrangements. We hope you will join us!
FFGC District VII and FFGC District VII Judges Council is sponsoring the 6 FFGC
Basic Floral Design Classes. We hope you will take this opportunity to join us and learn how to create floral designs for your home and for garden club Flower
Shows. The classes will be taught by talented FFGC, Accredited, Floral Design Instructors. Cost is $100.00 for all 6 classes and includes a basic floral design kit (container, needlepoint etc.). You only need to bring your clippers, and bag lunch
to the first class. Individual classes $25.00 each. The Classes will be held every other Tuesday beginning October 8, 22; November 3, 19; December 3, 17. We
will be sending out a registration form and additional information soon.
November 11 - Annual Holiday Design program and extravaganza presented at our
General Meeting.
November 25 - Holiday Design Workshop open to all members to create a
Thanksgiving Design for your home.
April 9 - Spring Floral Design Workshop open to all members to create a beautiful
Spring floral design for your home.
Happy Designing!
September 2019
Floral Design
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Sitting inside in the air-conditioning always tempts me to turn on
the TV and watch some English gardening programs on You Tube or the Discovery channel… the problem is that I have seen them all at
least three or more times already! So, I meander into the kitchen and get a nice iced-tea and return to a comfortable chair and either
grab a book from the shelves or load-up an online book and of course, the subject is gardening !
As your Horticulture Chair, it’s my goal to make
available to you both interesting and motivating articles, talks and presentations about modern
gardening as well as not-so-modern gardening learned from over 65 years of… dare I say
“experience?” And to do it in a way that is both
informative and enjoyable for you.
This time, I’d like to recommend a book that I think each of you would find interesting and it’s a
book you can pick up and read parts of at any time or spend a weekend devouring. The book is Gaia’s
Garden by Toby Hemenway. Unfortunately, Toby died a few years ago but he has left us an
unmatched treasure!
The book is available from Amazon in hardcover, paperback and in Kindle versions and prices vary
from $10 up to about $20. If you don’t want your own copy, get together with a friend and split the cost.. it also makes a great “pass
along” gift but I doubt you will be eager to let it go. Enjoy Toby’s entertaining and
informative style that makes a good read at any time.
Bob Hotaling Chairperson - Horticulture
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BOARD MEETINGS First Monday of the Month September-May at 10:00 AM
810 Fox Valley Drive, Longwood, Florida
GENERAL MEETINGS
First Baptist Sweetwater Church
HORTICULTURE GROUP MEETINGS
Throughout the Year - See the Calendar of Events for Dates, Times and Locations
JUNIOR GARDENERS
Second Tuesday of the Month at 9:00 AM
FLORAL DESIGN Every Thursday at Hospice of the Comforter 12:30-3:00 PM
Sweetwater Oaks Garden Club, Inc. Meeting Schedule
Club Flower—Rose
Club Bird—Cardinal
www.swogc.org
Deep South Region
District VII
Organized—January 9, 1974
Federated—January 27, 1975
Incorporated—September 14, 1992
P.O. Box 915233
The purpose of Sweetwater Oaks Garden Club is the education of its
members and the community in their relationship to horticulture,
conservation and environmental needs, as well as the art of floral design.
If you know of a member who could use an extra kind thought, please contact me. I would prefer receiving the information by email, but please call me if you don't have email access.
Arlene Polacheck
MAY LUNCH AND INSTALLATION OF OFFICERS Courtesy of Gay Momberger
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Welcome Back Coffee Photos Courtesy of Gay Momberger