Cuttings
Barrie’s Garden Club http://www.barriegardenclub.com October 2011Due to a conflict with the Mayor’s event
at the Southshore Community Centre,
the October BGC Open Meeting is
rescheduled to the following week
& will be held on TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER
(day after Thanksgiving). See you there.
Tonight our speaker will be the very entertaining Trish Symons who has a challenge for all gardeners.
Edit your gardens & eliminate the underperformers.
Do you dare?
Photo Contest
Get them in, folks. Your photos must reach Mike Dunk or John Clarke no later than end of day
Friday, 21 October 2011.
E-mail Mike at
E-mail John at
Photos must be in landscape format. For more information go to http://www.barriegardenclub.com.
Coming Events
Saturday October 22 District 16 Fall Seminar hosted by Coldwater & District Horticultural Society
will be held at the Bonaire Golf Club located at
1699 Woodrow Road.
Breakfast 8:30 am, program starts at 9:30 am
Registration & lunch is $30.00 per person.
Deadline for registration is Friday, 14 Oct 11.
Speakers are Bob Bowls on ‘Insects in the Garden’
Ken Brown presents ‘Seduction in the Garden’
Contact Catherine Waffle as each Club only
submits one cheque for all participants.
Fall BGC Flower Show
This is new – an additional flower show event has been added to the schedule.
There are two (2) design categories:
‘Shades of Autumn’ where you can let your imagination roam free. Utilizing fall colours, arrange in a container of your choice, a mass
design not exceeding 28 inches in width or depth.
There is no height restriction.
‘Thanksgiving Table Centre’ create a design suitable for a table centrepiece using fall colours. Height must not exceed 5 inches, with no restrictions on
width or depth.
Falltario
All the trees are blazing madly,
All the fields are shucked and shorn,
All the orchard fruits are gathered,
All the cribs are stuffed with corn,
Steaming cobs & roasted wieners,
A sing-song in the bonfire’s glow,
As the fall queen takes her dazzling mantle
And custom wraps Ontario.
William Bedford
Goodbye & Good Luck
It is with sadness the BGC Board members accept the resignation of Susie Bruce from the Board.
Susie’s energy, enthusiasm & creative ideas contributed greatly toward many of the Club’s successful initiatives. We wish her all the best as she pursues a very challenging career as well as balancing family life.
We welcome any volunteers from the general membership to become a member of the Board.
Really, we are a fun group!!
Let Me Sleep Through It!!
Well, we are officially into autumn – the fall equinox was Friday, September 23. It’s obvious the days are becoming shorter & the nights definitely cooler.
Soon that dreaded four letter word will be upon us - S**W!! Don’t you wish we could imitate the plants & animals that just sleep till spring arrives next year?
In dormancy, metabolism virtually comes to a standstill to conserve energy. Dormancy is triggered by environmental changes, such as decreasing light & temperatures changes. In plants, it can be triggered by drought & heat – this is why the lawn goes brown in midsummer.
Deciduous trees & shrubs go dormant, losing their leaves & halting photosynthesis. But, they still need water in the soil to survive. Be sure to water in late October after the trees have lost their leaves (if Mother Nature fails to provide) as trees store food reserves of sugars in their roots & moisture is required for the transport mechanisms to function.
Evergreen trees don’t go completely dormant in winter, but they slow down, retaining some moisture in their needles which are protected from desiccation by a waxy coating. Building a burlap sunscreen around the tree (burlap must not touch the branches) helps keep the late winter sun from drying out the needles.
When animals hibernate, their heart rate decreases by as much as 95%. They prepare for this state by building up fat reserves that provide them with fuel needed to survive the winter.
Brumation is similar to hibernation, but it happens with reptiles. They can stay in brumation for as long as eight months. This state can be triggered by cold & reduction of sunlight.
Aestivation is similar to hibernation, but the triggers are exposure to very hot or very dry conditions.
Or, if you are one of the lucky ones to call yourself a ‘snowbird’, you can leave the worst of the weather behind you. The only ice will be in your drink!!
What’s that Sound?
The sounds of crickets is a familiar night-time fall symphony. To create that sound crickets scrape their back wings together, an act called stridulation. There is another insect that also creates sound – cicadas.
They belong to the Hemiptera orders of insects, along with aphids & leafhoppers. Canada has 20 native species of cicada. Most are found in British Columbia & southern Ontario. These are big insects, over an inch long. However, as they spend their mature years in tree tops, you rarely catch a glimpse of them.
Like many insects, cicadas spend most of their lives as juniors, which for cicadas means underground. They have life spans from 2 – 17 years, depending on the species. Life begins as an egg laid in a slit in tree bark. When the nymph hatches, it drops to the ground & burrows in, feeding on the juice of plant roots until its final instar. When almost mature, it climbs out of the ground, attaches itself to a surface & splits out of the final nymph skin to emerge as an adult.
Now about that sound. Cicadas have organs called timbals on their abdomens which are thin membranes that are thickened in some places like ribs. Muscles contract to make these ‘ribs’ click against each other. The males have large hollows in their bodies that act as resonance chambers. Rapid muscular contractions make the whining sound & the renounce chambers amplify it. Mother Nature is a fabulous engineer!!
The Last Word
This is the true joy of life – being used for a purpose...I want to be thoroughly used up when
I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.
George Bernard Shaw
(1856 – 1950)