YORKTON - The next meeting of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be on Wednesday, March 19 at 7:00 PM at the Yorkton Public Library. This will be our first meeting of the new season. We don’t have a speaker planned for this meeting. And the reason is…
On Tuesday April 1 (no kidding!) we will be having a Zoom call meeting with Lyndon Penner at 7:00 PM at the Yorkton Public Library. Lyndon will be speaking about “Prairie Perennials and Small-Space Gardening”. Lyndon Penner is a gardening celebrity and we are delighted that he will have time to talk to us!
A prairie gardener his entire life, Lyndon has first-hand knowledge and experience about gardening on the prairies: the challenges and the successes! He is a well-known garden writer, lecturer, and radio celebrity. Our group was lucky enough to visit with Lyndon at Riding Mountain this past summer, and we know that his gardening talks are so informative and very entertaining!
Please join us for this interesting and informative evening with Lyndon Penner! Admission is free, everyone is welcome! This type of online session is a first for our group, and as we made our plans I wondered what our long-ago members would think! I have the feeling they would be very excited that such a thing is even possible!
We’re thinking green in more ways than one! St. Patrick’s day is just around the corner, a day full of festive fun and mystic lore. St. Patrick was born in the 4th century to a wealthy Roman-British family. Legend has it that he was captured by pirates at age sixteen and taken to be a slave on the island we now call Ireland. He was there for years, doing humble work as a shepherd. At this time he received a heavenly message telling him that if he could make his way to the coast, he could be rescued and taken home. Indeed, a ship was waiting, and Patrick returned safely home. But his story doesn’t end there.
Patrick became a priest, and went back to Ireland to preach. He spent many years evangelizing there, and converted thousands of people over the years. Gardeners will remember this story about him: that he used the clover leaf, with one stem with three small leaves, to teach about the Holy Trinity. In present day, the false shamrock, oxalis triagularis, is a plant that we can give to friends on this day o’ the green.
Bells of Ireland speak of good luck. Not always easy to find as a cut flower, but a plant that we can certainly add to our ‘seed’ list for this year. They are an easy-to-grow annual that likes full sun and well-drained soil. They have very interesting bell-shaped flowers on long stems, and these flowers an easily be dried for flower arranging.
If you happen to see plants of calendula, or pot marigold, for sale , this is also a bright and cheery way to spread St. Patrick’s Day wishes! The golden yellow or orange flowers represent the gold at the end of the rainbow!
For an unusual but memorable St. Patrick’s Day display on your kitchen table, walk through the produce aisle and look for suitable ‘greens’. Bunches of herbs, stalks of celery, crunchy bunches of romaine lettuce will make an interesting and edible centrepiece! Or choose your favorite flowers and add a wide green ribbon around the stems to mark the day. Visit the hort society at www.yorktonhort.ca Thank you to our friends at YTW for their fine work. “May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.” Happy St. Pat’s Day!
