Greetings from the President

Happy New Year to all, and welcome to another cold, wet January winter. Looking out my windows at my garden, I ponder the poor fish in the pond below mountains of snow and ice in hopes that they may all be hibernating safely and that I'll be watching them swimming someday soon. I long for the warmth of the sun, leaves on the trees, and all the flora the warm weather brings. I'm looking forward to the new year with anticipation and asking Mother Nature to bless us with a colorful gardening season, a bountiful harvest, and successful tours and events. I hope to see you all at our first meeting. May we all work together toward a fun and profitable year for our club and for each of us individually. Diane

Mark the Date

 Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 7:00 PM, general meeting at our new location, the American Legion Hall, Baker Street and South Ocean Avenue, Patchogue. Please use the Baker Street entrance and park in the Village Hall lot, in front of the hall, or across the street in the Old Brookhaven Town Hall lot. Please pay dues at the meeting, $15 individual, $20 family, cash or check. If you can’t attend the meeting, please send a check to the PO Box.

 Thursday, March 31, 2011, 8th Annual ‘Think Spring’ Luncheon at the Mediterranean Manor, 303 East Main Street, Patchogue. Tickets are $35. The committee has been off and running since late August, putting together a Vintage Hat Exhibit and small scented straw hat magnets for each person attending. Guest speaker Marianne Annunziato Fulfaro’s presentation will be "Hats Through the Ages." Catch our spirit and join us with a friend or two or three. We encourage everyone to wear a favorite hat.

If anyone has any hat boxes that we can use to display the hats or any hats around 1930 or older, please email Georgia or call her at 289-0867.

October Meeting in a Flash

Elections were held for the 2011 board. Labyrinth facilitator Linda Mikell spoke to us about the beauty and serenity of labyrinths and showed a lovely visual presentation accompanied by calming music. Also on hand was Marianne Ferraro from the Sayville labyrinth, Common Ground.

3rd House Tour, “Homes for the Holidays”

Though no meetings were held in November or December because of the holidays, the house tour committee was hard at work preparing for “Homes for the Holidays” on December 12. The photo shows committee members making centerpieces for each of the homes participating in the tour.


By all accounts, the tour was splendid. If you were unable to attend, you can pick up a tour booklet at the January meeting to see what you missed. We are grateful to the homeowners who shared their holiday joy with us: Michael and Mike, Heather and Billy, Paula, Mary Ann and John, Jessica and Darryl, Jo and Tony. Special thanks go to the Patchogue Chamber of Commerce, Country Junque and Remember Yesteryears for their help selling tickets. Club members who gave their all planning, making centerpieces and favors (attendees could choose a packet of mulling spices, bay leaves, or macadamia nut brittle), baking cookies, and house sitting deserve our appreciation: Margaret Atkinson, Barbara Bestafka, Babette Bishop, Bonnie and Fred Bossert, Carla Buchanan Steward, Peg and Frank Densing, Joanna Drake and the BAFFA carolers, Georgia Dulmovits, Mark Jeffers, Karen Ferb, Laura Feitner, Barbara and John Gustafson, Gladys Heimburger, Janet Heyer, Arlene Lamberti, Marie Magnano, Kathy McMahon, Jo Miller, Marita Morello, Paula Murphy, June Petruccelli, Ann Rubbo, Carolyn Savastano, Mary Ann Tchinnis, Guy Vitale, and Richard Waldman. If I’ve omitted anyone, it was inadvertent; please accept my apologies.


Happy Birthday wishes to our December babies: Arlene Lamberti, Jo Miller, Bert Voland, and Carl Unger.
And to our January babies: Barbara Aragon, Ann Marie Coakley, John Dulmovits, Marie Magnano, Annie Rubbo, Ruth Szuminskyj, and Susan Toplitz. And to our February babies: Peg Densing and Jack Heyer.

Serious Dirt from Richard Waldman
By Charlotte Moss, Wall Street Journal, 2 December 2010

Planning a trip to France this year?

Why would a successful Parisian architect move 200 miles south to a small village, restore a 12th-century priory and plan a garden that would take years to resemble sketches and dreams? Because, says Patrice Taravella, “what happens if you never have a client that knows what he wants? This is what makes a beautiful project. I did not know when that would happen, so I had to become my own client, and I wanted a ruin.” What can an idea, two decades and an unrelenting passion accomplish? Take a gander at Patrice Taravella’s garden.

When Taravella and his partner, Sonia Lesot, acquired a property near Maisonnais, in the Loire Valley, in 1991, it was just that: several derelict buildings surrounded by barren land. They saw the architectural possibilities, but “we needed to smell the air first,” says Taravella, so they lived there for a year before the idea came to make a garden. With the help of local gardener Gilles Guillot, they brought the site to life. Open to the public since 1993, Le Prieuré d’Orsan is now Relais & Châteaux–approved with eight guest rooms and a restaurant, and has become a sought-after destination for serious gardeners. Le Prieuré d’Orsan offers guided tours by appointment; avid gardeners can attend three-day workshops focused on themes like maintaining rosebushes. Entrance to the garden $13; rooms from $415; three-day gardening workshop $169. www.prieured’orsan.com.

Gardeners, Beware!

By Jessica Damiano, newsday.com

Ever see those signs offering "clean fill" for free? Did your mother ever tell you there's no such thing as a free lunch? The fill is assumed by most homeowners to be soil excavated from nearby lots to make way for new construction foundations, and lots of homeowners jump at the opportunity to save money and use the fill to grade or level their own lots. Well, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has just issued a warning to Long Island residents to beware of the companies putting up those signs or otherwise offering freebees. Six local homeowners have reported that the "clean fill" they received actually was illegal solid waste, the agency said. Six. And that's just the ones who noticed. What's worse is that once that fill is on your property, you have to pay big time to remove the contamination. The takeaway lesson? Either buy the fill you need from a reputable dealer or ask a lot of questions, especially where the fill came from -- and then follow up with a little investigation of your own.

Hot Tips

LIPA Line Clearance Program
By Gigi Berman Aharoni, Special to Newsday 17 November 2010
Photo Credit: James Carbone
If there are trees on your property with limbs overhanging primary electric wires, the Long Island Power Authority may want to trim them. "LIPA's Line Clearance Program trims tree branches away from electric wires, helps ensure public safety, minimizes electrical interruptions and outages and limits damage from severe storms," says Vanessa Baird-Streeter, LIPA's executive director of communications. "It also provides a zone of safety so that our line workers can do their jobs."

The Line Clearance Program focuses on trimming trees along an entire electrical circuit, which can be several miles long. Circuits that experience the most tree-caused outages are handled first. Line clearance work is performed all year long. LIPA won't trim all trees, but they will clear tree limbs that threaten electric wires. LIPA also tries to do something called "directional" trimming, Baird-Streeter says. That means they can trim the tree to grow away from and around the wires. These trimming practices were developed by the U.S. Forestry Service and are endorsed by the International Society of Arboriculture.

Responses to an individual homeowner's line clearance request is first limited to emergencies - if a broken tree limb is actually leaning heavily on a LIPA wire or has caused a wire to come down. However, nonemergency requests are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Call 800-490-0075 for more information. "If you have a tree that you know you want to take down completely, but it has limbs that threaten primary LIPA wires, call LIPA before you call the tree company," says Francis Hefferin of Hefferin Tree & Landscape Contracting in Port Washington. "LIPA is extremely responsive and proactive to a homeowner's request for an inspection. Be aware that not all tree companies are certified to work around electrical wires, and even when they are, they may play it safe and call LIPA first."

While limbs threatening electric wires don't require town permission to remove, any further trimming or tree removal may require a permit. Tree removal rules vary from village to village. Failure to obtain a permit for tree removal or substantial alteration can result in a summons leading to a fine or requirement to replace the tree.

Paula refers us to http://landscapedesignbylee.blogspot.com/, the blog of a Long Island landscape designer that is a guide to gardening in the northeast. She tells us to look for upcoming articles and TODAY'S TIP and to visit her newly added PLANT GALLERIES, LANDSCAPE DESIGN PHOTOS, and GARDENING TIPS. Is there a topic dealing with landscape design or gardening that you would like to know more about? Send her a request and she will try to include it in a future post. As you read through her posts, remember that she welcomes any comments or contributions you may wish to add.

Arlene is amazed by the Jabuticaba (also called Brazilian Grape Tree, Jaboticaba, Jabotica, Guaperu, Guapuru, Hivapuru, Sabará and Ybapuru), a fruit-bearing tree native to Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. The fruit is purplish black, with a white pulp; it can be eaten raw or be used to make jellies and drinks (plain juice or wine). is a small tree native to southeastern Brazil grown for the purple, grape-like fruits it produces. Traditionally, an astringent decoction of the sun-dried skins has been used as a treatment for hemoptysis, asthma, diarrhea, and gargled for chronic inflammation of the tonsils. The fruit is 3-4 cm in diameter with one to four large seeds, borne directly on the main trunks and branches of the plant, lending a distinctive appearance to the fruiting tree. It has a thick, purple, astringent skin that covers a sweet, white, or rosy pink gelatinous flesh. Common in Brazilian markets, jaboticabas are largely eaten fresh; their popularity has been likened to that of grapes in the US. Fresh fruit may begin to ferment 3 to 4 days after harvest, so they are often used to make jams, tarts, strong wines, and liqueurs.
Several potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory anti-cancer compounds have been isolated from the fruit.[ One that is unique to the fruit is jaboticabin. Jaboticaba has become a widely used species in the art of bonsai, particularly in Taiwan and parts of the Caribbean. [Ed. note: I saw this tree and sampled the fruit in South Africa last year—delicious!]

Timely Tips for February

Begin forcing early flowering trees and shrubs. Place cut branches in containers of water in a cool, dimly lit spot. Move to a brighter area as buds begin to swell.
Stay off frozen turf as much as possible.
All kinds of cuttings root easily now and make attractive plants for setting out in May—coleus, fuschia, begonia, lantana and the like.
Prune flowering shrubs, especially old, overgrown ones and those that bloom on new wood. However, wait to prune “bleeder” trees until they are in full leaf—maple, beech, dogwood, elm, and sycamore.


Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas. - Elizabeth Murray