National Garden Week | Roswell Garden Club

National Garden Week: African Violets Galore, by RGC Members Mary Booth Cabot & Suzy Crowe

Last week I had a fabulous visit with Mary Booth Cabot. Mary is a nationally acclaimed artist known for her botanical paintings and lithographs. When you look out over Mary’s garden, you immediately know this is an artist’s garden–it is dazzling. Mary said her love of gardening started when she began gardening with her grandmother at the age of 4. Mary paints botanicals and birds, cultivates her garden, and propagates plants, especially African Violets. If you’ve visited Mary, you know she generously shares her wealth of knowledge along with her plants.

As Mary says on her site Dancing in the Garden, she has been growing African Violets for 44 years and …

National Garden Week: A Look At Indigo & False Indigo by RGC Blogger Sherron Lawson

Gardening, National Garden Week, Plants

On May 13th I participated in a Zoom panel discussion about the re-establishment of indigo on the Georgia coastal islands and the historic horticulture and use of indigo by African Americans. This was facilitated by SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). Indigo was the most lucrative cash crop, ahead of cotton, in Colonial times. Used to dye textiles, the labor intensive procedure needed to extract the dye was accomplished…

National Garden Week: Mom’s Heirloom Garden by RGC Blogger Dawn McGee

Gardening, National Garden Week, Plants

The Heirloom Garden by definition is one comprised of carefully cultivated seeds collected from open-pollinated flowers and vegetables and handed down from one generation to the next. These can be 50 years of a line or more. For most home gardeners, an Heirloom Garden or even just one heirloom plant has sentimental value. It could have come from your parents or grandparents home, it could have been given as a gift from someone special, or even planted in memory of a lost pet or loved one.

When we change homes, if at all possible, we carefully dig up our beloved plants and take them with us…

National Garden Week: Be a Good Host to Pollinators This Summer by RGC Blogger Lisa Ethridge

Environment, Gardening, National Garden Week

This spring you will see countless butterfly garden articles using words like nectar, pollinator, and flowers. What you might not see in these documents are words like native, habitat, and caterpillar. While providing pollen is laudable, you are not being a very good host if you don’t provide food for the butterfly through all 4 stages of its life cycle: egg, larva, chrysalis, and adult.

The butterfly has been poetically called a flying flower. In reality, it is an insect, which, in its adult stage, lives 2-6 weeks. Nectar-rich plants like…

National Garden Week: The Southern Gardener’s Book of Lists, A Must Have by RGC Blogger Dotty Etris

Education, Gardening, National Garden Week

I love gardening but certainly am not an expert. I also have areas in my yard that are very challenging – full sun (more than 8 hours) while others have shade. Soil in some areas is good, while other areas are heavy clay.

I spend a great deal of time amending soil and often find myself moving plants. Although I try my best to do my research before purchasing plants, there is a lot of conflicting information on the internet and easily obtainable information is not always specific to the area in which I am located. So trial and error was a way of life.

National Garden Week: A Look at Some of our Favorite Gardens by RGC Members

Gardening, Inspiration, National Garden Week, Plants

We are closing out our National Garden Week posts with a look at favorite gardens members have visited, pictures from Lisa’s recent visit to Gibbs Garden, and pics from a few members’ gardens–the feature image for this post is from Mary Ann Booth Cabot’s backyard. We hope you are as inspired by these gardens as we are. Thanks for celebrating National Garden Week with us.

National Garden Week: Go Green with a 100% Solar Powered Fountain by RGC Blogger Suzy Crowe

Gardening, National Garden Week

I love fountains. Their sound is soothing, happy music to me, they attract wildlife, and they give birds a place to drink and bathe. This spring I decided to convert a wet area in my landscape to a fountain. The wet area was a bog I created with reeds and yellow iris in my grandfather’s 55 gallon cast iron scalding pot. I was planning to go with a fountain with an electric pump until I came across the cute little ZETIY 100% solar bird bath fountain that doesn’t require a battery or electricity. You can’t get any greener than that! In addition, it only cost $16.70. It sounded like a win-win for me and for the birds.

When the fountain came in, I decided to test it before clearing out the boggy mess in the scalding pot that would become a fountain. The fountain was very easy to put together — I just had to put the pump into a clamp on the underside of the fountain and test out the 4 nozzles that came with the fountain. It took me a little while to figure out how the pump fit in the clamp, so…

National Garden Week: Feeding…& Watering…the Birds by RGC Bloggers Lisa Ethridge & Suzy Crowe

Inspiration, National Garden Week

A song in the children’s movie, Mary Poppins, features a woman selling birdseed crooning, “Come feed the little birds; show them you care.” It turns out, she’s right. Feeding the birds during the winter is a popular pastime which increases the survival rate of our feathery friends. But what about during the summer? There are mixed opinions about that, but more about that later. Whether or not you feed the birds in the summer, everyone agrees that birds need water year round. Wild birds need fresh water to drink and to bathe. Many bird aficionados incorporate birdbaths or ponds…

National Garden Week: What are RGC Members Doing During the Stay-at-Home?

Gardening, Inspiration, National Garden Week

Here are RGC member responses to How have you spent your time during the virus?

From Dotty E

While honoring guidelines, I have spent my time doing projects around my home that I had put off for a long time–still lots to do. But I was able to do some organizing, exterior siding replacement and painting, and some interior painting.

Lots of reflection on what I truly value as we have had to isolate and even refrain from gathering at our places of worship. I have decided that I will more mindfully give thanks daily for all my blessings large and small and to help others along the way.

I have not done a lot of additional planting in the garden, but I have been formulating some plans for the type outcome I desire and will resume some planting in the fall. But lots of weeding was done during this time.

We adopted an abused dog and have had to work really hard to help him overcome his fears and challenges. He has come a long way but still a long way to go. It has been heartbreaking to realize how scared he has been before us, and we are determined to make a difference.

From Dorothy J

The time I had during lockdown I spent working in my garden. I was able to clean and manicure my flower beds to get ready for planting. I also did some craft projects like painting some big flower pots…

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