Spring Surrounds the Clubhouse by Karmie Sheppard
Spring Surrounds the Club!!
The Bonsai Society of Florida State Convention
May Memorial Day Weekend 
The Bonsai Society of Florida is celebrating 50 years at their state convention which will be in Orlando. Their convention will be held at the Florida Hotel in Florida Mall during the Memorial Day weekend. You can visit and enjoy the display of Bonsai from all over the state.
Arbor Day Tree Planting
Arbor Day
The Orlando Garden Club Commemorated Arbor Day in many different ways this year. Approximately 150 Florida Garden Clubs held their tree planting event at 11:00 am!!
Kathy Hall, arborist from the City of Orlando spoke on planting new trees. Her team planted a Bluff Oak on club grounds. This tree does not have aggressive roots, its canopy is rounded and upright, and it may get up to 60 feet tall. Ms. Hall shared some of her tree knowledge during a brief presentation to our members after our ceremony.
Hall is an arborist and landscape inspector for the City of Orlando.
Kathi Hall with OGC members and Karmi Shepard, OGC Grounds Chairman
Horticulture Show & Tell
HORTICULTURE
During the month of January Bonnie Hansen presented on the Billbergia as our horticulture of the month. She presented two varieties. Queen’s Tears and Theodore Mead.
Billbergia Queen’s Tears was hybridized to have a larger flower by Dr. Theodore Mead of Mead Gardens fame. This plant grows well in a pot and pups readily. It doesn’t need a lot of soil and can grow in a tree as an epiphyte. Bonnie distributed pups for members to grow.
Photo: Billbergia Theodore Mead, photo by Wes Schilling.
Love Our Green Florida Update
The Orlando Garden Club Flower Show this year was an absolute success!! Congratulations to the planning committee headed by Silvia Zuniga who planned and put on a beautiful Flower Show. It was a great achievement, there were 59 horticulture entries, 24 designs and one class of education. Also, the Central Florida Bonsai Club had a bonsai exhibit.
All Horticulture entries were by OGC members, except for one. Of the flower designs 13 were made by OGC members and 11 were submitted by members from other Garden Clubs.
Thank you to all of you that visited and enjoyed the show!!!
October Horticulture Highlight
HORTICULTURE
Bonnie Hansen spoke at our past Garden Club meeting about Butterfly Pea Vine, an Indonesian plant that has bright cobalt blue flowers and does well as an annual in Central Florida. It is a small vine that does not get woody. It has medicinal properties and the flowers can be brewed into a blue tea or lemonade. When you add the lemon it changes color. The tea has anti-anxiety properties and can function as a sleep aid. It is not very flavorful by itself. It can get spider mites, which can be sprayed off with a hose. It can grow in a pot or on a fence in full sun.
Butterfly Pea Wine