In Part 1 of my Garden Club Report from the Behnkes Garden Party, six local clubs were covered.  Here are the other clubs (and more!) that took part in this fun event.

The Four Seasons Garden Club was represented at various times throughout the day by Jim Dronenburg, left, and later by Chris and Karen Upton.  Originally a hort-related way for gay men to socialize, the club has morphed into a super-active, all-inclusive group of about 80 dues-payers and friends, including many of the DC area’s top horticulturists.  They have a free Yahoo group through which advice is asked for and received and the club’s two monthly events are organized and announced.  Yes, every month the club holds a lecture AND a field trip!  (Next up, 7 carloads are making the trip to Monrose, NC.)  Plus, the club holds two plant swaps every year and two holiday parties.

The close-to-Behnkes Beltsville Garden Club is another very active group.  Since moving to Greenbelt I joined the club and am impressed with their strong emphasis on public service, especially their support of the Duckworth Elementary School.  Duckworth’s greenhouse was unused and its gardens nonexistent until the club adopted them, and gardening is now an integral part of the school curriculum.

The Beltsville Garden Club is also known for its awesome plant sales in April and May.  We profiled the club here on the Behnkes Blog.

The Potomac Hosta Club  is the “go-to club for hosta-lovers” in DC, MD, VA and WV.   They host lectures, open gardens and other fun events (ever played Hosta Bingo?) and plant sales at both River Farm and the National Arboretum.  Among the potted-up hostas I spotted a product I’d never seen before, which was recommended to me as a new way to keep deer from eating your hostas.  Called Hosta Saver, it’s a little bottle of pellets that you insert near the hosta roots, after which they act as a systemic deterrent.  There’s nothing about it online yet but if it works as advertised, I expect Behnkes to start stocking it.

The National  Capital Orchid Society is a familiar sight at Behnkes – they’ve held some big events here, including the recent Paphiopedilum Forum. (We love having them!)  From this gentleman I learned that the Phalaenopsis orchid may just be the most popular houseplant today, and is the easy-to-grow gateway orchid that’s drawing people to orchid by the droves.  (Greenhouses have sprung up across Taiwan to meet the new demand in the West.  And due to the increased supply, prices are way down.)

Each orchid flower lasts up to three months, and each scape will flower up to five months!  They do best in low light, so maybe an east window or a shaded south window, and I’m told they’ll love hanging in my porch under the skylights.  Indeed they love the outdoors, as long as they’re kept off the ground (to avoid slug damage).  Plus, cats won’t eat them.  That’s it – I’m trying one!  I was told to just avoid overwatering – the most common cause of orchid death.

The National Capital Orchid Society has about 400 members who meet regularly, and their big annual show over the Columbus Day Weekend is not to be missed.

The National Capital Area Garden Clubs is composed of 81 garden clubs throughout DC, MD and VA.  It supports the National Arboretum in myriad ways, including operating its gift shop and helping to maintain Fern Valley.  The group also provides scholarships in horticulture, landscape design and environmental students for area students.  They also operate a speakers bureau for the benefit of member clubs.

The Burtonsville Garden Club is a friendly group of about 40 members – small enough to meet in members’ homes (and gardens, I bet).  Their activities include garden tours and day trips, including a trip each year to the Philadelphia Flower Show, and plant swaps and sales.  There are also purely social events to celebrate summer and winter, and lots of good service projects, especially those that enliven the lives of nursing home residents.  They can be contacted via email:  BurtonsvilleGardenClub@gmail.com.

The Silver Spring Garden Club (profiled here on the Behnkes Blog)  is one of the largest clubs in the area, at about 150 dues-paying members and lots of others who attend their public meetings.  President and Program Chair Kathy Jentz (see below) does a fabulous job lining up speakers, a roster that’s included some of the best authors and speakers in the U.S.  Check this link to see who’s coming up soon.

Speaking of the Silver Spring Garden Club, president Kathy Jentz is also editor and publisher of local favorite Washington Gardener Magazine.  She was on hand in her various capacities, as she is everywhere garden-related in the region and beyond.  Nobody can figure out how she does it all, and so well, too.

The Takoma Horticulture Club boasts a large membership AND historical significance as possibly the oldest garden club in the whole U.S. (It’s been going great guns since 1916, and no other garden club has been found to rival that duration.)  We profiled “Takoma Hort” here on this blog.  Their activities include two popular plant swaps, lots of in-garden events (called “Open Gardens”), terrific speakers and a bulb sale every fall. Click here for the 2013 calendar.

Brookside Gardens is – of course – the beloved public garden of Montgomery County, site of many events by local clubs (including all those by the Silver Spring Garden club).  Shown here tabling for the garden are Anne Hardman, avid garden volunteer about town, and Leslie McDermott,who works for Brookside doing (I believe) marketing and communications.  She does a great job, whatever her title!

And here’s an actual club, the Friends of Brookside Gardens, which was the beneficiary of the auction held at Behnkes during the Garden Party event.  It’s a great cause that everyone can agree on.  We have FOBG to thank for all these events, and overall, for making Brookside the fabulous public garden that it is.

The Metropolitan Washington Garden Club is another old club (formerly the Men’s Gardening Club of Montgomery County, but those days are long gone) and currently has about 45 active members.  Next up on their roster of events is a picnic on what I was told is a fabulous farm in Gaithersburg, possibly the last large one in the county.  Its regular get-togethers, held in Bethesda, include  plant swap, tours and guest speakers.  They also offer spring-blooming bulbs at club discount prices.  They can be reached via email:  sengfarm@juno.com.

The National Capital Cactus and Succulent Society holds its big show each year in August (at Brookside Gardens) and that’s a great place to learn about and buy hardy cactus and other succulents for our region.

I chatted with Bob Stewart (left above) who highly recommends the new book Cacti and Succulents for Cold Climates by Leo Chance for local gardeners.  He also showed me the photo above of his very own garden, but warned that it’s NOT the no-maintenance garden that some might assume.  (Sure, we gardeners know there’s no such thing as no-maintenance but newbies might be fooled by inaccurate hype in the media.)

The club,which is seriously committed to preserving and studying cacti and succulents, also reaches out to “closet succulent growers” in our area to help them avoid common problems encountered by people unfamiliar with these plants.

Finally, both the Prince George’s and Montgomery County Master Gardeners were here recruiting new members and answering everyone’s gardening questions, but somehow I missed them altogether. My bad!  I’m so glad I’ve written elsewhere on this blog about these fabulous groups -  Montgomery County MGs here  and Prince George’s MGs here.   The photos here were taken at other Behnkes events (one of which must have been colder).

Stephanie Fleming (L) and Carole Galati (R)

Before I go, here’s a big shout-out, well-earned kudos and a big thank-you to Garden Party organizers Carole Galati and Stephanie Fleming.  Carole is known for her devotion to gardens and garden clubs far and wide (Takoma, Silver Spring, Arboretum, Brookside, et cetera) and she shared her very own garden on this blog.  Stephanie is the granddaughter of Albert Behnke himself and devotes herself full-time to the company and its customers.

Posted by Susan Harris.

Photo left by Miri Talabac. Right right by Larry Hurley, taken at the 2007 Philadelphia Flower Show.

During the holiday season, I saw glassware in many shapes and  sizes; cake and cupcake holders, large vases, cloches, bowls and stands – in home stores and in my own home!  All of them can be used as terrariums or dish gardens (I will call them all terrariums, but technically, terrariums are closed on top and dish gardens are open.)

Imagine a small footed-glass cupcake keeper with a beautiful African violet, a cake keeper with a delicate maidenhair fern, or a large glass cloche with a gorgeous orchid (“Beauty and the Beast” anyone?).  Imagine a tabletop with three lovely cake keepers of different heights and different plants.  Sorry, that is cheating…I saw it in Martha Stewart’s magazine.

You can create a miniature world in a large terrarium using multiple plants, unusual stones, small figurines, shells, fairy gardening supplies or ….. Only size and your imagination are the limits.

Most plants can be used in terrariums.  Recently, I worked with a lovely customer to put together a “dry” terrarium using small succulents and cactus.  She added small ceramic animals and stones. Adorable!

Photo by Miri Talabac.

How to Make a Terrarium

It is an easy and fun project and the results can be whimsical or elegant – you decide, and I can help.  After you select a container, the most important step is to select plants that require the same amount of light and water.  You would not want to plant an African violet with a cactus – one would surely die.   This is where I come in.  Bring in your container and we can play.

The recipe for terrariums is easy.  Use small pebbles for the bottom-most layer.  Sprinkle a small amount of charcoal over the pebbles.  Next, use a piece of landscape fabric to keep the soil from mixing with the pebbles. Then add a layer of soil thick enough to accommodate the plants you are adding.  Take the plants out of their pots and remove some of the soil – you want to make the root ball as shallow as possible.  Add more soil around the plants as needed.  Finish it off with something to personalize the planting – a small figurine, a shell, a stone or anything else that makes it special to you.  Water sparingly and place out of direct sunlight.  If you are putting the terrarium on the windowsill in direct sunshine, place a small stick between the side and the top to keep the top open.

I am happy to help you with this easy project that adds beauty to your home.

See you in the greenhouse.

Sherri, Houseplant Manager of our Potomac store.

One of Behnkes’ closest long-time neighbors in Beltsville is the world-famous Beltsville Agricultural Research Center,  which I visited recently to get a tour of their compost research from an old friend.  But any notion that the target audience here is gardeners or even homeowners is way off – this is about composting manure from dairy farms, like the 100-cow farm here.  Walter told me that figuring out what’s best on this small operation would work for 90 percent of the dairy farms in the U.S.  Their research has produced results ranging far off the farm, though.  Did I mention this place is world famous?

In most ways the dairy barn here is a typical “freestyle” barn, meaning the cows can roam freely, as the cows shown do to eat, lick salt, and use the mechanical back scratcher that they love.  The cows are here for nine months at a stretch when they’re producing milk, after which (as “dry cows”) they’re rewarded with two months in the pasture, where after being artificially impregnated they await the births of their calves and the beginning of milk production again.

But it isn’t just milk these ladies produce – also 30 gallons of “waste” every day.  That’s 3,000 gallons a day from this 100-cow barn alone.

So let’s follow that waste, shall we?  After moving along the slanted floor, manure and urine are held in an underground tank, then in this lagoon, which is typical of what a small farm would use.  Next, the solids are hauled away and spread in rows using surplus army trucks to pull the spreaders.

The solids sit in these “wind rows ” for 30 day, where they heat up to 150 degrees and are turned five times using this machine (the aptly named wind-row turner).  This machine is a four-foot turner, though larger ones can handle 20-foot rows.

The Research

Less than 25% of dairy manure ends up feeding crops, so the primary focus of this research is to reduce the loss of all those nutrients – in storage, in spreading, where half goes into the air as gas, and from microorganism action.  If manure could more efficiently direct nutrients into crops, there’d be less nutrient run-off into the waterways, and less need for farmers to buy fertilizer.  Besides efficiency, the compost that’s spread on crops has to be free of weeds and pathogens.

One solution used widely on large farms is to turn manure into biogas that then produces electricity.  It’s called “green power.”

The Tour Guide
Walter Mulbry is a 25-year veteran here at this USDA facility, where they’re especially proud of their research on removing pathogens and heavy metals from biosolids taken from wastewater.  Their findings became the EPA standards for treatment of biosolids.  Though Walter studied molecular biology and started his career researching toxins in solid waste, he soon discovered that even more dramatic environmental improvements could be accomplished from managing nutrients in waste.  Nutrients are the primary environmental problem in agriculture, not toxins.

Walter says this is a beautiful place to work and loves it here.  On the gorgeous fall day I visited, he was dressed not just in casual Friday garb but in farm clothes – even for this guvmint job, just outside D.C.   Here in the midst of 6,600 acres of farmland, Walter seems as happy as a pig in manure.

I recently attended an “open garden” event held by the Takoma Horticultural Club, during which I grabbed these photos of USDA-trained horticulturist Wendy Bell, whose talk about conservation landscaping we reported here on the blog.

Above, Wendy and Viv’s house is full of charm, and a great backdrop to Wendy’s lawn-free front garden.  She’s quick to tell visitors that this type of garden isn’t for the low-maintenance crowd, that it’s actually more work than a typical lawn.  (Remember, typical lawns in Takoma Park aren’t the perfect, golf-course type, but the barely good enough type of lawn that gets very little care.)

Note how much drama is added to the garden by one rather small Japanese maple.

Above, the view of Wendy’s front garden from her driveway.

In the back yard, lawn has given way to a raised-bed vegetable garden surrounded by a wood-chip path.

Tucked behind the garage are two really dramatic plants – a hardy banana that winters over just fine in the ground, and a high-yield fig tree.  I asked Wendy how long it took the banana to get that large – because I WANT ONE – and she said just two seasons.

Above are examples of focal points, starting with the signature bottle tree in Wendy’s front garden.  Very Southern!  And on the left is a bit of canna drama found in the front yard of Wendy’s next-door neighbor, horticulturist Margaret Atwell.  When not tending her plant-packed garden here in Takoma Park, Margaret works as the rosarian at the  U.S. Botanic Garden.  According to Holly Shimizu, director of the USBG, Margaret’s also in charge of the containers arrangements there, which Holly brags about to anyone who’ll listen.

Above, Margaret’s equally charming , super-colorful house.

A mulch-covered path across Margaret front garden.

Just one of many great combinations in this garden – the bark of a crape myrtle with a variegated Carex and sprawling hydrangeas underneath it.

Above, part of Margaret’s curbside garden.

Posted by Susan Harris.