•A National Treasure •Tame Your Temper •Diet Mistakes

hort happenings
October News
By Anne Hill
A big thank you to everyone who contributed to the
success of our fall plant and bake sale on September
10th; a lot of excellent plants found new homes with
happy gardeners. We had eager shoppers waiting for
us as soon as we arrived at the Sharon Temple
grounds. It was fun to help a gardener plan out a
whole new garden with “something low, something
yellow, something taller, something to bloom early,
something for fall colour” being picked out. That
particular garden should look lovely next year. The
proceeds of our sales go towards maintaining our
community gardens and paying for speakers
throughout the year.
Perennials planted now have time to get settled in
without heat stress and will be established before the
ground freezes. Water the plants in well. I’ve been
amazed this week by how dry the soil is – you’d think
we’d had no rain all year! We have an article on
dividing plants in fall on our website that contains
good tips on which ones divide best in the fall and
how to handle them. Working in the garden is a
pleasure in the fall as the
weather is cooler and growth
is less frantic.
Spiders rule in the garden at
the moment – some days the
fine strands of their silk are
festooned from the maple tree
over to the flower garden in a
delicate display of beautiful
shining colour as the
light catches them, like a lot of little rainbows. My
favourite spider at this time of year is the black and
gold garden spider (argiope aurantia) a large
handsome spider which spins zigzag strips into
its web.
It’s time to bring in the houseplants that have been
vacationing outside. They will need a good cleaning
and inspection to make sure they aren’t bringing in
hitch-hikers. Outdoor bugs like earwigs aren’t
welcome in the house!
Our speaker on Tuesday, October 18th is Malcolm
Geast and he will be talking about bugs in the garden,
the good and the bad. It’s important that we protect
the good bugs and know how to deal with the
unwelcome ones in ways that don’t damage the
environment. We’ll have our last flower show of the
year that evening. The Junior Gardeners will meet at
7p.m to make a Halloween craft.
We meet at Mount Albert Community Centre, 53
Main Street, Mount Albert. Guests pay just $2 per
meeting. A membership taken out in the next two
months will run till the end of 2012.
For more information about any of our activities
please call 905-478-8450 or visit our website at
www.gardenontario.org/site.php/mountalbert
Community Groups, Churches and Events
need volunteers! Looking for community
hours? Check the What’s On list on
pages 6 and 7 in each issue, there may
be something you can help out with!!
24 “LIKE” East Gwillimbury’s Bulletin Magazine on FACEBOOK