Garden clubs have specific rules to follow for their club books. I have done that for a few years in our garden club. Trying to diversify is difficult. For instance, in December, instead of giving the usual care of pointsettias or planting of pansies, I decided to tell the members what kind of greenery from their gardens could be used for Christmas decorations and how to condition them etc. Another time I described the various kinds of mulch to be used in various parts of the yard, i. e. use only cypress mulch around the house foundation to deter termites and use the pine straw and pine bark in other parts of the yard. I have learned that many people are just getting into gardening so the more basic one can be in the horticulture hints the more productive the program.

Thanks for the ideas. I don't think the rules for horticulture hints in the yearbook are very specific in this case, or if they are I'm sure after ten years she has them down pat. She did say she could go through her old yearbooks and re-use ones she thought might be helpful, but she didn't really want to do that. I looked at the websites for Texas and Georgia for the extension service, but didn't find much I thought would help. Assumed the ladies who were interested in such things would already have checked with LSU's site, tho' I know that's probably carrying optimism too far. I was hoping for suggestions like 'don't plant your winter pansies until the weather has cooled off' only things we haven't already thought of!
Thanks again--Nancy

She came over tonite and I gave her your suggestions and a few others I had gleaned after spending hours and hours on various web sites I'd googled. We really appreciated your suggestions and spent some time trading ideas inspired by them. One of the ideas I'd picked up from various discussions on the GardenWeb was the important one of educating yourself or asking other gardening friends about plants you don't know before taking the word of nurseries and garden centers that something will grow here. Some places really operate on that 'Buyer beware' principal, and are perfectly happy to sell you things that can't possibly survive, and then you may feel like your thumbs are black when it's really their hearts. I know in some cases they just don't know, and when they want to bring you new and different plants they can be fooled too. But I knew a nursery owner when I first came here who told someone I knew who was starting her own plant business that the way to succeed was to sell people plants that wouldn't grow so they'd have to come back to buy more. I get angry all over again every time I think of that. I think what happened is a lot of people became convinced they just couldn't grow things. May be why so many folks here have lawns and nothing else, or maybe a clump of aspidistra and a couple azaleas, one mauve one and one coral-orange, planted side by side. I go blind every spring, or wish I could.
Thank you again!
Nancy

"When using a wide variety of plants, use walls, arbors, paths and gates to give the garden structure and form."

"House plant survival kit: moisture meter, watering can, mist bottle, insecticidal soap."

"You can use the same fertilizer on all of your plants. Try planting parsley among brightly colored flowers. It adds a bright green contrast especially with snapdragons."

"For greater impact, plant transplants closer together than recommended and in large groupings."

"A piece of an old window blind makes an inexpensive plant label. Cut it to a point on one end and then add the plant's name."

"When working in the garden and stung by a bee or wasp, rub raw onion on the sting. It takes the swelling out right away and soon you will not know you had been stung."

"When your vegetable garden is going full speed it's important to harvest regularly to insure an ongoing supply of vegetables. Gather vegetables early in the morning or the day you plan to use them."

I love what you said about going blind every spring, or wishing you could. The house across the street from me is painted mustard yellow with orange trim. There is a statue of the Virgin Mary, a gazing globe, two dolphins, some whirly-gigs and the Christmas lights are still strung on the house. That is what I see when I sit here at my computer. I have since put up a wicker screen so I get a blurred view.

If you copy and paste this website there are a lot of
ideas in "Our Diary of Garden Hints". You can even add
some of your own.

http://bbs.reimanpub.com/bulletinboard.asp?view=reply&threadnum=85111&catnum=77&headnum=3

These are all wonderful! I'll have to print them and save them for next year! I hope others on here will find them helpful too. We really can help each other a lot; we get a lot of information on gardening shows on the television and even in our local paper (I hope nobody else has this problem) that just isn't so when it comes to gardening here. There's a columnist on Boston I think it is who gets in our paper periodically. That's really a big help to local people who are just learning!