March 2010 Newsletter

Note from the President: It is already a busy spring with many activities underway for EMHS. Our first meeting of 2010 was very busy with many things to get accomplished in so little time. Typical of EMHS we had a feast for refreshments instead of snacks at the Feb. meeting. Jan Everson did a wonderful job of giving us a recap of the 2010 National Hosta Convention and seeing the Tour sites that we weren’t able to go see was a treat. Thank you Jan!

I want to thank Mary and Marlene for keeping the Membership Apps, Club Plant Sales, Hosta Stones, Monies being collected, and other sign-up sheets in order at the Feb. meeting.

I also want to thank Eric Hahn for starting the EMHS blog and for doing the monthly additions to it. This project is saving a lot of time for me and has alleviated the problem of people not being able to view the newsletter when it is emailed to them. Anybody can go to the blog site http://easternmichiganhostasociety.blogspot.com/ at any time and view the current newsletter, old newsletters, future meeting dates and meeting sites, past minutes, and even make comments about the blog. To protect the blog from inappropriate comments, all comments sent to the blog are forwarded to my personal email for approval before they are posted to the blog.

A giant THANK YOU goes out to Mick and Cathy Hodgson, Carolyn Pickard, Mary Smith, Cathy Clark (who has helped in previous years), Betty Valentine, Sally Suttle and Ron Colligan who worked at the EMHS Hosta Stone booth at Hosta College last week. Mick and Cathy said it was a great benefit having the help this year.

I hope to see you all at the April 8th, 2010 meeting at the Mayfield Twp. Hall at 6:30PM,

Glen

April 8th Meeting- The next meeting of the EMHS will be April 8th, 2010 at the Mayfield Twp. Hall in Lapeer. This is our regular meeting place located at 1900 N. Saginaw Lapeer, MI next to Stiles Cemetery. Networking will begin and refreshments will be served at 6:30PM and the meeting will start promptly at 7:00PM.

Note- since grafting is a near sterile procedure, please be sure to wash your hands after networking and refreshment time and be ready to start the meeting at 7:00PM.

April 8th Meeting continued- The topic for the meeting is Japanese Maple Grafting. This will be a “hands-on” meeting. First, Glen will give a Power Point presentation about grafting your own Japanese Maple then he (with the help of Mark) will assist you in grafting a Japanese Maple that you will take home and plant in your own garden. Kits that include one rootstock tree, one scion of Acer p. Oridono Nishiki, one sterile surgical scalpel, one grafting band, one grafting bag, and one grafting tie will be available at the meeting for the cost of $5.00 per kit. The charge for each kit is actually less than the actual cost for the materials it contains. Glen is doing this as a favor to the attendees. Glen will be supplying all the scion wood from his own Japanese Maple collection. If you would like to graft your own tree and have not already reserved a kit, please do so by emailing Glen at pacegardens@charter.net or by calling him at 989-244-4029. Glen has to know before the meeting that you plan to graft so sufficient scion can be cut from his trees.



Refreshment Committee- The refreshment committee for the April 8th meeting is; Dawn Hagemeister, Jane Schade, Sally Suttle, and Deb Brown. Since we have people from other clubs and from out of town planning to attend this meeting, anybody that wants to bring refreshments to help these ladies out, please note that it would be greatly appreciated.

Bus Trip to OH- If you are interested in being part of the EMHS bus trip to Van Wade’s on July 17th & 18th, please contact Mark Hanner at mhanner@aol.com or 810-631-4292.

Club Plant Sale- We sold 81 plants for this year’s Club Plant Sale. The scheduled shipping date for the plants is May 10th so the plants should be available for pick-up at Pace Gardens in Clio later that week (hopefully on the 12th). More will be announced as the delivery time approaches, but please plan on a trip to Clio to get the plants you ordered as all plants will be bare root and wrapped in wet newsprint.

Hosta Stones- If you have ordered and paid for a Hosta Stone, please contact Mick and Cathy Hodgson at 810-664-8985 to arrange a time to pick-up your stone. Anybody wishing to purchase a stone can contact Mick and Cathy to arrange that as well.



We are looking forward to seeing you at the April 8th, 2010 meeting at the Mayfield Twp. Hall at 6:30.