April 2025

NEWSLETTER

Tewksbury

Garden Club

Tewksbury, MA, USA

tewksburygardenclub.com

tewksburygardenclub@gmail.com

Major Club Event

Recent Meeting Highlights

Informative meeting last night on vegetable gardens with a presentation by Master Gardener Gretel Anspach. Here is the link to get your soil tested: http://soiltest.umass.edu/

Upcoming Meetings

Wed, May 14, 2025

Doors open at 6:30 PM, Meeting starts at 7 PM

Tewksbury Senior Center

Share Your Container Recipe. What’s a container recipe? It’s a list of plants that you use to create your successful, eyepopping home planter!

Send a picture of your container creation along with a list of the plants you use to Susan. This will be transformed into a slide presentation to show and showoff to the rest of the club. No picture? Send your combo recipe anyway to include in our night.

Judy and Marie will demonstrate how to make the perfect container.

Be sure to bring:

your name tag
money for container creation raffle
pen to sign up for committees
change for Pennies for Pines
money for June dinner ($50)
charities to donate to, in addition to our regulars
Community Food Pantry donation: Snacks

Literary Blooms Arrangements at the Tewksbury Public Library

This month's "Fairy Garden"-themed floral design was created by Lynda Miller.

Prepping at the Greenhouses

Your Garden Club friends have been busy at the greenhouses taking care of plants for the Plant Sale and ACE committee. We want to complete the work Bob started, and do him proud in the process. To meet that goal, we've been caring for these plants since they were just a seed, and you should see them now! Repotting into larger pots, fertilizing and watering is an enormous task, but we've nearly made it, less than 3 weeks now until the Plant Sale, and then ACE work starts shortly after that.

Highlights from Committee Reports

ACE Committee

Recent clean up activities took place at Muster Park on April 16th, and at the Town Common/Town Hall Annex on April 19th. It's been very rainy but the gardens are off to a great start and are looking beautiful!

Plant Sale Committee

A fun night of Rock Painting was had on April 24th hosted by Marie Luciano. The rocks painted by our talented Garden Club friends will be available for sale at the upcoming Plant Sale.

Next Plant Sale Preparation Events:

May 3 @ 9:30 AM at Muster Park - dig and divide day lilies for selling at the plant sale.

Sign-Up Genius links: Sign up for a time slot at the Plant Sale and for bringing things such as tables and tents that are needed for the sale day.

Garden Therapy

Here are the Spring creations made this month ...

at Bayberry

at Blair House

Happy Travelers

The Happy Travelers enjoyed a lovely Saturday afternoon at Vintage Tea and Cake in Arlington. We experienced some delicious tea, finger sandwiches, scones, jam and sweet pastries. Once our tea party was complete, we walked to the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum. Our guide was quite informative about Dallin’s sculptures and history.

Charlene and Judy invited members to join them on a trip at the Tulip Fest at Cider Hill Farm, Amesbury and a lunch trip to Noonan Nursery in Georgetown on May 10! Enjoy!

Sunshine Committee

Thank you for the sweet candle and uplifting message this month!

Dine Out Nights

We had a dine out night at Luna Rossa on April 8th. Stay tuned for info on our next fundraiser.

Club Members in the News

Susan and Pam represented the Town's Tree City committee at this year's Arbor Day celebration held at the Library. A flowering dogwood and 4 sweet pepperbush shrubs were planted as part of the observance ceremony. You can also find a black gum and a tulip tree planted at the rear library lawn. Remember, plant native trees and shrubs.

Horticultural Article

Volcanoes in Tewksbury?

Did you know there are volcanoes in town? Every Spring, new ones emerge, created by mulch spread by homeowners and landscapers around trees. Many people mistakenly think that a thick layer of mulch helps the trees retain moisture, but that's just not true. In fact, any mulch near the base of a tree can cause damage, including preventing water from reaching the roots resulting in roots developing near the surface, and causing the bark to develop disease and decay from being constantly wet. Trees need the root flare, where the trunk meets the ground, to be free of mulch, grass and even other plants (so, no flowers). Keep about 12-18 inches of soil only around the base of your tree to keep it alive. Say NO to mulch volcanoes! (Photo credit - UNH extension Top photo shows what you shouldn't do)

Media Recommendation

Many thanks to our new Online Platform Group who have started creating educational and informational content on various topics.

They are adding to our YouTube station with new videos and shorts. We made videos during the pandemic, so that's the largest amount of content, but this group has great ideas, so be sure to subscribe!

And now we are on Instagram, so follow us @tewksburygardenclub.

Amelia and Krista are exploring options right now, and the group will be at full complement soon with some of our newest members at the helm.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook on both our Member's Only page, AND our updated public page: facebook.com/TewksburyGC.

Please like, follow, subscribe and share widely to increase our reach and visibility.

Federation Updates

The Billerica Garden Club is holding its Annual Plant Sale on Saturday March 10th on the lawn at their Senior Center. Here is a link to all Plant Sale flyers the GCFM has posted.

GCFM's Annual Meeting is at the Danversport on June 19th. Tickets may be purchased on the GCFM website.

Tewksbury Community Pantry Donations

Thank you for everyone's food pantry donations of condiments at this month's meeting!

Our next collection is SNACKS! Small bags, shareable snacks, things that can be spread around.

As always, thank you for your generosity.

Monthly Board Meeting

All members are invited to attend the monthly board meetings.

Please contact Susan or the person holding the meeting to let them know you'll be there so we have enough chairs. Let Susan know if you have a particular topic for discussion, or if you just want to participate in the meeting, or to just listen in.

Our May meeting will be held on May 7th at Marie Luciano's house at 6:30 pm.

Newsletter Submissions

Post committee updates on our Facebook member's page so we can pull content from there and images are easy to grab.

Submit all info/pictures for inclusion in future newsletters to tewksburygardenclub@gmail.com by the 27th each month.

Thanks for all you do, and for contributing to this publication!