June 2017 Meeting: Visit to The Flower Factory

The Flower Factory hosta greenhouse

In case anyone did not get all the perennials they needed for their garden at the recent Upands Garden Club plant sale, we got another chance to purchase those perfect plants.

Our June Garden Club meeting took place at The Flower Factory in Stoughton, WI. The Flower Factory carries a  huge selection of perennials including day lilies, hostas, ornamental grasses, pond plants, and rock garden plants. They have many new plants this year, Little Pinkie Gentian, Ruby Grass, and several new Veronicas…Blue Skywalker, Perfectly Piasson, Pink Potion to name a few.

Nancy Nedveck, Co-Owner or The Flower Factory
led a behind-the-scenes tour and shared her expertise.

And anyone who did not need any new plants certainly enjoyed wandering the gardens and enjoying the beautiful setting. Co-Owner Nancy Nedveck gave us a tour at 5PM with shopping open until 7PM.

It was great to go behind the scene to see the propagation areas and replenishing houses. Nancy is a gracious and helpful hostess. We came away with just what we needed for several special projects. Her knowledge of perennials is incredible, and we took full advantage of her expertise. We plan to return soon for more plants as we update some older flower beds.

Jane with Cow Topiary

Garden club meets in a beautiful setting at The Flower Factory

May 2017 Meeting: Tool Sharpening & Garden Visit - Rademaker Home Gardens

Our May meeting was jam packed! It included not only tool sharpening but also a tour of Carol and Dean Rademaker's wonderful gardens.

Then there were consultations to decipher the results of soil tests for those who had turned in their samples to Nina Cairns at last month's meeting.

Whew - a lot going on!

We divided into two groups for demonstrations and tours. Uplands Garden Club members John Sharp, Dean Rademaker and Bill Wisler demonstrated how to sharpen a variety of garden tools, John and Dean showing how to use power equipment and Bill concentrating on sharpening using only hand tools.

Club members each brought one tool to be sharpened. They could try their hand at it themselves or ask John, Dean and Bill to do it. Admittedly, most of us chose the latter option but we did go home with newfound knowledge of how to do it ourselves at home next time.

While one group was getting their tools sharpened, Carol led the other group on a tour of their wonderful country property, which includes extensive perennial gardens, rustic features that Carol has created, a huge rock garden, outbuildings, and a stream leading to a pond.

And, as if that wasn't plenty, Nina Cairns was on hand to interpret the soil analysis results from samples that members turned in at the April meeting.

Learning from one another is just one of the many pleasures of belonging to the garden club, as this meeting highlighted so well. A hearty THANK YOU to John, Dean, Bill and Nina for sharing their expertise and to Carol and Dean for their hospitality!

April 2017 Meeting: Ruth Oppendahl - I Heart Wisconsin River Trip

The April meeting of the Uplands Garden Club featured Ruth Oppedahl, Executive Director of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin.

As a positive response to the state budget cuts to natural resources, Ruth decided to use her vacation exploring our state from north to south and meeting with conservation groups and citizens along the way to learn how they help protect our lands, waters and wildlife.

Ruth’s trip was an 18 day solo paddle from the source of the Wisconsin River to the confluence with the Mississippi River in October 2015. She discovered a beautiful, wild river and wonderful people along the way which she recalled for the Garden Club with great humor and wonderful photos. It was a tale of adventure and discovery.

Follow Ruth's recounting of her adventure in blog posts on the Natural Resources Foundation website.

March 2017 Meeting - Let's Talk Soil with Nina Carns

Uplands Garden Club member Nina Carns has a background in Agronomy-Soil Science from the University of WI at Platteville. She has worked for many years with troubleshooting fertility issues and working to get clients on a better program to correct soil deficiencies and problems with their crops. Obtaining higher yields and minimizing disease issues have been a key part of Nina’s work. She is a Certified Crop Advisor and has her own company, NC Nutrient Management located in Dodgeville.

The Garden Club March March meeting, held at Stonefield Apartments in Dodgeville, started with Nina explaining the basic nutrients covered in soil tests and why these nutrient levels are important. This part of the talk was then linked to the specific fertilizer and amounts needed to improve the soil. Nina walked us through a basic soil test from the immediate area, and discussed the different nutrients tested, what they mean and how to improve the deficiencies.

Then Nina gave us collection bags and invited us all to gather a sample from our garden areas to bring to our April meeting for testing. Once the results are known, Nina will write up a brief statement in very basic terms for what is needed to improve or correct problems with the samples submitted. These results will be available at the May meeting.

What a gift! We will all be eager to get our results. 

A huge thank you to Nina for sharing her expertise.

February 2017 Meeting: Mushrooms, Mosses and Lichens - David Kopitzke

The presentation at our February meeting, the first of 2017, was a very valuable talk on Mushrooms, Mosses and Lichens by David Kopitzke. In addition to general background on this interested group of organisms, we learned to tell the difference between some common edible mushrooms and lookalikes that are not so edible. Valuable knowledge indeed!

David Kopitzke’s interest in the natural world began early, with childhood family outings to state parks and with many Boy Scout camping trips. His education furthered these interests with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s degree in Plant Ecology. Thereafter his career included work as Curator of Botany at the Milwaukee Public Museum, operating a native plant nursery, protecting rare plant species with the Wisconsin Bureau of Endangered Resources and teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Richland.

In addition, he has been an active member of The Nature Conservancy, The Toyama Prefectural Friends of Plants and a founding board member of the Driftless Area Land Conservancy, a land trust protecting natural, agricultural and historic sites in southwestern Wisconsin. At home he keeps busy with a huge vegetable garden, botanical illustrations and language studies. His interest in plants is not limited to the large (trees) and the colorful (flowers), but also includes the more obscure, but no less fascinating, world of mushrooms, mosses and lichens.

December 2016 Meeting - Annual Holiday Season Party

As per usual, the December meeting was reserved for the annual Holiday Season Party. It's always the best potluck ever with the club providing two meat dishes (ham and turkey) and club members bringing a side dish, appetizer or dessert.

The committee, led once again by Glen Ridnour, prepared the meat dishes, decorated the tables and provided the popper party favors...imported from England no less. And this year we had gold paper crowns too. A lucky person at each table got to take home the table centerpiece, a lovely Christmas cactus plant.

As always, scrumptious food and delightful company made for a great evening.

A big thank you to the committee!

November 2016 Meeting: Wildflowers and the Insects That Visit Them - a video presentation by Richard Pearce

At the Uplands Garden Club November meeting Richard Pearce amazed us with his close-up videos of Wildflowers and The Insects That Visit Them.

For the past 15 years Richard Pearce, a retired medical researcher, has spent much of his spare time trekking through woods, prairies, and along waterways throughout Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin obtaining high resolution images of plants for his Flora of the Driftless Region website (posted at arrasimages.com) and, more recently, getting close up, slo-motion video of the insects that visit them.

Uniquely, for the stills, Pearce uses an office scanner instead of a camera. For rare or listed species he takes the scanner into the field along with a power pack, computer, and extra lights to get extremely high resolution still images. If the flower is common or in fact a weed he can collect its flower and some leaves and scan them back in the studio under more controlled conditions. The method provides optimal detail with an extremely wide field of view, and it reproduces color—especially blues and purples—more faithfully than does a camera. It’s perfect for documenting the minute floral and leaf structures that distinguish one species from another.

For the video, Pearce turns to a smart phone. When fitted with a macro lens and set to capture 240 frames a second, the handheld phone is perfect for capturing spur-of-the-moment events like a bee fly pitching her eggs into a miner bee’s nest, or a leaf cutter snipping out a bit of rose petal, tucking it under her legs and flying it home.

“The slo-motion video allows the viewer enter the world of the insect,” Pearce notes. “Not needing a heavy tripod, massive lenses, or special lighting frees one to capture insects as they naturally behave.”

Pearce’s photoscans have appeared on the cover of Julien’s Journal several times and the technique has been featured in the Dubuque Telegraph Herald and Big River Magazine. His videos can be seen on his Youtube channel, “Richard Pearce.” Links and other information are available at arrasimages.com. Pearce has a permanent show at the Stonehouse Gallery in Galena and is currently featured at the Longbranch Gallery in Mineral Point.