The Hopkinton Garden Club is a welcoming and inclusive club. We do not and will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression or identity, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, military status or political affiliations in any of its activities or operations. Join us!
What's Happening!
Thank You!
Thanks so very much for another tremendously successful Hopkinton Garden Club Plant Sale! Many thanks to our customers, who flocked to the Hopkinton Town Common, and soldiered through Saturday construction, and were chipper about managing parking, too! We had lots of great questions, worked to get creative with companion planting ideas, and the usual: shade/part-shade/part-sun/full sun navigation!
But the success of our Plant Sale is due to so many contributions! We extend our gratitude to....
• Town of Hopkinton, MA for permitted use of the Common
• Coast of Maine Organic Products, Inc. - for their donation of 40 bags of seed starter for our strong seedlings, through their "Growing Good" donation program.
• Lovell's Florist and Nursery/Accents Gift Shop in Medfield, for delivery of the seed starter, and several more bags of COM Seed Starter
• Hopkinton Center for the Arts - loan of tables
• Angel's Garden Center - plant donations
• Hopkinton Stone & Gardens - plant donations
• Weston Nurseries Garden Centers/Hopkinton - plant donations
• Massachusetts Master Gardener Association for their assistance with our "Ask a Master Gardener" table
• Hopkinton Sustainable Green Committee (HopGreen) - for joining us to talk to folks about composting, sustainable gardening, gardening with native plants...
• Publicity: Hopkinton Independent, HopNews.com and HCAM Television - thanks for sharing our news!
• Non-member plant donors (individuals) and non-member helpers (spouses, moms, brothers, daughters, sons - it's a family affair!)
• New Members who joined during our Plant Sale! We so look forward to welcoming them to our programs, outings, gardening, and so much more!
• Our members - who began Plant Sale efforts during the snowy months, with planning and planting and tending seedlings, as weather warmed - potting up their perennials, and so generously giving of their time and talent to help with the myriad of tasks to help us all enjoy the Plant Sale!
Everyone's generosity will help fund our programs and speakers (most are open to the public - watch our FB, IG pages or website for news), our beautification/planting efforts, and scholarships.
Many, many thanks!
June Table Arrangements for Our Veterans!
Centerpieces for this month's Veteran’s Breakfast at the Hopkinton Senior Center by Hopkinton Garden Club members. A cheery volunteer effort by our Club volunteers: Jodi Yocher, Ann Clark and Merylyn Mezitt.
Each month, September through June, club members provide floral arrangements to decorate the tables at the Senior Center for their Veteran's breakfast.
Many Thanks to our 2023 "Help Hopkinton Bloom" Sponsors!
Our Business Sponsors share our goal of beautifying Hopkinton for the betterment of our community. We are extremely grateful to each organization who continues to support our work through their generous contributions.
We also want to express our deep appreciation to our Department of Public Works for providing a weekly watering for our planters and sites. This help is invaluable to keeping our plants looking their best!
Please show everyone your support and recognize their caring contribution to our town!
Planter Sponsors:
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Kathy Williamson
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Unibank, Hopkinton Branch (3)
Click here to view pictures of our 2022 town plantings, and their sponsors!
What We Do!
Garden Talk
Erigeron annuus, known as Annual fleabane or Daisy fleabane, is extremely common— and can quickly seed into open areas, particularly after they have been disturbed. It is a valuable source of nectar and pollen to small native bees, flies, and other insects; a larval host plant for 20 species of caterpillars; and prolific enough to compete with non-native weeds that don’t have much to offer ecologically-speaking. (Courtesy of Grow Native Massachusetts)
Native Plants!
Native plants in home gardens are essential for providing pollinators safe habitat in which they can thrive. Climate change, overbuilding, invasive species and other factors have destroyed large areas previously home to our insect and bird populations. With so much land being "chopped up", putting native plants in your garden will add to those from your neighbors’ gardens creating larger spaces for pollinators to call home.
Pollinators, who work hard to maintain the ecological systems we depend on (like food growth!), need your help!
Here are links to articles, webinars and websites with information on native plants and why they're so important to pollinators, and to us.
Articles:
Webinars:
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Adventures with Oddities: Strange and Noteworthy Natives (courtesy of the Ecological Landscaping Alliance) with Dan Jaffe (formerly of the Native Plant Trust)
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Landscaping with a Purpose, What's Diversity Got to Do with It? with Randi Eckel
Websites:
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Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (Native plants by state)
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Native Plants Lookup (Audubon)
Co-founded by Doug Tallamey, Homegrown National Park® is a grassroots call-to-action to regenerate biodiversity and ecosystem function by planting native plants and creating new ecological networks.
“Our National Parks, no matter how grand in scale are too small and separated from one another to preserve species to the levels needed. Thus, the concept for Homegrown National Park, a bottom-up call-to-action to restore habitat where we live and work, and to a lesser extent where we farm and graze, extending national parks to our yards and communities.” The goal is to get to 20 million acres of native planting in the U.S
Listen to a short talk by Doug Tallamy highlighting why your help is needed.
Want to know more? Here's a brochure describing the initiative and the key actions you can take in your yard!
Invasives! Be on the Lookout For....
Invasive plants - What are they? Non-native species that have spread into native or minimally managed plant systems in Massachusetts. These plants cause economic or environmental harm by developing self-sustaining populations and becoming dominant and/or disruptive to those systems. As defined here, “species” includes all synonyms, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars of that species unless proven otherwise by a process of scientific evaluation. (Massachusetts Invasive Plants Advisory Group)
General Resources:
Plants!
Invasive Plants in Hopkinton
Numerous stands of invasive plants have been identified in Hopkinton by our "Open Space Preservation Committee". Japanese knotweed, bittersweet, glossy buckthorn and barberry have been found in profusion in various locations. Ed Harrow, chair of the Open Space Preservation Committee, has led efforts to identify, and remove invasive plants in some areas. Read what he had to say when interviewed by the Hopkinton Independent in 2022.
https://hopkintonindependent.com/invasive-knotweed-plants-roots-in-hopkinton/
Black and Pale Swallow-worts:
Toxic to Monarch Butterflies
Black Swallow-wort & Pale Swallow-wort
Insects!
Invasive Insects in Massachusetts!
The Spotted Lanternfly Arrives in Massachusetts!!
The MA Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) announced on 9/28/21 that a small, established, and breeding population of the invasive spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) was detected in Worcester County, in the city of Fitchburg. This finding was confirmed by state officials.
Invertebrates
Jumping Worms
-> Life Cycle of a Jumping Worm<--
“… jumping worms are rapid growers and prolific breeders (being parthenogenic, which means they self-fertilize) and have a flash mob mentality, greedily devouring organic matter in both forests and landscapes, leaving it barren and inhospitable, to plant life,” writes Kris Atkinson, Principal Master Gardener, in the MA Master Gardeners Association Jan 2022 Newsletter.
In April, you’re most likely to find cocoons (worm eggs are encased in cocoons). These mustard-seed sized (2mm), brown spheres blend in with the dirt and are very difficult to see with the naked eye. Researchers dig out a soil sample, put it through a sieve, add water (some organics float), then with what’s left over, look for cocoons. Fortunately, the cocoons are hard, like a bead, so feeling the soil helps, as does doing this on a white surface, with bright lighting!
Larvae in the cocoons will begin to hatch at 50 degrees. If there’s a hard frost, it’ll kill the hatchling (one good thing about late frosts, or about winter thaws that typically happen in January). Otherwise, the hatchling will become a juvenile, finally reaching adulthood in 60-90 days. From hatchling through juvenile stages, it’s not possible to positively identify a Jumping Worm.
Adults have fully-formed clitellum, the white-ish band, smooth to the rest of it’s body, and goes all around the worm. Once the clitellum is fully formed, then the worm can be positively identified!
1.) the clitellum rings the worm (unlike European earth worms, whose clitellum is like a saddle, doesn’t go all around the body).
2.) the rings from the clitellum can be counted (~14-15 for Jumping Worms, 20+ for European worms)
3.) The tell-tale rapid movement can be observed, especially when disturbed (touched, picked up). The movement has been described as fast, erratic, violent thrashing, snake-like, flailing.
Cocoons are formed by sloughing off material from around the clitellum, in which 1 or 2 eggs have been deposited; the adult worm is now able to reproduce!
The good news? Adult Jumping Worms, in the leaf litter or the top 3” of soil, freeze and die, in New England. Even if kept in warmer conditions in a lab, the adults die by February.
The bad news? Cocoons are super survivors, tolerating temps down to -20F, and drought. The cocoons can re-hydrate after becoming so dehydrated they collapse like a deflated soccer ball! They don’t survive 3 days at temps of 104F+ (so solarizing can prevent their hatching).
GRAPHIC: Maryam Nouri-Aiin, University of Vermont. See more: https://www.vtinvasives.org/invasive/jumping-worms
For information of how to bare root your plants, click here.
