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Please read and watch this post by The Roosevelt Islander for much more information. We could not have been more excited to host passionate professionals from all around NYC for a visit and seed swap at the gardens on Friday afternoon October 15th: Parks professionals, Landscapers, National Wildlife educators, Native plant enthusiasts, Arborists, Entomologists and more! Thank you so much Christina Delfico @iDig2Learn for organizing this social gathering for nature!   How can one avoid or eliminate this suffocating weed? 1) Amend your soil and fill your garden with healthy strong plants. 2) Dig down and dig out the root (often 12 "deep). 3) Cut back/Prune repeatedly to ground level to weaken and eventually kill. 4) Pull out and remove before flowering and seeding that spreads then to others' plots. 5) Another successful strategy is to mulch the area after weeding by laying down 5-6 sheets of overlapping newspaper or cardboard over all bare soil, and then cover with 3” of ramial wood chips. 6) Please try to trash all bindweed trimmings and avoid placing them in the compost bin. However, our compost piles do also heat up to 140 degrees Farhenheit to kill any possible weed reproduction. RIGC member, Karen Lee, has prepared her own bindweed publication with excellent pictures of varied stages of growth for this plant, which can be downloaded below. This link provides another bindweed discussion from an organic gardening blog with pictures of field bindweed; and this link will take you to a clear explanation of hedge bindweed from the RHS in England, but please be reminded that at RIGC, we keep our methods natural and do not allow pesticides that damage the environment and our health long term. If one weeding nightmare is not enough for you, beware, there is an even worse weed that appears only on a small western edge of the garden because it spreads from an area in the DEP site: Japanese knotweed. 
 Standards Chair, Beverly Shutes, offered two mulching workshops in July on how to use quality organic mulch correctly to build your garden soil and prevent weeds. RIGC has received wood chips from several Roosevelt Island trees because VP Dave Nisthaus and Beverly recently asked the DEP site workers for the chipped remains of a cottonwood tree that had to be removed for the water tunnel work. As a result, we received a large, free pile of locally sourced ramial mulch. This method of wood chip mulching is based on the no-till "Back to Eden" garden method, as taught by Paul Gautschi, a renowned arborist. (http://barbolian.com/permaculture-by-nature/) It both builds the soil and avoids too much soil disturbance. RIGC Landscape committee members have seen the benefits for our perimeter beds as plant growth and soil health have been enhanced. The need for weeding has been reduced in areas where we followed these instructions. The attached document below provides further instructions and careful reasoning for the specifics. Other kinds of garden care methods include plants as mulch which espouse close plantings methods such as in our own Rose Garden by Marjorie Marcallino and in some of our award winning gardens by Julie Lipp and Elizabeth Bolden. This article and interview of Claudia West from Margaret Roach at A Way To Garden explains these ideas further. 
 Seasonal Planting Photo and Link to Plants are the Mulch by Margaret Roach Every year for the past four years, RIGC has been honored by an April workshop with Consulting Rosarians from the Manhattan Rose Society, one of 300 local societies of the American Rose Society.The Rosarians visit, educate our gardeners, and work on our beautiful roses.They teach and model the best techniques of the fine art of pruning. We love these visits from specialists who enjoy the extensive collection of roses which are found in our Rose Garden. The beautiful plants of the Roosevelt Island Garden Club are tended and provided by Marjorie Marcallino and her Rose Garden Committee The garden is always filled with a concentrated quiet as they worked in the early spring air. The five rosarians, who trained for many hours to hold the title, Consulting Rosarian and this year's group included Mrs. Pat Shanley, current serving as President of the 8000 member strong American Rose Society. For more information please see: http://manhattanrosesociety.org/ Now that June has arrived, our amazing roses are in full bloom! Enjoy seems to be a word that is not nearly enthusiastic enough! Delight in our beautiful roses! The RIGC 2016 Standards Committee was composed of 11 members and aimed at encouraging as much gardening as possible to keep our gardens more beautiful than ever. 2016 Standards announced its first inspection in April and ended with another announced and final year-end inspection in November. They also made three unannounced inspections and followed up with some quick checks. At each inspection, gardens were scored based on their adherence to the published guidelines. Each score was determined by utilizing paper ballots, to ensure that each vote held equal weight and was private. In addition, the 2016 Board and Committee worked with people who requested help. At each inspection, any garden that met club guidelines was also eligible to be nominated for a "Best Garden Award", and those nominations were also made via paper ballot. A wide variety of gardens received nominations, and each, in some way, moved or impressed the voters. At our October General meeting, the winners of the best garden awards were announced. There were 10 best gardens, with one earning the title of "Garden of the Year". And the winners were.... 2016 Garden of the Year: Elizabeth Bolden B30 2016 Top Ten Garden Awards (in no particular order): Judith & Kwasi Long B26 Julie Lipp B27 Jamie Santamour A9 Scott Holleman C12 Michael Biegenek B33 Ed Gardener & Dorothy Skelin D5 Julia Ferguson & Jerome Dutilloy C38 Shelley Yu B25 Georg Kell D2  |
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