President's Letter - February 2022

Greetings, Garden Friends –

January will be in the rear view mirror by the time you read this, but as I write the snow from the big storm is still deep on the yard. I am thankful that it wasn’t preceded by freezing rain, because that’s what did so much damage last year.

I have more updates on the program calendar. Anne Talarek (not Gabrielle Krage on Garden Design, as I mistakenly wrote last month) was our scheduled speaker for February, but her manager at Fallingwater, where she is the Chief Horticulturalist, will not allow her to go out to speak to in-person groups with Omicron on the loose, and her program cannot easily be made virtual. As such we have reserved her for next fall.

The good news is that we have been invited to join the Garden Club of Cleveland’s program at the Botanical Garden on February 22, a presentation by Matthew Benson, a renowned garden photographer. More information is in this newsletter. I hope to see many of you there!

All about pollinators: “Bee Successful” is the title of the project that is the Founders Fund proposal for 2022, and you can read about it in the Winter 2022 edition of the GCA Bulletin. As it happened, “Bee” was the only proposal put forward, but it would have been a standout in any field. Four young women in a high school in Texas relocated a bee colony that had unwisely settled in a bottling plant…the team learned everything about bees, invested in beekeeping essentials (wardrobe!), learned how to build bee boxes, honey harvesting, bee behavior – they are experts now, and the bee colony is safely installed in a protected watershed free of pesticide and fertilizer. Read all about it – it’s a wonderful story of a very impressive achievement. You will find more information about voting to affirm this proposal in this newsletter.

Going forward, Founders Fund will be part of the Civic Improvement Committee, which will encompass other grant making committees of the GCA – all except Scholarship, which remains a separate committee. You will hear more about that in future newsletters.

And more about pollinators: we know that for the most part our backyards are food deserts for birds as well as the insects that pollinate, and there are some excellent resources available virtually. Ann Cicarella was part of a team that put together a webinar series about planting for pollinators. You got an email about it, and the information is included again in this newsletter. Even if you missed the first one or two, they are being recorded and made available for at least a month after the session. It’s free, but you need to register so they can send you the Zoom link. I recommend it!

Leigh Fabens