Welcome to the Greenfield Garden Club
Serving all of Franklin County, Massachusetts, and beyond.
Please join us at one of our many meetings - and bring a friend!

The Historical Society of Phillipston, Inc. is sponsoring a two-day garden tour on July 12th and 13th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  The tour features nine unique gardens with a range of settings not seen in most garden tours.  Begin the tour at the Historical Society Museum located at 80 State Road (Route 2A) where you obtain your tickets and a map of the route to the gardens. Lunch with musical entertainment is included.  Tickets sold on the days of the tour are $18 (adults) and $5 (children under 10).  Advanced tickets can be purchased for $15 by calling Mel Haughton at 978-249-3171 or Nancy MacEwen at 978-249-7517.   The event will be held rain or shine. If you go Sunday, you can go to Richard Willard's Daylily and Arts Festival on the 12th - see the side-bar below for information. Or, the Northfield Garden Club is sponsoring a House and Garden Tour in Northfield, also on the 12th and 13th. Tickets are on sale 10-2 and the tour is 10-3. Purchase tickets at the Northfield Historical Commission at 13 Pine St.

Standing Stones constructed by Paul Forth

July Meeting: Thursday, July 17th
Time: 6pm (Carpool leaves at 5:30M)
Location: 17 Stillwater Rd, South Deerfield, MA
Topic: "The Gifts of Irene" with hosts Tony Palumbo and Michael Collins

Adapted from Pat Leuchtman's Commonweeder and Between the Rows 8/17/13 articles:

Two years ago Irene came rampaging through the area turning the rivers into torrents overleaping their banks, washing away roads and buildings, breaking hearts and pocketbooks.
Tony Palumbo, artist, owner of the Green Emporium and gardener, was at his easel watching the rain pour down. Neighbors came urging them to leave. Palumbo’s partner, chef Michael Collins, said they would wait it out. Their house had survived the storm’s of ’38 and ’87. It would survive this one too.
Soon Palumbo and Collins were watching fish swim past their kitchen windows in the swirling waters. Suddenly the door burst open and in came the flood. The two ran upstairs to wait out the storm. In the morning the water had all disappeared from the garden, although not the kitchen, leaving behind deep mud and sand. The secret garden with its trickling fountain was buried and the vegetable and flower gardens were washed away. Also washed away was the undergrowth in the woodland at the far end of the garden.
As with all those who suffered losses, at first there was just shock. But soon Tony Palumbo became weary of people commiserating with him on the loss of his beautiful garden. “Wait til you see the next one!” became his spirited response. “My palette was cleared by the storm, I had a whole new canvas to work with.” But the question was what to do and where to begin.
One day Palumbo’s Colrain neighbor Paul Forth, artist and stonemason, walked by and saw the destruction of Palumbo’s garden. “I knew Tony from the Green Emporium where I had eaten and chatted with him, but we didn’t really know each other. When I saw the garden I had to ask if I could help,” he said.
Palumbo replied that he needed so much help he didn’t know where to start. The starting place appeared when Palumbo woke up in the middle of the night and. in a frenzy, sketched out a very different kind of garden from that which had existed. “I didn’t want to recreate what had been lost. I wanted to create something new,” he said.
“He was great to collaborate with,” Forth said. “He had the idea, and then totally trusted me as I worked from his crazy sketch.”
The Palumbo-Collins house is located between the West Branch of the North River on one side, and a stream on the other, that ultimately makes its way to the river. The first project Palumbo and Forth worked on was a dam that turned the stream into a small pond with a stone spillway. The water cascades through the large stones Forth placed in the spillway into the old streambed where watercress grows once again.
The second project was a curving stone wall holding up a steep flower filled bank. Forth said that when he is choosing stones for his projects he is looking for unique stones, stones that have different color veins, or quartz or some other feature.
The final project was the small stonehenge, a circle, one hundred feet in diameter, of standing stones around a fire pit. In his business, Stone Creations, Forth is usually working with flat stones, building steps, walkways, walls and patios, sometimes adding metal railings because he is also a blacksmith. But for the circle of standing stones he was looking for stones that were tall enough and strong enough to stand, as well as be aesthetically interesting. All the stones he used are individually chosen, which means time spent walking through the Goshen Stone Company quarry or Hillman and Sons in Shelburne, quickly eliminating many stones and then making his distinctive choices.
“I design as I go,” Forth said. “One of the stones for the smaller arch was too short so I stacked three stones.” This is an element that adds interest as well as stability.
Beyond the standing stones in the woodland, where underbrush was washed away all sorts of metal and automotive debris was unearthed. Palumbo who enjoys turning found objects into art saw immense potential in those bits of rusty car doors and hoods. For the moment he has begun this new garden by planting a shitakke mushroom pyramid that is fruiting, and created an unusual array of old windows illumined with Palumbo’s trademark neon.
When Palumbo proudly gave Pat a tour of the new of the new garden he said, “These are the gifts of Irene.”

Directions:
The garden is located at the intersection of Adamsville and North Heath Roads in Colrain.  Take Rte 2 west and turn right onto Colrain Shelburne Rd just past Hager's Market. In the center of Colrain, turn left on 112. Bear right onto Foundry Village Rd. Bear right onto Adamsville Rd. Heath Rd is 2nd left - park on Adamsville Rd since the bridge is out, and walk across to their home on the left.

We hope to see you soon!

Hypertufa Balls - click to see how they are made!

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2014 Schedule of Monthly Meetings and Events of Interest to Members

January 19 - Annual Meeting at Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory and Gardens. 12:30pm

February 8 - Berkshire Botanical Garden Winter Lecture featuring Louis Benech. Register here. They say it will sell out, so book early if you intend to go!

February 20 - 7pm - Michael Marcotrigiano, Director of the Botanic Gardens of Smith College will give a talk about the history of the gardens and there will be a short talk about invasive species by the Discovery Center Staff.

February 20-23 - 33rd Annual CT Flower & Garden Show at CT Convention Center, Hartford, CT.

February 20-23 - 21st Annual Rhode Island Spring Flower & Garden Show at the RI Convention Center, Providence, RI.

February 26 - Wed - 6:30pm - "Queen of the Sun: What are the bees telling Us?" with Dan Conlon of Warm Colors Apiary. Film to be shown at St James Church.

February 28 - Opening Lecture, Smith College Bulb Show: "The Best of Flower and Fragrance" presented by Holly Shimizu, Executive Director, United States Botanic Garden. 7:30 Campus Center Carroll Room.

March 1-16 - let's plan a field trip to either/both the Smith College and Mt Holyoke College bulb shows. Email the club to indicate your interest, and the best date/time. Like to plan ahead? Smith has dates for their bulb and chrysanthemum shows set 5 years ahead!

March 8 - 8:45AM - 2:15PM - "Bring Imagination to Your Garden" Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association's Spring Symposium. Click here for details and registration. Frontier Regional High School, South Deerfield, MA.

March 11 - 6:30pm - Leyden Town Hall "Creating Native Bee Habitat" with Tom Sullivan.

(Late March - 2014 Grant Proposal's will be awarded.)

March 12-16 - Boston Flower Show, Seaport World Trade Center, Boston, MA. This year's Theme: "Romance in the Garden."

March 20  7pm - Craft Night - make a water feature in a pot with Stacey Chapley. Pumps, bowls and bamboo will be available on a first come, first served basis. There will be a fee to order these. You may also choose to bring your own supplies.

March 29 - "Inch by Inch, Row by Row" Lower Valley Master Gardener Spring Symposium. Holyoke High School, 8:00AM - 2:00PM. Click here for more info.

April 26 - Saturday - 9am - 3pm - Garden Expo at Five Acre Farm in Northfield. Tours of the greenhouses, lots of vendors, and your member discount on purchases. This takes the place of a regular monthly meeting. 

April 12 - "Ten years of Beautiful Berkshire Gardens" Berkshire Valley Spring Symposia - 8:00AM - 2:30PM at Lenox High School. Sponsored by Western Mass Master Gardener Association. Click here for details.

May 3 - Saturday - road trip to Pickity Place in Mason,
NH. Five course herbal luncheon (fee), explore the gardens, peruse the gift shop. Carpool leaves at 9am from Cherry Rum Plaza. (This was originally the April event but was moved forward due to Easter and school vacation.)

(Extravaganza is May 10, 2014)

May 15 - 6pm - Visit Seeds of Solidarity in Orange, MA. Their motto is "Grow Food Everywhere!" Carpool from Cherry Rum Plaza at 5:25pm.

May 17 - Plant sale at St James Episcopal Church on the corner of Federal and Church Streets, as well as the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale in Shelburne Falls. 9 am- noon.

June 6 &7 - Friday and Saturday. Concord Museum's 25th annual self-guided Garden Tour. 9-4 each day. Click here for info, and here for directions.

June 8-11 - Garden Days at the Emily Dickinson Museum

June 6-15 - Bee Week in Greenfield. Visit www.beeweek.org for more details.

June 19 - 6pm - visit the gardens of Ann Marie and Paul Kostecki in South Deerfield, MA. Carpool from Cherry Rum leaves at 5:40pm. Click here to read Sherry Wilson's article about them in the Hampshire Gazette.

(Garden Tour is June 28, 2014)

July 12 - 9am - 3:30pm  Daylily and Arts Festival, 54 Glenbrook Drive, Greenfield, MA (off Leyden Road at the turn-off for Camp Kee-wanee)

July 12 - 10-3 - House and Garden Your sponsored by the Northfield Garden Club. Tickets available 10-2 at the Northfield Historical Commission, 13 Pine St.

July 12 & 13 - Garden Tour In Phillipston, MA. Adult $18 under 10 $5. Advance tickets are $15 - call Mel Haughton at 978-249-3171 or Nancy MacEwen at 978-249-7517. Includes lunch.

July 17 - 6pm - visit the new gardens of Tony Palumbo and Mike Collins in Colrain. Carpool from Cherry Rum leaves at 5:30pm. Click here to read the story of Irene and their gardens' death and rebirth.

(July 20 is Bug Hill Farm Open House in Ashfield, MA)

August 21 or 28 - 5:30pm - Abrah Dresdale to give a tour and talk about the net-zero greenhouse and permaculture gardens at GCC.

(Community Meal is Wednesday, August 13, 2014)

September 13 - Saturday - 10-4 - Annual Honey Festival at Warm Colors Apiary in South Deerfield. See their website for details.

September 18 - 6pm - Visit the gardens of Kate Kerivan, owner and grower par excellence at Bug Hill in Ashfield, MA. Carpool leaves Cherry Rum at 5:25pm. Click here to read an article and here to see WGBY's short video.

October 16 - Movie Nite: Gardens and Glass with Dale Chihuly.

November 20 - Wreaths/Kissing Balls/Boxwood - what's your fancy?

December 5 - Friday at 7pm. Holiday Party. Location TBD.

For more information on this month's or any other listed club-sponsored event, please contact the club at: greenfieldgardenclub@yahoo.com

Click the document image below for a printable calendar to put on your fridge! (Always check the website for the most current information!)

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Did you know? The Greenfield Garden Club turns 25 in 2016. Keep your eyes peeled for a big year of activities! Let the club know if you have suggestions or are interested in helping to plan this milestone year.