Grenada Garden Club "Paints it Pink" for Breast Cancer Awareness

Promote a Passion for Pink
Plant Pink Flowers Everywhere!

 

Make a Statement with Pink Flowers for Breast Cancer Awareness

Our Friends at the Grenada Garden Club in Grenada, Ms., sent us a few images of their club's "Plant It Pink" Breast Cancer Awareness project, or should we say, in there case "Paint it Pink"!
They painted pumpkins pink to use as a display on the Grenada downtown square with pink mums.  A large cancer logo pink ribbon and sign have been placed at the intersection of Hwy 8-51 in Grenada.

The "Plant It Pink" Breast Cancer Awareness project is a project that is being endorsed by the National Garden Clubs. For more information on this project please visit the National Garden Clubs website.

 

Volunteers are shown installing the logo, as directed by Plant It Pink Chairman, Bobbye Dykes. 

Grenada Garden Club member Melanie Gousset is shown painting pumpkins to use in decorating the downtown Grenada Square for Breast Cancer Awareness.

Gulf Hills Garden Club Yearbook Signing and Gardener of the Year Award

On August 20, 2015 we had evening to recognize our first ever, "Gardener of the Year" and distribute the 2015-16 Yearbook.

Sue Manley and husband Bob

 The 2015 "Gardener of the Year".  {Sue Manley with her husband Bob.}  Sue was selected because she has exemplified the purpose of Gulf Hills Garden Club to educate, stimulate the interest and love of gardening, encourage civic beautification and to protect native flora.  Congratulations!!

The 2015-16 Garden Club Yearbook was distributed to the members.  Everyone praised our new edition with the colorful images of Gulf Hills flowers and the beautiful cover.   If you were unable to attend Thursday, please contact Mary Ann to receive your copy.  The yearbooks will also be available at the first meeting in September.

We were honored to have a former member Marge D. join us for the evening.  Several of the husbands attended as well.  Rhonda, GCM Spanish Trails District Director, came and shared some of the coming events of The Garden Clubs of Mississippi, Inc.  One very important event is the 100th Birthday Bash in October, more information will be available at the club meeting.

Thank yous to our hostess, Jeanette, and to the club members who provided all the delicious culinary delights. 

An Adenium Obesum Blooms on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

One of our Gulf Hills Garden Club members has a small collection of Adenium Obesum also known as the Desert Rose.

One of them is starting to bloom and the flowers are just beautiful.  These plants are a great succulent that thrives in hot sun and little water. 

This plant require a minimum temperature of about 50°F, so it even has to be brought in during the winter here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. But the little bit of extra trouble during the colder months here seems to be worth it for this members Desert Roses 

During the summer months it stays outside and requires minimum attention and has flowers off and on all summer. This one gets a bit of a hose down every so often and it and the others in the group seem to just thrive.

Needing a well drained soil mix they do have a bit of a problem with root rot, so be careful about having good drainage for your desert roses.

The Adenium Obesum has a latex like sap that may bother some people and the sap is toxic, so be careful handling it if you get one.

There are a vast many different types available. They come in reds, pinks, white, rarely yellow, and sometimes a mixture of two different colors.

A wonderful addition to any deep Southern Garden!

For more information about the Adenium Obesum/Desert Rose check out this PDF from the University of Florida,Miami Dade. This two page file has a lot of very good general information about growing and maintaining this plant.

The Gulf Hills Garden Club of Mississippi Presents Aleurites Fordii The Tung Oil Tree

Have you ever seen such wonderful flowers!

The elegant flowers in the image below are from a Gulf Hills Garden Club member, who is fortunate enough to have a small grove of graceful Tung Oil Trees growing in their garden.

 The Tung Oil Tree(Aleurites fordii) is also known as the Chinawood Tree and this is the tree that tung oil comes from.

The large (poisonous) seeds of this tree are pressed for the oil, which is then used in the manufacture of lacquers, varnishes, paints, linoleum, oilcloth, resins, artificial leather, felt-base floor coverings, and greases, brake-linings and in cleaning and polishing compounds.

It is said that during World War II, the Chinese used tung oil for motor fuel.

This tree has a very long history, having been cultivated in China for at least 2,000 years and more recently in modern times traveling all the way to the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Tung oil has been a major industry here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast as can be testified to by an article about tung oil on the website of the Biloxi Historical Society.

For more information on tung oil take a look at the Tung Oil entry at WikipediA

Our Tung Oil Flower images were taken back in April of 2014.