This year, in celebration of Arbor Day, the Garden Club planted eight disease resistant Liberty elm trees. We are grateful for the many community contributors to this effort, including: Almstead Tree and Shrub Care, Black Rock Pilates and Physical Therapy, Keeley Travel Depot, Matty’s Corner, Atty. Michael Meehan and Atty. Tom Mulligan. We are also grateful to the many community volunteers who came to help plant the trees, the Harborview Market for keeping us well hydrated, and then neighborhood homeowners who sponsored trees and will continue to care for them.

Black Rock Garden Club and Black Rock School Kick off Arbor Day Celebrations with Tree Planting at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo

The Black Rock Garden Club is pleased to announce its third annual celebration dedicated to restoring Bridgeport’s urban canopy. Activities will commence with a very special Arbor Day tree planting ceremony at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo from 12:30 PM TO 1:30 PM on Friday April 25th, 2008.

“We plant trees in our cities to sustain the urban forest. In the wild, the cycle of replenishment is an act of nature. In towns and cities we must maintain the cycle to sustain our green canopy.
We plant not for us, but for the next generation.” Bob Bociek, Arbor Day Committee Chair, Black Rock Garden Club.

Sixty students, parents and teachers from Black Rock School Garden Club will attend and help to plant a disease resistant Liberty Elm which will grow to stand 30 feet tall in 10 years. Black Rock Garden Club, Almstead Tree and Shrub and Black rock residents contributed to purchase the tree from the Elm Institute in New Hampshire. Almstead Tree and Shrub will prepare the area for planting.

“We believe this is a wonderful opportunity to partner with students to educate the citizens of Bridgeport as to their responsibilities as environmental stewards. This year we are especially excited to kick off our Arbor Day festivities at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo so the entire city can be involved.” said Maxine Greenberg, President, Black Rock Garden Club.

The Black Rock Garden Club and Black Rock School Garden Club have worked in partnership since 2006.

“Arbor Day at Black Rock School provides students with an opportunity to interact in a positive, educational way in our community. The Black Rock School Garden Club has planted trees on our grounds; educated ourselves and our neighbors about the importance of trees to us, our community and our world; provided opportunity and resources for ongoing education and hands on curricula about trees, gardening and earth care; and improved and beautified our school, neighborhood and city. We are excited and proud to be involved in expanding our Arbor Day celebration!” said Tara Smiley, Black Rock School Teacher and Faculty Advisor to the Black Rock School Garden Club.

Mayor Finch and State Senator Rob Russo are scheduled to attend.

On Saturday April 26th from 9:00 – 12:00 Noon the Black Rock Garden Club will plant 5-10 trees in its third annual effort to restore street trees to the neighborhood. Since 2006 the Garden Club has planted more than 12 trees in the neighborhood. Those interested in participating should contact David Berkowitz at dsberk@gmail.com .

Here are some great garden tips for May 2008.  Enjoy the Sunshine!

	May is probably the most hectic month in the garden. Despite all the good intentions, there are now gardening tasks demanding to be done. And if April showers do indeed bring May flowers, it’s going to be a mixed bag, with some of us crossing our fingers and some reveling in abundance. Well, that’s nature. We can only do the best we can. Here are some regional gardening tips for the month of May, to get your To Do list organized.     Last week’s poll which asked whether you use Epsom salt in your garden was almost evenly split. I guess that means there are a lot of great gardens out there without the help of Epsom salt, but hey, it doesn’t hurt. Gardening Tip of the Week Rain is great for plants, but you have to be careful what you do in the garden when the soil and plants are wet. Don’t prune when plants are wet. Water helps spread many diseases. Don’t walk on water soaked soil or you will compact it and ruin its texture.Do take advantage of damp soil for weeding. Unless you have excessive clay, weeds pull out easier from water softened soil. And if you don’t mind a light drizzle, it’s a wonderful time to put in new plants. They hardly notice the transplant shock at all. In the Spotlight Time to Clean and Sharpen Your Hand Pruners There are few tools we rely on more than our hand pruners, but most of us don’t really take very good care of them. Keeping your hand pruners clean…read more               More Topics    Calling for Your Photos! What’s Being Recycled in Your Garden? Controlling Beetles From the tree & shrub expert. Herbs for Pots Inside or out. What the Heck is Humus? No, not the kind made from chick peas. Garden Design -Working with Color More is just more. Buying the Farm? Things to consider before you do. A - Z Plants   Plant of the Week: Onions! Yes, onions. Where would we be without onions to cook with? There’s no substitution. And still onions get very little respect. Probably because they go about their business and ask very little from the gardener. The biggest request an onion will demand of you is the patience to let it finish growing. It’s even courteous enough to poke its head above ground to signal it’s just about time to harvest. Onions are also one of those crops whose fresh picked flavor cannot be found in the produce aisle. Pick a corner of your vegetable garden to devote to growing onions. You could even tuck them into the flower beds. The deer won’t touch them…read more     Planting a Hedge While we have our pruners out this spring, it’s a good time to take a look at those shrubs we planted to give ourselves some privacy. Personally, I like the look of a mixed shrub border, with some evergreens, some spring flowering shrubs and some fall color. But if you’d like a more formal look or year round privacy, you probably want a hedge. Hedges don’t just happen. You can’t plant some evergreens tightly together and assume they’ll form a wall. They take a little training and a bit of patience. David Beaulieu, over at About Landscaping, has been there and done that. He’ll give us the skinny on what shrubs work well as formal or informal hedges and how to achieve the look we’re after in Selecting Suitable Shrubs to Make Hedges…read more Gardening Question of the Week How Do You Keep Containers from Staining the Patio? Here’s another common complaint that really hasn’t been solved yet. Paul wrote: “I am looking for some assistance with a container issue I am having. There are several plant containers that either sit directly on my concrete patio or on stands above the patio. All of them leave a brown stain on the concrete after watering and I cannot find anything to remove the stain. Can you recommend anything to eliminate the planted pots from staining or anything to remove the stain? Is there some way to flush all of the pots so that they will not drain brown water or am I crazy? Thanks.”  I tend to clean everything with bleach, but there must be other solutions? Let us know what you clean with or what kind of “feet” you put under your pots to keep them from resting on the patio surface. Thanks for your help.

Join our community, and exchange ideas for gardening interests. We are a member of the Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut.

For the second year, The Black Rock Garden Club’s Tree Initiative planted nine new trees along the streets of Black Rock. Homeowners chose their favorite trees, and planted honey locusts, crabapples, and lindens.

Begun in 2006 in response to the loss of many old street trees taken down by the city, the Tree Initiative replaces the lost greenery of Black Rock. The BRGC’s tree committee, comprised of David Berkowitz, Wendy Nylen and Elizabeth Van Tuyl, finds homeowners willing to help buy and water new trees adjacent to their property and coordinates the purchase and planting of the trees along the street. If interested in a tree, contact the Garden Club at Maxine@blackrockgardenclub.com On June 16th, with help from the city of Bridgeport, Bob Bociek and Almstead Tree Co., neighborhood volunteers and the crew from Lindquist Landscape Design, nine trees were planted.

David Berkowitz (on left) helps volunteers.

The BRGC helped to celebrate Arbor Day on Friday April 27th at the Black Rock School. The Club recieved a grant from the RYASAP Block by Block program to develop a special celebration which was planned jointly by the local Garden Club and the newly formed Black Rock School Garden Club.

Committee members Bob Bociek and Wendy Nylen worked with Tara Smiley, a teacher at the school who started the club, to get two grants which was used to support the children’s school Garden Club and to plan the Arbor Day Festivities. The two grants were received from RYASAP Block by Block program and the New England Chapter of the International Society for Arborculture These funds allowed the clubs to buy tools for the children, to purchase plants to beautify the school and to develop an educational curriculum with materials from the National Arbor Day Foundation.

Bob Bociek donated and planted a tree in front of the school during the festive event. Bridgeport Mayor John Fabrizi and our local City Council representatives, Donna Curran and Tom Mulligan also attended. The Club hopes to make this an annual event in an attempt to educate the students and the Bridgeport community about the essential nature of adding trees to our environment. This compliments the Black Rock Garden Club’s mission to plant trees.

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