Over the Garden Fence: Pollinators and a prize package

Mary Lee Minor
·3 min read

Months ago friends from Wayne County asked me to a garden club event to speak about pollinators — the birds and the bees — while making flower arrangements. Attracting migrating birds to your garden would be the morning program. Could I incorporate trees in my presentation? No problem. The fact that the meeting was at the Inn at Honey Run, Millersburg, added a pleasant nudge.

My poster "Trees for Bees" came out. A borrowed poster outlined the dependency birds have on trees. When they asked for a title, "Boughing to the Birds and Bees" came to mind.

A comparison of the posters helped me discover that many of the same trees offer nutrients to bees as well as birds as the seasons pass..

The planning journey held a hope for staghorn sumac. The fiery red foliage did show up. In my enthusiasm to harvest it, so focused on leaflets, I never noticed the heap of burdock burs that had locked into my jacket. That was two weeks ago. I am still plucking the nuisance seeds from the fabric. Discouraged by burs and finding no furry red fruit caused that plant to be left out.

Six trees would provide boughs for my designs. Witch hazel, spruce, dogwood, magnolia, white oak and crabapple. By this time cards with bird facts and plant preferences were printed.

Selecting containers came next. Gathering boughs with leaves still clinging followed. The day before the program I bought flowers. All this stuff had to be packed. Crates held everything needed for each design.

Arrival at the site offered new challenges. A walkway to a front entrance, an elevator ride and a meeting room so snug that the crates had to be tucked under tables in another room wore me out. This meant that when the group left for lunch, my time would be spent carting all the materials into the room.

This group, Region 14 of the Ohio Association of Garden Clubs, had a Chinese auction where tickets are purchased then placed into numbered sacks. Always supportive of our regions, I bought and plopped mine into bags. The day moved on.

The morning speaker from the Audubon Society was wonderful as she presented migration routes, identified birds and noted nutritional needs. As she finished, my crates were hastily moved into place. Missing lunch was not in my plan.

Tomato bisque, a jammed sandwich on marvelous wheat bread, and a coarse-textured chocolate cake made ample lunch.

With a turntable before me and my work apron on, the afternoon was underway. As each of the flower arrangements was made the colors of the flowers were chosen to reflect the wildlife. A branch of leaves in a tinge of orange allowed me to use groupings of orange flowers. The group laughed enough to encourage me. My time ended with five arrangements completed and a mess all over the floor.

Columnist Mary Lee Minor won the grand prize at Region 14's meeting at the Inn at Honey Run. It included almost every product made by Scott's Company in Orrville.
Columnist Mary Lee Minor won the grand prize at Region 14's meeting at the Inn at Honey Run. It included almost every product made by Scott's Company in Orrville.

Hostesses began selecting winning names from the auction sacks. Ignoring that segment, my hands were dumping all that was no longer of use and cleaning up the totally trashed area. Suddenly, my name was read from the back of a ticket. What? A winner. Me? It was a bag loaded with an assortment of Scott's bagged soils and a crate of products made for gardeners including three pairs of gardening gloves and a hat. Holy cow! A total value of $225. A wallopoloosa.

Life is good.

Mary Lee Minor is a member of the Earth, Wind and Flowers Garden Club, an accredited master gardener, a flower show judge for the Ohio Association of Garden Clubs and a former sixth grade teacher.

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Over the Garden Fence: Pollinators program and a prize package