||| FROM LAURA WALKER for ORCAS ISLAND GARDEN CLUB |||
June just might be my favorite month. No more chilly surprises for foliage or fauna. I can’t wait to wake up on a sunny morning, skip breakfast, grab my cup of Joe and head out to my favorite place, the garden. Working with the land while listening to the birds clearly elated for better weather gives me so much joy. With the warmer weather, the mason bees are now hard at work in my garden filling tubes with cocoons. For the garden club, June is also a special time that marks the ending of a season.
We celebrate another year as a club by enjoying a PICNIC SOCIAL together. I am looking forward to crafting a flower crown and hope to see many of you there on June 12th! A bit further into the month on June 29th & 30th, we hold our long-awaited GARDEN TOUR — The Power of Perennials! We have five lovely gardens to share with you this year.
It takes oodles of dedicated folks to pull off a garden tour! A huge thank you goes out to our owners and caretakers that have so generously opened up their gardens for us to visit and inspire. Having gone through a particularly cold and harsh winter, the gardens on the island needed a great deal of care this spring. We are so appreciative and thankful for those that are sharing their gardens and have gone through extra effort to get them ready for the garden show. A special thank you to garden tour leader, Sally Hodson and organizers, Carol Wetzel, Nita Couchman & Perri Gibbons who worked hard over the past year to identify the gardens and organize a terrific event. We are especially grateful to our garden captains & volunteers that work shifts over the two days welcoming guests and sharing their excitement for the gardens. Also, kudos go to the numerous local special activity folks bringing their talents and fares to make our tour this year even more memorable.
We have so many fun surprises in store for you. Game for a scavenger hunt? Fancy some painted bug rocks? Learn more about those pesky noxious weeds? Laugh at the welcoming bray of a donkey? Dance a little to local ukulele music? Watch artists painting in the garden? Try your luck at a raffle prize? We’ll have something for everyone and hope we’ll see you there.
And then the garden fun just keeps coming with the JULY 6TH PARADE! The garden club is getting in the spirit this year so prepare to be WOWED! Our beautiful float will astound you! Parade float creators & coordinators, Cindy Woods and her husband Greg, along with a core team of devoted float makers have been working tirelessly nearly every day to create structures, flowers and garden creatures made of various recycled materials. The team has then painstakingly paper mâchéd and colorfully painted to create a garden oasis filled with pollinator friends. Show your community spirit and your love for pollinators by marching in the parade with your garden buddies.
Thankful for each and every one of you.
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