Jax Mom's Group Tours Mandarin Garden Club's Gardens

On July 26, the Mandarin Garden Club hosted Jax Mom's Group for a tour of the gardens. The guests included mothers, children and three of our youngest garden enthusiasts in strollers. 

The children were delighted to discover pineapple, bananas and a variety of green vegetables growing in the garden. An abundant number of bees, butterflies and lizards also attended the tour. The morning was sultry but the summer flowers made a spectacle of themselves to make up for the heat. 

The young gardeners enjoyed cooling watermelon, grapes and butterfly themed treats. After being suitably refreshed the children channeled their energy into creating fairy gardens. The results were magical. 

Thank you to Master Gardener Mary Forester for her expertise in Fairydom. 

Donna Crosby 

Education and Community 

Mandarin Garden Club 

Photos courtesy 

Donna Crosby 

Annual Plant Exchange

The ladies of Mandarin Garden Club gathered together on July 29, 2017 to once again enjoy our Annual Plant Exchange.

If you have never attended, you are truly missing out on an experience.  The event began at 10 a.m., however, our ladies started gathering before 9:30 a.m.  You have to get that jumpstart on checking out the inventory and staking your place!!

By 9:45 a.m. as I moved around the room,  I visited with everyone - but they weren't moving away from their first choice.  Ladies had their hands on the prizes waiting for the first bell to sound.

Mary Forrester began promptly at 10 a.m. with the first round - giving instructions for those newcomers -

We had 10 rounds and great fun with good hearted competition.  It was a wonderful event and many thanks to Mary Forrester and Nancy Taylor for all their hard work.

Every exchange is unique - check your new directory (distributed in September) for next year's date.

Respectfully Submitted by ~

Karen Rowe

Humming Bird Feeders

If you are interested in setting up a feeding station, I recommend that you read these two webpages 

(A)  http://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/design/gardening-with-wildlife/hummingbird-feeders.html

(B)  http://www.wildbirdscoop.com/cleaninghummingbirdfeeders.html  

In Florida, our weather is quite conducive to spoilage of sugar water, so cleaning and renewing your feeder is of prime importance here in Jacksonville.   From the “Wildbirdscoop” webpage, I have summarized the part about cleaning a hummingbird feeder in this newsletter article.  Here are the main points:

(1)  In hot weather, every two or three days will be necessary to prevent the syrup from fermenting and producing mold.  If hummingbird food sits in very hot sun most of the day then the feeder may need to be cleaned every day or every second day.

(2)  It is not advisable to refill your feeder when it is empty without cleaning it. A small amount left in a feeder for only a couple of hours, will ferment much quicker.

(3)  Use warm water and vinegar, or warm water with a drop of bleach and a couple of drops of dish detergent.  Do not use vinegar and detergent together.   Whatever solution is used - great caution should be taken to thoroughly rinse it out.

(4)  Brushes of various sizes will make the job much easier and more thorough.

Submitted By ~

Martha Dysart