Category Archives: Horticulture

Five Reasons to Love Our Plant Sale

Reason #1 — Your deck was almost cleaned up and the furniture was arranged, but it looked a little dull.

 

Reason #2 — So, last Saturday morning you visited The Nature Center at Greenburgh. Awaiting you were the healthiest, most beautiful plants and the friendliest people to provide expert gardening advice.

 

Reason #3 — It wasn’t easy to choose, but boxed up in on the Nature Center lawn, your choices looked terrific and the prices were so good you just had to grab a few more.

 

Reason #4 — When you got home, the real fun began: choosing the right pot and spot for each plant.

 

Reason #5 —  There! All the deck really needed was a few pops of color.

 

Reason #5, continued — In just a few hours, the deck was ready for its close-up, and for the plants to grow and bloom. And for you and your guests to enjoy relaxing and meals outdoors. And for you to get back to work planting the perennials — especially those beautiful natives — out in the garden.

You weren’t at the Nature Center at Greenburgh on Saturday morning? There’s always next year. Mark your calendar now: Saturday, May 17, 2026.

Filed under Annuals and Perennials, Family Events, Greenburgh Nature Center, Horticulture, Indoor Plants, Irvington Garden Club Events, Landscape and Garden Design, Rivertowns Westchester NY

“Train Yourself to See Things Differently”

Those were the words of the talented, animated, passionate photographer Jeanne Newman, who recently spoke to the Garden Club about how to take the best pictures of flowers and other natural subjects.

Major takeaways:
• Have the light behind you.
• Remember the “rule of thirds,” that is, don’t shoot dead center. Use the grid on the phone to place the subject of the image within the left or right two-thirds of the frame.
• For the most dramatic images, bisect the frame on the diagonal.
• You don’t need a tripod, but you do need to keep the camera or phone steady. Dig your elbow into your hip to stabilize yourself.
• Use pattern, repetition, and visual cadence — different heights of objects in the composition — to create mystery and make your image a world unto itself.
• You have to love the way nature designs everything.

In her slide presentation, Jeanne generously offered the following detailed advice:

Know your camera, whether it’s your phone, a point-and-shoot, DSLR, or mirrorless camera. Become familiar with all its capabilities. Refer to the manual or go to YouTube for more information. Once you’re comfortable with the tool you’re using, shoot lots of images. You can always delete or transfer them to your computer. But shoot!

Try multiple ways of photographing your subject.  Get as close as you can. Move far away too. Look up or down at the subject. Change the angle of the camera with a deliberate tilt. And be curious. What drew you to photograph the subject? Does it deserve one or two snaps or 20? Fully explore everything about the subject in as many shots as you can manage.

Positive and negative space is important! It’s a primary and essential design concept that will change how you view all your photographic subjects. The interplay between the positive space in your picture plane and the “empty” space that surrounds it is crucial to creating a dynamic image.

Lines, curves and kineticism. Get serious about the curves and lines within the composition that guide the viewer’s eyes. Because you’re designing within a rectangular space, remember that diagonal lines within the composition create kineticism or movement and energy. “S” or “Z” curves do the same. Capitalize on those design facts when you shoot. Repeating vertical and horizontal lines is another energizing tactic.

Bokeh (blur) yes or no? Learning how to use the aperture or f/stops affects the overall look of your image-making by letting you focus on the subject and artistically blurring the background or foreground. Start by trying portrait mode on your phone-camera. Then experiment with f/stops; the larger the aperture, the smaller the number, the more light comes in through the lens, creating a shallower depth of field.

Color or black and white? Mono or polychromatic? Look for color families within your subject. Is the color the most compelling thing about the image, or do you think that because of the dramatic light, the image will translate well into B/W? Sensitize yourself to these possibilities as you refine your shooting approach.

Study floral/botanical/nature/photographs online and in magazines. You will begin to see how all the design concepts above will merge and come together for you. Learn to be discriminating in how you view our amazing world with every image you shoot.

To see more of the beautiful work of Jeanne Newman—and learn from it—please go to thewelldressedsnapshot.com

Filed under Botanical Art, Garden Club Flower Show Categories, Horticulture, Nature Photography

More Reasons to Love Our Garden Club

The pergola at Wave Hill frames glorious views of the Hudson River and the Palisades. Wave Hill’s 28 acres of gardens and woodlands are located in Riverdale, the Bronx, New York City.

The benefits of belonging to the Garden Club of Irvington include the many trips we take to botanical gardens and private gardens in the New York City area. In recent years, we’ve enjoyed visits to the Bartlett Arboretum, Battery Park Gardens, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Cloisters, the High Line, private gardens in Bedford (including Martha Stewart’s), and Untermyer Gardens Conservancy. The trips are always guided by expert docents and followed by lunch onsite or at a nearby restaurant. We recently had the pleasure of visiting Wave Hill on a beautiful late spring day. Our members are not only interested in the ever-changing plantings, but in honing their photography skills. Here is a selection of shots taken that day, with kudos to the photographers.

 

Alison Gilmore

 

Alison Gilmore

 

Deb Flock

 

Edna Kornberg

 

Edna Kornberg

 

Ellen Shapiro

 

Kathy Evers

 

Dorrie Bernstein

 

Dorrie Bernstein

 

Renee Shamosh

 

Renee Shamosh

 

Our guides Tony Courtade and Eileen Kreisle, a Garden Club member who volunteers at Wave Hill.

Filed under Garden History and Design, Horticulture, Landscape and Garden Design, Nature Photography, NY and CT Public Garden Tours

Mark Your Calendar! Plant Sale and Garden Fair May 17

The best plants! The most fun! The best prices!

Featuring shade-friendly and deer-resistant native perennials, many grown in members’ gardens.

Our unusual, colorful annuals are grown from cuttings and seeds and lovingly tended in the Nature Center greenhouse.

Plus you’ll get free expert gardening advice and supervised potting activity for kids.

Get there early for the best selection.

GNC staff will guide you to parking and help you get your haul to your car in a wheelbarrow or wagon.

 

The Nature Center at Greenburgh is located at 99 Dromore Road, Scarsdale, off Central Avenue

Filed under Annuals and Perennials, Family Events, Horticulture, Irvington Garden Club Events, Native Plants, Outdoor and Indoor Plants, Plant Sale, Recreation, Westchester County, NY, Rivertowns Westchester NY, Shade Plants

Members Learn Air Layering to Clone Fruit Trees

Woman propagating citrus

Garden club members learned a challenging and rewarding new skill: How to air-layer citrus plants — lemon, orange, kumquat — to create offspring that will bear fruit identical to that of the parent.

CJ Reilly, Director of Education and Head of Grounds and Operations at the O’Hara Nature Center and Irvington Woods Park, led us through a process that included:

  • Locating a healthy, straight branch about the diameter of a pencil and selecting a 1″ long area of the branch to work on.
  • Clipping off the leaves adjacent to the area, then scraping of the bark to expose the inner wood.
  • Mixing one part each moss and organic soil into a rough ball, moistening it, and wrapping it around the exposed inner wood.
  • Covering the rounded mass with a plastic baggie and sealing it with tape or twine.

CJ Reilly demonstrates how to strip off an inch of bark without injuring the young tree.

Air layering is an age-old and important skill, CJ explained, because you can successfully clone many fruit trees, including apple, peach, fig and lychee—all of which usually take eight to ten years to bear fruit if planted from seed. And the fruit from seed will often different from that of the parent. With air layering, flowering and fruit typically occur in one to two years for limes and lemons and in two to three years for oranges. This method can also be successful for perennial shrubs like azaleas.

The Nature Center graciously supplied all the materials and most of the plants,

The plants Garden Club members worked on will live at the Nature Center until the mossy spheres in their plastic skins sprout roots. Then the root balls will be transplanted into new containers. The young plants can be left outdoors when there is no chance of frost. “Your air-layered branches should be ready to transplant in two to three months,” CJ said. “You’re all taking them home at the end of December.”

 

“We all look intense and immersed in what we are doing,” commented Club co-president Linda Azif. “These photos reflect how our members work, learn and support each other.”

 

For further information, please contact the  O’Hara Nature Center.

Photographs by Edna Kornberg and CJ Reilly.

Filed under Horticulture

Art by Garden Club Members Celebrates “Cathy’s Meadow”

Detail from photograph by Dorrie Bernstein

Nature is always our inspiration, our muse. And this year, our muse has been the meadow at Greenburgh Nature Center (GNC) which was dedicated on October 23 in honor of the force behind its creation, our longtime member and GNC board member, noted local conservationist Catherine Ludden.

Cathy was the mover and shaker behind the design, planting, and funding of the two-acre meadow.

 

Previously infested with invasive weeds, six years later it is home to pollinator insects and a diverse array of the native plants that support them. And it’s a serene, beautiful place for learning, contemplation and enjoyment — just off Central Avenue in Scarsdale, one of  Westchester County’s major commercial thoroughfares. “One person made all this happen,” reads the Certificate of Recognition presented to Cathy. “Cathy Ludden, past president, major donor, passionate volunteer.”

The members of the Garden Club of Irvington agreed with the leadership at GNC: let’s honor Cathy as well as celebrate our new partnership by mounting an art show in honor of Cathy and the Meadow. We got to work. Making and framing art, hanging it and decorating the Manor House. And of course we attended the dedication.

And now all the art is for sale!

James Blann, Board President of Greenburgh Nature Center, presents the new signage to Cathy Ludden.

 

Cathy is congratulated by Alix Dunn, GNC Executive Director.

 

The signage features a map of Cathy’s Meadow designed by GCI member Ellen Shapiro. This original watercolor by artist Steve Stankiewicz highlights the meadow’s features: Stone Classroom, Butterfly Arbor, Beehives, and Oak Circle, plus the correct species of airborne pollinators and most significant flowering perennials: Joe Pye Weed, Goldenrod, Milkweed and Echinacea.

 

After the dedication and a tour of the meadow, the party moved indoors to GNC’s Manor House, where members of the Garden Club of Irvington hosted a reception that featured their flower arrangements on the tables and their original art—most of which was created for this show—on the walls.

All the art shown here (except for the map, which has been installed on the site) is for sale. If you are interested, please use the contact page to get in touch.  We will connect you to the artist.

 

At the art show, GCI Co-President Renee Shamosh with five of her oil paintings celebrating the meadow.

 

The title of this 24 x 30″ painting by Renee Shamosh is “Cathy’s Meadow.”

 

Botanical artist Nora Galland with her display of original watercolors and giclee prints.

 

On the mantle, three posters by graphic designer Ellen Shapiro and black-and-white photograph by Harriet Kelly

 

Work by members of our Photography Committee: Dorrie Bernstein (top row) and Edna Kornberg (bottom row). Photo by Veronica Gedrich, second from right, bottom row.

 

Watercolor by Lisa Maxwell, “Dering Harbor Magnolias”

 

Botanical art by Lisa Maxwell

 

At the reception, members and guests raise their glasses to Cathy, the Meadow, and the Garden Club of Irvington’s partnership with Greenburgh Nature Center.

 

If you would like to contact the artist about purchasing any painting, photograph or posters, please use our “Contact” form and we will put you in touch with the artist.

Filed under Botanical Art, Conservation, Greenburgh Nature Center, Horticulture, Landscape and Garden Design

Our 2022 pre-Mother’s Day Plant Sale & Garden Fair Sells Out!

GCI members Dori Ruff, Cathy Ludden, Cena Hampden, and Nora Galland with annual plants they are readying for the sale.

Raindrops and chilly weather did not keep our members from setting up and managing our Plant Sale and Garden Fair at Greenburgh Nature Center on Saturday, May 7. Shoppers came to enjoy and buy. We were totally sold out by 2:00!

The annual flowers in the greenhouse were exceptionally beautiful. Just outside, there were  Sun Perennials, Shade Perennials. Sun and Shade Perennials, and Native Plants. All in fabulous condition and exceptionally well priced.

Garden Club members helped everyone choose the right plants for their personal garden needs and offered expert advice. “Our goal is to help you make your garden a  more beautiful and environmentally friendly place,” said event co-chair Cena Hampden. “And we loved helping children pot up a flowering annual to decorate and take home for Mom.”

We also offered a Garden Journal filled with garden tips for each month, plenty of space to write, with original photography and botanical art by Garden Club members.

Our annual plant sales are the perfect place to get gifts for Mom as well as plants for your borders and containers. We always have many varieties of coleus and pelargoniums (geraniums), plus annuals you may not find everywhere — like hyacinth bean vine, plectranthos, streptocarpella, and cleome — all in beautiful condition, at great prices.

 

Event co-chair Dori Ruff is one of the many members who worked in the greenhouse to grow these healthy annuals.

 

Nora and Cena demonstrate the TLC that each plant is given.

 

Healthy perennials under the Greenburgh Nature Center tent.

 

Get inspired and keep track of your garden triumphs and tribulations in the new 74-page Garden Club of Irvington Garden Journal. It’s packed with garden tips and photographs and botanical drawings by Club members. There are four lined pages per month to write notes, scribble drawings, or paste photos. At $20 per copy it’s a perfect gift, plus get one for yourself.

 

In addition to the annuals, each Garden Club member donates at least five perennials from her own garden. Here, new Club co-President Renee Shamosh digs Sedum ‘Autumn Joy.’

 

Each perennial offered is potted and ready to transplant into your garden. Watch the 3-minute VIDEO on our Horticulture Tips tab!

 

AND… there is always bountiful selection of pollinator perennials — like this echinacea — produced by the same professional grower who supplied the plants at the Greenburgh Nature Center pollinator garden.

The Garden Club of Irvington is delighted with our new collaboration with the Greenburgh Nature Center, located at 99 Dromore Road, Scarsdale, just off Central Avenue (north of Ashford Avenue).

Watch for announcements for the 2023 sale on local town and village websites and on NextDoor.

 

 

Filed under GCA Events, Horticulture, Plant Sale

Seed Saving, Sharing, and Planting with the Garden Club of Irvington

“For many annuals and perennials, propagation from seed will provide a profusion of new, beautiful blooms that might otherwise be unavailable. I always think of a plant grown from seed as a little miracle,” says Renee Shamosh, Horticulture Chair of the Garden Club.

Under a redbud tree in a member’s garden, Renee demonstrated practices for saving seeds from perennials, annuals, and vegetables. Members brought seeds they’d collected from pollinator plants.

Saved seeds must be kept dry, so when it began to rain the group protected their collected seeds under a table set for tea and cake. The rain did not dampen the enthusiasm.

This seed-saving workshop included a demonstration of how to save heirloom tomatoes. One of the varieties Renee propagates was saved by a friend’s 98-year-old aunt. In the method shown under the “Horticulture Tips” tab (scroll down), the seeds are scooped from ripe tomatoes onto absorbent paper towels, then dried, labeled, and stored in a basket until spring planting time.

The members discussed the importance of identifying which plants are best grown from seed; which, like hostas and astilbes, are better propagated by division; and which, including Columbine and “see-through” Verbena (Verbena bonariensis), will self-sow, that is, spread their seed without any help from you.

The group traded seed pods from plants that are best grown from saved seeds, including butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), false blue indigo (Baptisia australis), purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), coneflowers (Rudbeckia), and zinnias.

This seed pod of milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is ready to disperse in the wind or share with others.

Perennial seeds can be planted in fall or mid-spring, depending on whether they need to be stratified (kept in cold, dry storage in order to germinate) or left outdoors in cold weather. They can be broadcast into a prepared area of loose soil (not lawn or hard ground) that’s clear of weeds, or they can be started outdoors in containers.

The meeting included a plant exchange, so everyone left carrying flats of plants dug and divided from their gardens, as well as with envelopes of seeds we hope to grow in the coming seasons.

One member has already had success with her Baptisia seedlings that are growing in containers.

Following are specific instructions [adapted from Hudson Valley Seed Company] for sowing milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), which can be applied to many other perennials.

Method 1: Sowing in Containers in the Fall

By sowing in containers, the seedlings will be able to grow big and healthy before transplanting. In order to become well established and come back year after year, each [milkweed] plant should grow to about 24″ high, allowing it to form a healthy rhizome, which it needs to overwinter before transplanting in the garden.

How to start: Fill 4″ to 6″ plastic pots with well-drained potting mix. Sow 5 to 10 seeds per pot, spacing them evenly, about 1/4 inch deep. Press into the mix and water well. Place the pots outdoors—on a porch or at the side of a house is ideal—and leave them to overwinter. In the spring, when temperatures warm, the pots should be moved into full sun to germinate in a spot protected from wind and hungry predators.

Method 2: Direct Sowing into Prepared Garden Soil in the Fall

The ease of this method is appealing. And it’s most similar to how milkweed propagates itself in its natural habitat. To be successful with this method, however, you’ll need to plan the location of your spring/summer patch now, in the fall, when most garden chores have ended. And if you broadcast, Renee warns, don’t walk away and assume that nature will work its wonders; some weeding will be required. The seedlings will also be susceptible to pests, perhaps even some very hungry caterpillars, which can keep them from surviving over the winter.

One member collected seeds from just one pod of what she believes are Echinacea Big Sky ‘Harvest Moon,’ which grow nearly four feet high in her pondside garden (where all the shorter varieties are eaten by groundhogs). She plans to try several sowing methods and see which works best.

Method 3: Sowing in Containers in the Spring

This is almost the same as Method 1, except you’ll need to “vernalize” the seeds, as follows: Eight weeks before the last spring frost—just after March 1 in our area—start the seeds in 4″ to 6″ plastic pots, as directed above. Water them well, cover them with plastic wrap, and place them in a refrigerator for 2 to 4 weeks. Then proceed as above. You can also start the seeds in cell trays, but larger pots are preferable because the root systems will have more room to develop.

Method 4: Direct Sowing into the Spring Garden

This is almost identical to Method 2, except you will sow the seeds in early spring, when nighttime temperatures are still in the 30s. The seeds can be sown later, though you might see decreased germination as the weather warms.

Happy growing!

This sweet red pepper was grown in a pot from seed. 

Renee with her bounty from the workshop.

Filed under Horticulture, Landscape and Garden Design, Zone 7 Native Plants

Check Into a Pollinator Hotel

Perhaps the most fascinating exhibit on the grounds of the O’Hara Nature Center in Irvington is the “Pollinator Hotel,” a structure that supports cavity-nesting bees and wasps. Made of logs with holes drilled in them and of dried stems of perennial plants, it might be the ‘greenest’ recycled housing project ever: stems are saved from Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium fistulosum), Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), and Cup-plant (Silphium perfoliatum) and repurposed into nesting material.

It’s also a work of art.

Please watch this short explanation by the ONC’s resident horticulturist, educator, and designer of educational materials, CJ Reilly, in which he explains that bees and wasps that are solitary, that don’t live in colonies, are attracted to holes in natural materials, in which they lay their eggs and then fill with grasses and other nutrients. Up to a year later the eggs will hatch, creating a new brood of insects ready to pollinate native plants.

CJ 3

Need to know more? Here is a link to some educational material. And you’ll just have to visit on your own.

 

Filed under Horticulture, Irvington Garden Club Events, Irvington NY, Nature Photography, NY and CT Public Garden Tours

A Tour of the O’Hara Nature Center

Early fall. It’s still warm and there are plenty of opportunities to visit the Rivertowns’ outdoor treasures. One of our most treasured is the O’Hara Nature Center, located in 400-acre Irvington Woods at 170 Mountain Road, just off the Saw Mill Parkway.

Over the last five years, resident horticulturists CJ Reilly and Peter Strom have worked with the Irvington Recreation and Parks Department to design the ten demonstration gardens that work harmoniously with the  environment, preserve water resources, and increase biodiversity by providing natural habitats for pollinators.

Members of the Garden Club of Irvington enjoyed a recent tour. Here are a few highlights:

After an introduction to the ONC’s history and programing, Barbara Defino, an active member and past president of the Garden Club, received an award for her devoted and ongoing support. Flanking her are CJ Reilly and Peter Strom.

The ONC building is a model of attractive, energy-efficient, green design. Custom bookshelves were made from a sassafras tree that grew in Irvington Woods Park.

Before the tour, Peter Strom carefully relocated a confused bumblebee to its rightful home, a Goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens).

The tour was led by the ONC’s Education Director CJ Reilly, a graduate of Teachers College, Columbia University, where his field of study was data visualization and educational development — skills he uses for the benefit of all visitors. “This is an example of true community partnership,” he said, explaining that the Village of Irvington, the School District, the Eagle Scouts, the Parks and Recreation Department, members of the Garden Club, and many volunteers have worked together to conceptualize, build, support, and maintain the facility and the grounds. It is also an example of bringing new life to a community devastated by a tragedy: the crash of TWA Flight 800, which killed three members of the O’Hara family.

This structure, a “bee hotel,” supports a diverse array of solitary cavity-nesting bees and wasps. Dried plant stems such as hollow Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium fistulosum), Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), and Cup-plant (Silphium perfoliatum) stems are saved from the gardens and repurposed into nesting material. Here is a link to CJ’s educational materials that explain the process in detail. (More photos and details to come in the next post.)

During our visit, a grass-carrying wasp (Isodontia Mexicana) returned to the hollow Joe Pye Weed it filled with grass and other reserves for its brood inside.

CJ described the 25 heirloom grafted apple trees in the ONC, including all nine varieties that were grown at Washington Irving’s Sunnyside.

He then introduced the step-by-step educational materials that guide ONC visitors through the apple-tree grafting process. Similar materials, which explain horticultural processes in detail, are posted throughout the site.

The ONC has two outdoor classrooms for the school and community educational programs it hosts.

You don’t have to be on a tour or in a program to enjoy these facilities. Just walk in, it’s free… and enjoy the beauty around you. (And perhaps stop to read the educational materials or admire an insect in its rightful habitat.)

Filed under Conservation, Horticulture, Landscape and Garden Design, NY and CT Public Garden Tours, Rivertowns Westchester NY, Tarrytown NY