Spring will be approaching, but as yet there are no Yorkton and District Horticultural Society meetings planned; please visit us at www.yorktonhort.ca and see what鈥檚 new and if things begin to change, we鈥檒l let you know!
The past months have been hard on everyone, and sometimes it takes a lot of motivation to do anything. So here鈥檚 an idea: learn something new! It is a chance to focus on something other than the gloom and doom that we hear daily and that is making us all weary and discouraged.
Spring is coming! Bring out your old gardening magazines, bring out an armload of your gardening books, or get involved in live gardening action with on-line courses! Visit https://gardening.usask.ca/public-workshops/gardening-workshops and see the amazing selection of courses available. The website says the classes are offered in an online, live-stream format. This distance class will have an instructor and their presentation will be live on-screen, and there will even be a chance for you to ask questions! Some classes are free, and some are $20 for a two hour session.
Coming up soon: Garden Design for Farms and Acreages on Tuesday, January 26 at 7PM; Gardening With Native Plants on Tuesday, February 2 ay 7 PM (this session is free); Drought Tolerant Trees and Shrubs on Tuesday, February 9 at 7PM; and Planning Your Veggie Garden on Tuesday, February 16 at 7PM. The list continues with many more sessions, but these are coming up shortly, so consider checking these out these sessions!
The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society has been meeting via Zoom; thank you to our webmaster John, who sets up our meetings for us, as well as maintaining our website. Thank you very much for all your excellent work, John! I think all those early gardeners in the Society would be tickled pink to know that we could gather in such a way, unimagined in their lifetimes.
True, it is not the same as our regular meetings, but it is still wonderful to get together and chat! We all know how gardeners love sharing ideas and experiences! We had a 鈥渕eeting鈥� last week, and talked briefly about the new seed catalogues and what items looked interesting. A common thread seemed to be that it took longer for orders to arrive last year, no doubt because COVID disrupted the normal flow of processing orders. So maybe we should make a gardening note to order earlier, allowing a bit more time, just in case.
One of our members spoke of how they were getting their geraniums going after a winter rest; a hopeful sign of spring! And this same member also mentioned how her beautiful orchids were blooming again after their rest: imagine how lovely it must be to see those exotic, colorful blooms gracing a windowsill!
These amazing plants know nothing of covid; they keep on, in their regular cycle of life, moving forward. Gardeners, I think there is a message there for us. Let鈥檚 be hopeful, looking forward to another growing year. Before we know it, we can be outside again, and won鈥檛 that be a wonderful thing!
As the great poet Robert Frost said, 鈥淚n three words I can sum up everything I鈥檝e learned about life: it goes on.鈥� And so it does! Let鈥檚 eagerly look forward to spring, and until it gets here, let鈥檚 make good use of this time and learn new things whenever we can! Thank you to our friends at Yorkton This Week for all their work of keeping us informed. Let鈥檚 pray for brighter days ahead and health for all; have a great week!
