Photo Contest Coming Up

Our November meeting will include our annual photo contest. You may enter one picture in each of the following categories:

People in the Garden

Flowers

Garden Features

Fish and Frogs

Most Unusual

The winners will be in our later newsletters, displayed at the Christmas dinner, and posted on our web site. We have had some really great pictures in the last few years. See the next issue of Fins and Friends for more details.

Click Here to see the winners of the 2003 Photo Contest.

Our September 16, 2004 Meeting
When                   September 16, 2004
When ?                                       7 PM
Where      Butterfield Youth Services
Where ?               1180 Highway WW
Where ??                   Marshall, MO

Our program for the evening will be Linda Siler, President of the Springfield Water Garden Society. She will present a variety of information on water gardening.

Calendar of Events

Thurs., Sept. 16, 7pm......... Sept. Meeting

Thurs., Oct. 21............... October Meeting

Thurs., Nov. 18.......... November Meeting

Thurs., Nov. 18................... Photo Contest

Find more information on each of these items within this newsletter.

Gardening Tips

By LaDonna Arrowood

(Mrs. Greenthumb who is all thumbs)

Fall is almost here. Enjoy your fall garden and don’t be in a hurry to shut it down for the winter. Start re-potting your lilies they get a better start in the spring if you re-pot now. If you do it in the spring it will set them back for a few weeks. But don’t fertilize the re-potted lilies or any of your lilies in the fall.

Remove tropical plants after the first frost. They will bloom up until the frost and you take them inside. (See Plant of the month in this newsletter).

By the middle of October, trim back all marginals. If you don’t re-pot your lilies, cut back the vegetation and move them to the deepest part of the pond.

Place a net over the pond when the leaves start to fall. Nets to keep birds off fruit trees work well for this purpose and are inexpensive.

As cool temperatures arrive, Marsh Marigolds and Water Hawthorns will give life to the fall pond.

The fall is a good time to transplant roses, shrubs and trees. Be sure to water all your bushes during the winter months if we do not have good rainfall or snow.

When you move your houseplants inside the house, give the leaves a shiny appearance by rubbing the leaves gently with mayonnaise.

Start planting fall bulbs for spring colors. To prevent moles from eating our Tulip bulbs, set the bulb in the bottom of a clay pot. Fill the pot with dirt, then place the pot with the dirt and bulb in the ground and cover them with more dirt. When the bulbs need divided, dig up the clay pot and separate the bulbs.

When planting bulbs, sprinkle flour in areas you want to plant. This will enable you to see where you have planted and those spots that need to be planted.

Children will really love their pumpkins if you scratch their name with a nail on a small growing pumpkin. Scratch just hard enough to break the skin. As the pumpkin grows, the name grows with it. The children will love to watch them grow. It also makes a neat gift for a grandchild.

Croaking From The Lily Pad

By Larry Arrowood, Club President

We have a great club with a group of outstanding club officers who put effort into the activities that keep the club functioning.

As club president I sometimes have the opportunity to recognize someone in our club who goes beyond the expected responsibilities. This month I want to recognize the work being done by Sandy Hufford on our club web site. Sandy volunteered to work on the site to keep it up to date with our club activities. She has done much more than that. The site is not only kept up to date but has many new features.

Pictures of the past water garden tours have been added. Pictures on club activities such as our last month trip to Sedalia are on the site. Links to other water garden clubs are available just by a click of the mouse. Water and frog sounds keep the viewer intrigued as they see frogs and fish jumping on the various pages. You can even send a direct e-mail to Polly Ponders with your water garden questions.

Check out our web site at www.finsandfriends.com and let Sandy know how much you appreciate her efforts.

Polly Ponders
Dear Polly,
Help! I have a small preformed water garden about 6 feet long. It is a nice little water garden with gold fish and one small lily. My problem is that I have always wanted a bog garden with my water garden but I can’t figure out how to connect a bog to the preformed pond. Every idea I have would leak water between the pond and the bog. How can I have a bog with my water garden?

Dear Bogless,
You are right about the difficulty of connecting a bog liner to a pre-formed pond. It can be done if you cut out a small notch in the upper edge of the pond and use liner seam tape to connect the liner to the pond. But I would not recommend that you try this unless you have experience working with pond liners and tape. I think a better idea is to make a separate little bog pond next to the existing pond with either another small pre-formed pond or with liner in a dug hole. Of course, the problem with this is that water from the pond will not keep the bog wet. You will have to add water to the bog on a regular basis to keep it wet enough for your bog plants. There are many ways to construct a bog. You will need to do some research on bog depth, bog fill materials, and what plants to put in the bog. You can get it done if you don’t get “bogged down”.
Polly