January 2014 "Hort Minute" by Susan Stone

    The Latin name for African Violets is Saintpaulia after the founder Baron Walter Von Saint Paul-lllare in 1892 and native to Tanzania, southeastern Kenya in eastern tropical Africa. The African Violet is in the family of Gesneriaceae which also includes such plants as Gloxinia, Streptocarpus, Aeshynanthus, and Episcia.
    African Violets are quite easy to take care of and just need a bit of love and care for it to bloom. If it is in just the right sunny/humid location they have been known to flower almost continuously. Just keep the soil moist to dry, and allow the soil around the roots to dry out before watering to encourage blooming. It is best to water from the bottom with room temperature water. I keep a gallon jug of water full at all times. This ensures room temp water. When feeding, use 100% water soluble African Violet fertilizer, keeping in mind there is a specific food for the miniature varieties. Basically they need equal amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Read the container labels as some companies use cheaper ingredients with impurities.
    African Violets thrive in moderate to bright, indirect, indoor light. Rotate your plant every time you water them or once a week to ensure even sunlight. They do best with temperatures around 70 degrees, trying not to allow temps to fall below 60 or rise above 80 degrees. African Violets thrive with humidity. In the Usambara Mountains of East Africa the humidity is generally 70-80 percent. In most homes they do best with at least 50-60 percent humidity. Without this the buds will fail to open and overall your plant will not be happy. An easy way to increase humidity levels is to place open jars of water around your plants, or have their pots sitting a top of moistened pebbles. They also like to be placed in the bathroom while someone is in the shower.
    African Violets are susceptible to powdery mildew. The leaves will look white/powdery. I spray common Lysol above the plant from a high vantage point so a fine mist lands on the plant. They are also susceptible to crown rot which occurs when there is poor air circulation and when they have been over watered.
    Lastly, the best potting soil for African Violets is one with no dirt or soil, and keeping the ph between 5.8 and 6.2. They grow best being slightly root bound in small plastic or ceramic pots. A good soilless mixture to make yourself is (using a lb. coffee can as a unit of measure):
3 parts Canadian Sphagnum Peat
2 parts Vermiculite
1 part Perlite
1/4 part Ground Charcoal
2 TB Dolomite Lime
1 TB Superphosphate
    If this is too much, you can purchase commercially bagged African Violet soil and put a couple handfuls of perlite or vermiculite in it. To avoid any micro organisms that can be in the soil, I pasteurize the soil before potting. It can be baked on a tin foil lined and covered baking sheet at 180 degrees, and checking to make sure the internal temp is also 180 degrees for 30 minutes. This also kills weed seeds and fungi. Last fall after repotting most of my houseplants before bringing them inside for the winter, I noticed that all the plants that were repotted grew mushrooms. So now I bake my soil, or, just inquire with a reputable greenhouse about soils.
    There are many websites, but a couple of good ones are: www.avsa.org and www.optimara.com African Violets look pretty any time, but especially when they are flowering during the cold winter months.

Ipswich Moving Company Presents...

For Tickets and information call Ipswich Moving Company 978-356-5565 or email: info@ipswichmovingco.org. Online tickets can be purchased through Brown Paper Ticket Co. www.brownpapertickets.com

Allison Kemmerer Shows "Industrial Strength" by Carol Williams

Fellow IGC member (a.k.a. Curator of Photography and Art After 1950) Allison Kemmerer has curated a terrific show, titled "Industrial Strength", at the Addison Gallery. Don’t miss it!  Beautiful images – mostly photographs, along with some drawings, paintings, and lithographs – evoke a broad spectrum of emotions about industry in America from the late 19th century through the present. The main images I carry away in my head are of the bridges, especially a Walker Evans series on the Brooklyn Bridge, in which the geometric images look almost abstract.
Some of the most moving pieces are of people. Winslow Homer’s New England Factory Life: Bell Time, from an 1869 Harper’s Weekly, shows hundreds of weary workers walking home, and the winding mass of stumbling people snakes back to the horizon. 
Justin Kirchoff’s five-panel Sewing Room, Lawrence includes so much loving detail about the work and workers that looking at it becomes a kind of Where’s Waldo experience: bundles of pant legs stand beside a chair with a woman’s lacy sweater draped over the back, and Christmas decorations hang above industrial-sized ironing boards and bobbins. This one is oddly comforting, because the individuality of the workers is evidenced all over the workroom.  Others stand out for their astonishing beauty – lush green undergrowth in Rackstraw Downes’ Henry Hudson Bridge Substructure is a startling contrast to the hard lines of the looming bridge.

And Hopper’s Railroad Train is gorgeous, with the train trailing smoke as it runs right out of the frame. Much of the show is of the industrial east, and the ones of the industrial west are almost refreshing. The Thomas Hart Benton painting of cattle loading verges on being a cartoon, or a children’s book illustration, and a line of grain silos dwarfs the lone human being down at the bottom. 
"Industrial Strength" is a fine complement to the Whistler show, with all those bridges. Go see it! http://www.andover.edu/Museums/Addison/Exhibitions/IndustrialStrength/Pages/default.aspx  

In Memory of Joan Cook

The Naming of Roses by Judy Hallberg

Last October I was eager to put away shovels, trowels, clippers, gardens carts and various pots and trellis and I thought perhaps this was the year I would lose my desire to put my hands in dirt, cut back canes, and become over-protective of tiny 2-leafed sprouts poking through the potting soil.  Then I slid around the Whipple House gardens this morning on my old X-country skis and found myself very interested in what was going on under the snow, would the pear trees produce another super crop, would the roses out-last the June rains, would the Hollyhocks return to either the Bradstreet El or the Housewife's Garden Fence, and maybe, this year, would we discover the names of more antique roses.

I'm working on an article for NE Journal of Antiques, about antique roses, and am stuck on the section I call the naming of roses. For your enjoyment (I hope) I'm sending you today's writing accomplishment (so far) a poem that captures, for me, 6 years' experience attempting to put names to all the roses we have in the garden here. Just as we confidently labeled our Great Maiden's Blush, it seemed to evolve and need a different label. The same could be true of the white spinosissima, some of the cabbage, and even the apothecaries. I could be tempted to give up and call each of them by whatever suits any of us from one year to the next. Perhaps they are conspiring now, under the foot of snow, gleeful at the prospect of trading some stripes, some blush color, some quantity of whorled petals amongst themselves just to keep us guessing.

February Meeting .. CANCELLED BECAUSE OF WEATHER