Meeting:

December 10, 2009

Annual Members Night:

A Festival of Sharing

For members of the Southern California Horticultural Society, the small town spirit of the season was alive and embracing at our Annual Members Night meeting on Thursday, December 10. It was the perfect meeting for us to share with our gardening friends and to make new friends, too. We hope you enjoyed our old-fashioned holiday cheer that filled our Annual Members Night meeting.

Long referred to as “Cookie Night,” the Society’s yearly tradition focuses on giving, sharing and enjoying the warm company of fellow plant people. This is the one meeting each year where we skip the guest speaker and spend the time instead speaking to one another, visiting with our friends and eating way too many cookies, baked goods and other snacks.

The treats are always tasty because they’re brought to the party by all of us who attend and we’re a community that knows how to feed our friends even better than we feed our plants. We bring plants to show at the Plant Forum, but we don’t have an Opportunity Drawing.

This was also our fourth Members Night Plant Exchange and it has grown every year. Another favorite was the Holiday Sharing Table.

THE PLANT EXCHANGE

Members only bring up to 10 healthy, pest-free, non-invasive plants, seed packets or bulbs to place in the Exchange. You receive one ticket for each plant, seed packet and bulb package you contribute.

It is important to label each item with the plant name. Bring either a Plant Forum description card or other card with culture information for each species (if all plants are the same species, you’ll need only one card).

If you don't have a Plant Forum card, your plant description card should include:

Botanical name
Common name
Country of origin
Kind of plant and size
Flowering or fruiting season
Culture (water and sun needs)
Where grown
Your name and the meeting date

Plants will be expertly described in Plant Forum style.

The Exchange will be conducted in 10 fast-paced rounds. In each round you'll be able to redeem one ticket for one plant, seed packet or bulb package.

If you bring in more than 10 plants, please donate the extras to the Sharing Table.

HOLIDAY SHARING TABLE

Part of what makes this meeting such a special part of the season is our Holiday Sharing Table. All attendees contribute items that are no longer wanted, but are still useable. After the Plant Exchange, all attendees may begin to select items they want to take home from the Sharing Table.

Contribute garden ornaments, tools, books, accessories, containers, rocks, bounty (herbs, fruit), dried flowers and grasses, decorative seed pods, holly boughs and trellises. And non-garden items, like kitchen aids, home decorations, games and puzzles. Please be discriminating and be prepared to take your unwanted “treasures” back home.