November 29, 2021 Meeting

Once again the Hort Zooms onto your computer - click here from 7pm on on Monday November 29 to see, hear, and participate in our Annual General Meeting. Reminder - to see the full Bulletin, click "View this email in your Browser" above.

Talk - Pests and what to do about them

by Clement Kent

Pests like Japanese beetle, Asian Jumping worms, Boxwood blight, and the moth formerly called "Gypsy" and now known as LDD can be frustrating. I'll introduce each pest and its life-cycle, and tell you where its weak points are and how to reduce pest numbers with ecologically- and garden- and human-safe methods.

This talk will be very practical. If you know non-members with pest concerns, invite them to view it.

Clement Kent is a cofounder of the Parkdale Hort. Soc,, VP of the Parkdale & Toronto Hort. Soc, cofounder of Project Swallowtail, and adjunct prof at York U's Dept of Biology. He loves gardening far too much and may need professional help to get over this addiction! Oh yes, and he (I) is (am) Bulletin/Newsletter editor.

------>2021 Annual General Meeting<--------

Each year this meeting allows you to get a full report from the Board on the Hort's activities and outlook. Paid-up members vote on any motions (see below) and to choose the new board for 2022.

The full set of reports is posted online at our website, so you can read them in advance or follow along on a bigger screen than Zoom allows us if you wish.

Our first item of business will be an amendment to the constitution allowing online voting - see below. As it's also the first night of חֲנֻכָּה (Hanukkah) maybe someone will light a candle on the Zoom screen...

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO OUR CONSTITUTION

To be voted on at the AGM: this is your advance notice of the amendment. The Board at its Nov. meeting approved this text.

What: we need to amend our Constitution to allow for business to be conducted both in person and electronically (e.g.Zoom)
Why: the Ontario Government passed an amendment to the Corporations Act which now expires December 31, 2021, which allows for virtual meetings to occur for conducting business. But societies/clubs are independent incorporated entities and this by-law change is because after December 31, 2021, we go back to the Corporations Act requirement of all the business meetings being done face-to-face and having this in your society/club’s by-laws would allow a society/club, in an emergency situation, to run a business meeting either as a conference call, Zoom or Webex,etc.
How: Article VII - Change in By-laws, Constitution
By-laws and the Constitution may be made, adopted, amended, and/or repealed by the board providing such changes are confirmed by members at a general meeting.
The Words: Article IV - Meetings(Schedule K, proposed amendment Nov 2021)
SCHEDULE K (proposed Nov 2021
"All meetings may be held at an in-person venue or may be held via electronic means provided such means allows all in attendance the ability to hear and also the opportunity and ability to have voice and to vote."

Barbara Japp, Past President

Join the Hort Board - nominations due!

We elect members of the Hort's 2022 Board at the November Annual General Meeting. If you'd like to meet a fun group of fellow gardeners in a smaller group setting, and if you have ideas for improving what we do, please send a nomination expression of interest to board@parkdaletorontohort.com before the November meeting. We'll be happy to answer your questions! You may also be nominated at the meeting, so long as:

you are a paid-up member of the Hort,
you are nominated by a paid-up member
you are "present" (online) at the AGM and present us with a bio

What are board meetings like?
...quiet and peaceful:

....creative, as we cook up new ideas for the Hort:

...very safety conscious:

...remember, we're always looking for volunteers to help. You don't have to be on the board:

Articles

collage of blooms by the roadside, Nov. 16 2021

What's blooming in a late fall? - Clement Kent

No frost in my back yard yet on Nov. 21!!! I took a stroll around my 'hood and snapped pics of flowers still blooming or even completely out of season. The collage above is some of what I saw - couldn't fit them all in!

I saw: roses, chrysanthemums, hydrangeas, alyssum, tall bearded iris, monkshood, zinnia, cosmos, gaillardia, brown-eyed susan, cornflower, aster, calendula, striped mallow, evening primrose, sedum, aster, gilia, purple coneflower, daylily, goldenrod, nasturtium, dianthus, geraniums, chamomile, lavender, several kinds of sages, boneset, snakeroot, golden Alexander, lobelia, sunflowers, snapdragon, fuschia, rosemary, marigolds, toad lily, heuchera, lamium, Japanese anemone, nicotiana, obedient plant, impatiens, corydalis, witch hazel, and a few I couldn't identify.

Moving Forward by Changing the Rules - Clement Kent

It's easy to feel that no matter how hard we try, it's impossible to change the rules to make Toronto a cleaner, greener, more diverse, and more beautiful place. Not so! as these examples from this year show. Your Hort helped with some of these rule-changing drives.

Boulevard Beds - I say tree lawn, you say boulevard. Many wider roads in the city have a green space between the sidewalk and the road. Some of us have gardened there but it has been hard to know when it's OK or when the city will come and mow it down...Project Swallowtail, to which the Hort belongs, worked with city staff to get a clarification of the rules for this (see Hort presentation on Project Swallowtail here). The city has agreed that so long as the plants used don't grow taller than 85cm, aren't invasive or noxious (no poison ivy please!), boulevard beds (BBs) are OK. Project Swallowtail gardenmeister Pete Ewins showed us some BBs he helped create near High Park in our September meeting. Pete's presentation is online here. The great thing about collaborating with city staff is that they spread the word within the city that this is OK.

Front Yard Gardens - native plants are OK! There has been a continuing saga for many years here and elsewhere in which lawns are the norm and naturalistic gardens with native plants are "bad". Ryerson's Nina Marie Lister fought this battle in 2020 and 2021, resulting in proposed changes to the city's landscape standards which are being studied now by city staff.

Spraying - the city has had a ban on "cosmetic" use of pesticides and herbicides for some years without the sky falling. Still, residents concerned about LDD Moth outbreaks asked the city to spray to control LDD. Your Hort helped the High Park Natural Environment Committee gather support from a number of groups for a creative and ecologically safe response to this proposed by the city's Urban Forestry department. This month's talk gives you the details.

It's not just us, not just Toronto, - movements to change the rules are happening everywhere, as this article from Maryland or this article from Chatham-Kent show.

Recordings of Hort Speakers

We have recordings of some of our speakers from the last year online for you in case you missed them:

Plant Fair 2022

We at the Hort all look forward to the annual Plant Fair. Last year we had to cancel because of Covid. This year we feel that we are still not out of the woods. There is still a lot of uncertainty about assembly. Unfortunately, plant fair planning needs several months lead time, which is hard to square with constantly changing Covid restrictions. We may have to put the Plant Fair off for yet another year, unless conditions change. In addition, the new threat of Asian Jumping worms (see our talk this month) means that if we do get contributions from member's gardens we may have to sanitize them somehow. Eeek!

Hort Contact Information

Contact Information for the Hort

The 2021 Board members are:

President - Ron Charlemagne, president@parkdaletorontohort.com
Past President - Barbara Japp
Vice President - Clement Kent, newsletter@parkdaletorontohort.com
Treasurer - Emieke Geldof, treasurer@parkdaletorontohort.com
Secretary - Helen Vorster, secretary@parkdaletorontohort.com
Projects - Judy Whalen, projects@parkdaletorontohort.com
Member at Large - Annelies Groen

Other email:

Maria Nunes - Volunteer Coordinator, volunteers@parkdaletorontohort.com
Membership, membership@parkdaletorontohort.com
Dues payments and membership information, www.parkdaletorontohort.com/join-us/
Clement Kent, Bulletin/Newsletter editor - newsletter@parkdaletorontohort.com
Plant Fair Team, plantfair@parkdaletorontohort.com
Education & Outreach, educationandoutreach@parkdaletorontohort.com
General information, info@parkdaletorontohort.com

Email sent to board@parkdaletorontohort.com reaches all board members.
Website: www.parkdaletorontohort.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/parkdaletorontohort
Post: The Horticultural Societies of Parkdale & Toronto
P.O. Box 30023, 1938 Bloor Street West
Toronto, Ontario M6P 4J2

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Horticultural Societies of Parkdale & Toronto · 1938 Bloor St West, PO Box 30023 · Toronto, On M6P 4J2 · Canada