The Desert Rose Newsletter from the Desert Rose Garden Club of

California City “Grow Everything with Love”

March 2014

P.O. Box 2148 California City, CA 93504 desertrosegardenclubofcc@gmail.com

http://desertempiredistrict.org/desertrose/index.html President – Terry Fairfield (new #) 760-373-3724 The Desert Rose editor- Terry Fairfield Vice President - Cecile Campbell 760-373-3517 Secretary – Nancy Beasley 760-373-4944 Parliamentarian – Pat Gordon 760-373-4536 Treasurer – Renee Rivera 760-373-7166

Member of Desert Empire District (DED) California Garden Clubs, Inc. (CGCI) National Council of State Garden Clubs, Pacific Region

President’s Greetings Hello garden club members,

I hope everyone had a great time at the DED Meeting that the DRGC hosted. I enjoyed sitting next to our guest the CGCI President, Rita Desilets, such a nice lady. She mentioned to me that she was impressed at how many members were present for only having two clubs in our District. She remarked that her club has over 100 members and she rarely sees this many members at a District Meeting. So “Good Work Ladies and Gentlemen!” Once again the food was excellent and everything looked very nice. Interesting guests and speakers made for a very nice day. Thanks to all of you. This Newsletter will be longer than normal but I wanted to share the pictures from this meeting. Thanks to Leonard Bucheger for taking the photos.

Certificates and Gifts were given out! Checks for Rita’s President’s Project, Habitat for Humanity, Landscaping were presented by Cecile for the DED, by Terry for DRGC and by Merrilee from Oasis Garden Club. The DRGC also presented a certificate for a Penny Pine Plantation to honor Rita for taking on the responsibilities of being the California State Garden Club President.

Committee Reports:

Mary Nelsen, our Youth Club Chairman reported that the “RPU Ecotots” are doing well. At the School Board Meeting on February13, we presented Smokey Bear/Woodsy Owl Certificates to the winners of the contest. A prize and certificate were also awarded to the CCHS winner of the National Garden Club’s Essay Contest on “Today’s Choices Affect Tomorrow’s World”. Don’t forget the kids still need wagons!

Jo Bucheger, Conservation Committee Chairman, spoke on how much plastic waste goes into the landfills from the individual coffee maker plastic cups. Jo has been asked to send her presentation to Golden Gardens, so we will see more about it there.

State Park Chairman for the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Janet Eyre talked about the park and what a great place it is to visit. Janet spoke about the need for donations so that waterlines can be replaced and new plants added to the garden that CGCI planted years ago. She also spoke of the archaeology and how much she enjoyed seeing what they were finding out there. http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=638 if you would like more information on Anza-Borrego. Janet is the DED Blue Star Memorial Chairman and she reported that there are a lot of Blue Star Memorials in the DED. We will be trying to find out where they all are. When there were more garden clubs in the DED including Barstow and Lancaster many of the Blue Stars were placed and they need to be cared for.

After lunch our guest speakers:

Paul Vander Werf, the DED Secretary and Vermiculture/Worm expert talked about some new ideas that he is working on for educating people on worms and their benefits to gardening. Mark Bratton, Wildlife Biologist from Edwards AFB gave a program on Wildflowers Found in the Mojave Desert. The pictures of the flowers were beautiful and his knowledge of the flowers and his ability to answer all of our questions was exceptional. We hope that he will be returning to give us a program on Desert Tortoise and other wildlife.

All in all it was a great meeting, now on to the coming months! There is so much going on in the next few months, we will be very busy. We can use all the help we can get! Some of this will be repeated in the April Newsletter, but some of these have to be taken care of right away! California State Arbor Day is March 8, we will be purchasing a tree to be planted at the Arts & Community Center. Ann will be in charge of purchasing the tree. It would be nice if the club is together for the planting. I will send out an email when we decide the time. The Annual Spring Plant Sale is April 5, we will have our annual sale in conjunction with the Optimist Swap Meet. We will need lots of plants, so please get them started right away! Give them time to get acclimated and happy in their new pot! The Wildflower Conference in Tehachapi is April 6, 7 and 8. Sign up to go and get your motel reservation as soon as possible. This is a very important event for our clubs and district. For the CGCI Calendar of events, click on the following link: http://californiagardenclubs.com/content/events-calendar The Desert Wildflower Festival in Ridgecrest is April 11-13. www.RIDGECRESTWILDFLOWERFESTIVAL.com DRGC’s April Meeting will be changed from April 8 to April 15 because of a conflict with the Wildflower Conference in Tehachapi. Many of our members will be in Tehachapi on the 8th. At the April 15th meeting we will be preparing for the Mother’s Day event May 10th and also preparing flowers for the Tortoise Days Parade on May 3rd.

April 22nd will be our Annual Trip to a Garden. We originally planned to go to Huntington Botanical Garden. Due to the short hours that the garden is open we took a vote and we will most likely go to the Getty Center in LA. More information next month. Unless there is a huge increase in the cost of gas, transportation in the 15 passenger van will be $18.00 per person. First come first served. Admission is free. Lunch together at members cost. http://www.getty.edu/museum/ http://www.getty.edu/visit/

We have our own web page on the Desert Empire District’s Website: www.desertempiredistrict.org/desertrose/index.html The monthly newsletter “THE DESERT ROSE” can also be found on the website

If you haven’t checked it out, we have a Facebook page under Desert Rose Garden Club.

Gardens with native plants help connect us to the places where we live.

ALWAYS WATER WISELY AS WE ARE IN A DROUGHT IN CALIFORNIA

The DRGC meets the second and fourth Tuesday at 1:00 at the California City Arts and Community Center. If there is a change an e-mail will be sent out. We may be having a special event. Please come and join us and bring a horticulture specimen from your garden and a friend any time