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Carmel Valley Garden Club Welcomes You To Our Club
The CVGC is a nonprofit organization that promotes gardening and education about gardening in our area. We organize various projects in our community throughout the year and make donations to local nonprofits from our Annual Garden Show proceeds to help beautify the community.
Our regular monthly meetings, which are both educational and social, are held on the 2nd Thursday each month (usually at 6:45 p.m. at the Carmel Valley Community Youth Center at 25 Ford Road). Our membership and meetings are open to everyone with an interest in gardening. Join us!
APRIL MEETING - GARDEN SHOW PREP AND COACHING
Our April 9 Club meeting will focus, as it usually does just before the annual Garden Show, on preparations for the show. This year we will have some great coaching tips (with a live demo!) on how to be as successful as possible for the many Club members who may be submitting entries to the competitive show event.
Sunshine and Andrea with Wylde Rose Floral, at the Farm Center, will be our primary presenters. Hopefully they will also give some insight on how to best to preserve the arrangement for the weekend - having a beautiful entry droop prematurely is sad.
Club members Kathy Wittpenn and Dianne Woods will also talk about the judges, the entry cards and things like that about entering into the show.
Of course, we will start with our usual appetizers, desserts, and beverages in our social time starting at 6:30PM. Venue, as usual, is the Carmel Valley Community Youth Center at 25 Ford Rd, Carmel Valley Village. WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING WITH THE GARDEN CLUB?
See updates on past Carmel Valley Garden Club eventsMARCH MEETING - ST. PATRICK'S SPRING FLING POT-LUCK
Our St. Pat's/Spring Fling event was a big success, with a sell-out crowd of over 70 members and guests. As promised the Club provided a generous spread of main dish entree items and beverages, and Club members were even more generous with a selection of appetizers, salads, and side dishes. The food and fellowship were both outstanding.
While Club meeting discussion was limited, president Patti Burrows made a few announcements, and Sheri Dodsworth spoke to thank the Club for its support and introduced the new bench in our honor. FEBRUARY 12 - WILDFIRE RISKS AND MITIGATION
Yes it is winter and cool and damp (and sometimes even rainy) in Carmel Valley. But the risk of catastrophic wildfires in our beautiful valley is never that far away. Perhaps that was one reason for the excellent turn-out at the Club's February meeting. After a few announcements by Club president Patti Burrows, including the introduction of four new Club members present for the first time, Ed Morrow introduced the evening's speakers: Matthew Lumadue and Mark Schlegel.
Matt is a Fire Prevention Specialist with the Monterey County Regional Fire District, brings deep expertise in defensible‑space standards and fire‑safe practices. Mark is a retired landscape contractor with extensive experience designing and maintaining fire‑resistant landscapes.
Matt's presentation focused on the not yet quite final state rules requiring a 5 foot "Zone 0" around all homes containing no combustible materials - no mulch, no plants, no nothing except concrete, gravel, and rocks. What about decks? What about pergola's? What about the appearance of my home and property values? Matt's presentation (which you can view here: Zone Zero Landscaping) was followed by a blizzard of questions along these lines from Club members. It was an excellent, informative, and interactive session.
Mark followed up on Matt's presentation with some very specific advice on plant choices in a fire-wise landscape. For example, avoiding drought resistant plants that are oily (e.g. the indestructible rosemary, Italian cypress, etc).
Overall, a very engaging meeting and a likely contrast with the much lighter tone of our March 12 St. Patrick's Day Spring Fling part!
JANUARY 8 - SECRET HISTORY OF CARMEL MANOR
Our January 8 Club meeting was exceptionally interesting with not one but two excellent speakers: Sherie Dodsworth and David Laws. Sherie's presentation concerned the history and evolution of Rosie's Garden (located next to the bridge over the Carmel River on Esquiine Rd in Carmel Valley Village). David, as our headline speaker, covered "the secret history of the Carmel Manor" and its gardens specifically.
Sherie outlined the beginnings of Rosie's Garden in 2001 with local fund-raising, design by former Club president Dianne Woods, volunteer installation, and dedication to her father. Naturally, the garden and its planting aged leading to its recent renovation. Sherie specifically thanked the CV Garden Club for their efforts to maintain the garden over the years. The highlight was presentation of a plaque in honor of Dianne that will be affixed to one of the new benches to be installed in the garden shortly.
Sherie's full presentation can be viewed here: Rosie's GardenRosie's Garden Presentation
Sherie Dodsworth doing her presentation (left), and presenting an award plaque to Dianne Woods (right). David Laws presentation included a fascinating history of the Carmel Manor site, starting with pre-European years, Mexican land grants in the 19th century, and later 20th century property ownership up until the development of the property into what is today the Carmel Manor in 1963.
David then outlined in detail the evolution of the Manor's original mid-century landscaping (lots of lawn), through the (Club member) "Gordon Dill" years with a transition from lawns to drought tolerant landscaping, and most recently "fire-wise" landscaping.
David's presentation had far too much to summarize easily so you can read the full article and photos behind David's excellent material here: David Laws ArticleDavid Laws Presentation
David presenting (left) and a view of Carmel Valley from the Carmel Manor site today (right). DECEMBER 11 - CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAY PARTY DELIGHTFUL!
Our annual Christmas/Holiday party lived up to and beyond expectations with a capacity crowd of 70, great food and beverages, and wonderful fellowship with club members. Excellent teamwork and plenty of volunteers ensured that the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel church hall was beautifully decorated, the bar area was well stocked and set-up, and our caterer, Woody's did their job well. Oh, yes, and we cleaned up afterwards!
Several club members contributed numerous photos of the event, which have been organized into an album that you can view view here as 2025 December Holiday Party. Please do take a look!
NOVEMBER 13 CLUB MEETING - OWLS TO THE RESCUE
Despite a sort of depressing day of substantial rain (about 1.25" near our meeting place in the CV Youth Center) attendance at the meeting was excellent. Maybe folks just wanted to get out and about after the rain stopped?
The November meeting was essentially Part 2 of our September meeting which was focused on destructive critters in the garden including rats, gophers, moles, voles, etc. At our November meeting club members Dean Hatfield, Bart Burrows, and Greg Thompson took us through their experiences building and mounting owl boxes which included some incredible footage of what goes on in an owl box as eggs hatch and the chicks grow up and move on! Owls are the natural predators to most garden pests in the rodent category and can be an effective tool in their control.
All three presentations were outstanding and equally all three speakers did a great job presenting and managing time. Questions from the audience were numerous - this was a very engaging meeting.
If you were unable to attend the meeting, here are links to each of the three presentations. With many pictures and more than a few videos, the files are large, so be patient as they might take a minute to download. Also note that these presentations use Microsoft Powerpoint, so unless you have that application you may not be able to view.
Bart Burrows Presentation - Download
Dean Hatfield Presentation - Download
Greg Thompson Presentation - Download
Enjoy!
OCTOBER 9 CLUB MEETING -Growing Veggies in Containers
Our presenter, Priscilla Du,had a wealth of advice on the techniques, tips, and tricks to productive growing in containers. Like many of us Priscilla is space constrained and seeks to have as much veggie production in limited space as possible. And with academic training in agriculture at Cal Poly and employment in the Monterey County agriculture department, Priscilla is well-equipped to provide advice.
The meeting was led by past president Dianne Woods, substituting for president Patti Burrows. After some brief club business and our new quick Q&A session (example: Question "can you grow basil in winter?" Answer "No, basil is heat-loving summer plant.") Priscilla began her talk.
She brought with her a sample container plant and used that to illustrate the key points of her talk. Some of those included:
- All plants need light, air, water, and soil.
- Container plants can be very water efficient, especially important here in our water expensive and scarce Monterey County
- Container plants are vulnerable to root over-heating, hence the need for a double-walled planting container.
- Priscilla suggested a larger outside container (e.g. 5 or 15 gallon black plastic recycled pot) with the plant root ball inside in a fabric potting bag, with perhaps 1/2" spacing between the pot and root ball bag. No need for fancy decorative pots.
- The fabric root ball bag is further supported and water conserved by a layer of heavy plastic sheeting. So it is outside to in pot-space-plastic liner-fabric root ball.
- Soil fill can be commercial potting soil, but Priscilla recommended using your own compost and soil blend as she does.
- Care must be taken to water with care, and given the plastic liner: enough but not too much as well.
Many great questions followed. Thanks, Priscilla!
SEPTEMBER 11 CLUB MEETING - Blow Out Success
Our kick-off Club meeting for the 2025-2026 season was a big success. Huge turn-out, almost 'standing room only' and with many new members in attendance. Food and drink were excellent with sandwiches, salads, chips and beverages - and desserts provided by Club board members. And with the huge turn-out, we almost ran out of food!
Our excellent program had the theme of "Pests in the Garden - Creating a Defensible Space." Before the program began, Club president Patti Burrows introduced the 2025 board members as well as the many new members in the audience.
Judy Tschirgi led the program off with a presentation on rats and mice on behalf of Ed Morrow, who was unable to attend. Judy then made her own show regarding voles. Following Judy, former Club president Dianne Woods led a good show-and-tell discussion regarding a common nemesis - gophers - and how to trap them. There was plenty of audience interaction and lo and behold it was 8:30PM!
So a command decision was to move the outstanding materials by Bart Burrows and Dean Hatfield on owls as part of the solution to these garden pests to our November meeting.
You can access Ed's presentation here: Rats and Mice, and Judy's here: Voles.
Saving the owls material until November!2025 ANNUAL GARDEN PICNIC WAS GREAT!
The weather was beautiful, the food and drink excellent, and the company even better. Over seventy club members and their guests gathered at the beautiful home and garden of Doug and Lisa Steiny, who once again hosted our picnic. We can't thank them enough!
With gardens this spectacular, what better venue for a garden club picnic?
Enjoy a few photographs of the event below.
Picnic 25 Photo Galley
IT WAS AN INCREDIBLE 54TH GARDEN SHOW!Thanks to all our member volunteers for their countless hours making this year's Garden Show such a resounding success. Despite the wind, the cold, and yes, even the RAIN, it was a terrific show. As usual, our community's hard work, good spirit, tenacity and willingness to pitch in wherever needed is an inspiration. Every year you make this great event happen to benefit our larger Valley Community. Thank you one and all.
March Club Meeting - St. Patrick's Day Success - By Mary Gale
Top of the Morning (and Evening!) to All!
After days of chilly rain, green-garbed gardeners gathered to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (if a few days early), a substitute for our rained-out Valentine Party. The luck O’ the Irish was with us—no rain, a warm welcome, and lots of delicious treats, corned beef (without which it would not be St. Pat’s day!) and yummy desserts. What could be better?
We were delighted to see old-timers and new-comers enjoying each others’ company. This reporter especially liked seeing Ed Dickson again, as well as newish members like Jan Quirinale, who has jumped right in to become a Club leader in partying—of which we like to do a lot! Don’t recall if she’s social or hospitality chair, or what the difference is, but we’re happy to see new as well as long familiar faces enjoying our meetings.
President Patti Burrows welcomed us and Garden Show Chair Bart reminded us that we all need to contribute our plants, time, or money (or better yet—all three!) to help make our annual celebration and fund-raising event a big success. It’s just a few weeks away, the first weekend in May, so get on board and sign up to help out! January 2025 Club Meeting Recap - By Mary Gale
WOW! On January 9th David Gubernick stunned the assembled Garden Clubbers with an amazing display of photographs that blew their minds—kind of like watching him surf Mavericks except not so scary and even more magical. Including but not limited to flowers, his photos explored California outdoors from Mono Lake (east of the Sierra) to Point Lobos (east of the Pacific) and many beautiful places in between.
He began with a shape that resembled a clam—or was it a curled up blossom? Then an amazing lightning strike, three jagged fingers of white in an ebony sky so dark that I wondered how he managed to set his camera settings. But he knows his camera! The audience throughout the program kept up a running commentary and question session, and freely expressed amazement at this and many more incredible shots.
One that caught my fancy was from Point Lobos—a tree with bright red-orange branches. This coloration is technically known as Trentepohlia, a genus of filamentous chlorophyte green algae. When I tell 4th graders that it’s green algae they wonder about my eyesight—but we get that straightened out.
It would be impossible to name a favorite among all the scenes, flowers, geometric patterns, light/dark contrasts, and so many more sights as we happily surfed through Central California. Club members were so entranced with the show that when it ended and the lights came on, they didn’t even remember that the next step involves folding and stacking the chairs. Instead they swarmed David with questions, and studied the photos on display along the wall. But eventually our enchanted evening came to a close—and the chairs got back in the closet. Many hanks to David for sharing his visions with us!
2024 ANNUAL HOLIDAY PARTY - A GRAND SUCCESS!
What a Party!
With the leadership of our Club President AND Social Chair, Patti Burrows, and a host of club volunteers too numerous to mention, we had an outstanding Christmas/Holiday event on Friday, December 13. The church hall was beautifully decorated, the food and wine excellent, as were the desserts. We had great attendance and it is fair to say an enjoyable time was had by all. A few pictures of the event are shown here and below.
November 7 Club Meeting - Landscaping with Plant Communities
Let’s Go Native! - By Mary Gale
Meeting on the first Thursday in November to make way for Tatum’s playground occupation of the premises on the second Thursday, the Garden Clubbers settled in to enjoy a talk by Alan Wheat. Both a native of Carmel Valley and a horticulturist, he is eminently qualified to suggest local plants to enhance our gardens, and to give advice about their care.
“The truest measure of a garden’s beauty is the wildlife it supports,” Alan tells us, and suggests looking at the plants growing in the wild, such as along Garland Ranch trails. You’ll probably reject the poison oak, primo habitat for birds, but other hardy, drought-resistant plants flourishing there are well-suited to local gardens. Be sure to notice their immediate habitat, such as pine or redwood forest, oak woodland, chaparral or dunes, to match your own garden. To find more information on native plants, find the Calscape website, created by the California Native Plant Society.
Alan next described two projects he has recently completed. On a mission to make Carmel the most bio-diverse city on the west coast, he installed new gardens in two public places: Ocean Avenue median strips and the Forest Theater. The latter project was installed at the upper area behind the seats, with the help of MPC students.
For Ocean Avenue medians, new but not too-rich soil was brought in, and a watering system installed. In the wild, plants survive without regular watering, (or go dormant till the rain comes) but the middle of a street is like a container. The plants were selected with an eye to their height—they mustn’t grow too tall to obscure the view from one side of Ocean to the shop signs across the street. This concern will most likely not affect your own garden, but it does remind us to be aware of the potential size of a seedling and to place it accordingly.
Alan’s talk led to many interesting and informative question/answer exchanges, and a lovely time was had by all. Go Native!
CVGC At Tularcitos School Fall Festival
The Garden Club was well represented at the Tularcitos School Fall Festival on September 27th. Staffing the table were Cassi Mendonca, Patti and Bart Burrows, with Bob Byrne helping set-up and take-down. The kids had a great time planting seeds in paper pots made by them. A great time was had by all! Thanks to Ed Morrow for donating a couple flats of quick-growing radish plants and especially Suzanne Laurens for inviting us to take part.
October 10 Club Meeting - Organic Farming
The Big O - By Mary Gale
The October Garden Club meeting featured the usual announcements (Big Garden Show is first weekend in May—plan now to do your bit to make it a success!) and one very timely one: NOVEMBER MEETING IS THE FIRST THURSDAY, November 7 because Tatum’s playground is going to have so many worker bees building it that they need the entire building to feed all those do-gooders!
Our speaker, Brise Tencer, discovered before she even began her talk that we operate in mysterious ways. Seeing an empty chair under the projection screen, she went to pull it around the table so she could sit to operate her slide show. She discovered that untying the chair from a rope hanging below the screen led to the screen’s rolling itself up up and away! Whoops! So the screen was recaptured and another chair provided for her. This lively lead-in to her talk was enjoyed by all.
Brise began by saying that in the past, when we heard the word ‘organic' we probably associated it with Chemistry, the class that you’d better pass if you hoped to get into Med School or follow a related career.
Brise introduced us to OFRF, or the Organic Gardening Research Foundation. Because ‘organic” is defined by countless rules and regulations, it is difficult to give a simple definition, but we generally agree that it means farming practices that use “natural” products, not synthetic ones, to grow food. Like composted animal poop instead of a bottle you buy at Home Depot.
Her organization provide grants to farmers to help them research solutions to the challenges of organic farming. Wondering what sort of projects they support, I looked online. Examples of grants and their results are featured on their website www.ofrf.org.
I found the story of Tiffany in Tennessee, who raises chickens along with many food plants, and wanted to see whether her chicken’s waste could fully replace the commercial fertilizer she’d been using. The outcome is not yet determined, but in a photo, Tiffany looks very happy.
After a successful research project, OFRF then educates other farmers by promoting science-based solutions and practices that prove to be of value. Sustainability is key; for instance, the creation and maintenance of healthy soil means that less is lost to erosion and high winds (think Dust Bowl—NOT!). And healthy soils grow healthy foods for us to eat.
The group also advocates at the federal level for policies that foster organic growth and climate resilience. The USDA used to focus more on Big Ag, but perhaps this group is making headway in promoting alternative farming practices.
A lively Q & A followed Brise’s talk. Many well-informed club members chimed in with their takes on organic gardening and eating. One exchange referred to the often higher costs of organic produce or meat in the market. The cause there is primarily the higher labor cost associated with sustainable practices. Many seemed to think that the results are worth the price, but one Doubting Thomas from a flyover state where the fields of corn and wheat stretch from horizon to horizon was heard to say that we’ll never feed all of America and the rest of the world by farming organically.
Hmmm… Well, I’m going to follow Candide’s advice and cultivate my own garden, one way or another.
September 12 Club Meeting - About Our Club
Ye Olde Nostalgia (and New Friends too!) Night - By Marry Gale
Welcome to autumn and a new year of Carmel Valley Garden Club camaraderie and good work! Long-time and brand-new members gathered on Thursday, September 10, for a light supper, delicious desserts (think Ed M’s cheese cake!!) and a varied program.
Patti Burrows introduced herself as our new president, and thanked Dianne Woods for her long tenure (2011-14 and 2019-24) as president, who took us from pre- to post-Covid times in good shape. Much cheering ensued, not only for the presidents, but for Dean Hatfield and Bart Burrows (past/future Garden Show Chairs), June Dawson and Cassi Mendonca (past/future vice-presidents), and Ed Morrow and Margaret Johnson (past/future and forever treasurer and secretary).
Two committee chairs also expressed delight at finding good folks to take their places. Marilyn Kajs-Wylle will assume the duties of membership chair Suzanne Laurens, and Grace Serpa will tackle on the silent auction, to Janet Brocco’s great relief. Many thanks to these brave souls--long may they thrive!!!
After a short presentation about the Club website by webmaster Alex Gray and the value of logging on and how do do so.
After that we moved on to the feature attraction of the night: a quick run through of our Garden Club history. Wendy Hursey, club historian, told of being given a huge plastic box by Penny Woods, who had accumulated a treasure trove of garden club directories, posters, pamphlets and photos relating to annual shows and other special events of the past six decades. Wendy's dining room table became her challenge (and at times-nemesis), the sorting spot as she tried to bring some order from this chaos. If you missed the meeting you can view her Club history presentation HERE.
After years of toiling at the table, Wendy has produced a huge green binder for each decade, and slides of some memorable times in the club. We saw reproductions of beautifully hand-drawn and lettered items. Kathy Wittpenn, member of longest standing in the club at present, recalled that Rosemary Roberts was often the artist. Kathy spent hours helping to color those and others by hand.
One especially charming item depicted a small boy and girl in the Garden of Eden, with a huge snake offering the little girl an apple. Danger in the garden!! No such doings ever in Buzzy’s Garden. (BTW—we’ve lost our Buzzy Garden organizer—who will step up to the plate? Or should we say opportunity?)
Kathy also helped to identify some of the past people and events depicted in photos. Past president Gordon Dill (2008-11 and 2017-2019) chimed in with additional recollections. One memorable event was the trip to Filoli, a beautiful estate somewhere up yonder off Highway 280
Wendy summed it all up by rejoicing that at last she has reclaimed her dining room table.
Hurrah for uncluttered dining room tables and good old Garden Club days. May we all enjoy many more!
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