Hello my dear gardening friends,

I know that the time for New Year resolutions is fast approaching, so here are some to get you started!!

1) Throw out all non-essential numbers, age, weight and overdraft, let your doctor and bank worry about them instead.
2) Keep only cheerful friends, the grouches pull you down.
3) Keep learning. Never let your brain be idle - “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop called Alzheimer’s.”
4) Enjoy the simple things – a beautiful morning, a blue sky, spring flowers.
5) Laugh often, loud and long, laugh until your sides ache.
6) The tears will come, endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire lives, are ourselves. Be alive whilst you are still here.
7) Surround yourself with the things that you love, your partner, family, pets, music, growing things, whatever it is, for your home is your refuge.
8) Cherish your health, if it is good preserve it, if it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond that which you can improve, get help – do not just sit and complain.
9) Do not take guilt trips, go to the mall, to the next county, a foreign country, but not to where the guilt is.
10) Tell the people that you love, you love them. Tell them at every opportunity, give them big hugs, give a stranger a hug, it will not only improve their day, but yours too. Remember Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away
There that is not so difficult is it?!!!

We are all thinking about a next year’s garden, but what of this year? There is no need to pull up and store cold tolerant root crops from your veggie garden; carrots, leeks, turnips and parsnips all improve with frost. When the ground is frozen, just mulch with straw or leaves and tuck the mulch around the plant stems (remember tucking in your babies?). Place evergreen boughs over the mulch to keep it in place. It will help to stop the ground freezing any further, so you can dig up those precious veggies as you need them.

It is time to be thinking about a festive centrepiece, I am going to tell you how to make a very simple one.

What do you need?
- Foam in a shallow dish (this is the green one – purchase at any florist, or Wal-mart, garden centres usually carry it)
- A roll of florist tape
- Dried fruit or fake fruit
- Tooth picks
- Cinnamon sticks
- Silver ribbon (try the dollar stores)
- Candles
- Spruce and fir branches
- Holly (Loblaws has lots)
- Ivy (again any garden centre)
- Any red berries
- Cones
- Roses
- A “silver” platter (keep working from different angles, so that it looks good from all sides)

Choosing the materials :
Fresh flowers and foliage, something like pine needles, cinnamon sticks and roses are not only extra special, but add their own wonderful fragrance.
Florist’s foam provides the anchor. Soak it overnight, making sure that it is wet all the way through, then place in a shallow waterproof dish (we do not want water marks on your silver). Place the branches of greens, fanned out to hide (cover) the foam.
Add a hint of gold with the holly and ivy. Berries and flowers bring colour to the arrangement, after the “special occasion” substitute silk flowers and artificial berries. Use non-drip candles that will not splatter the display with wax. Add bundles of pinecones, berries and whole dried fruit.

1) Prepare the dried materials first. Cut cinnamon sticks into 2 inch lengths and tie into bundles with the silver ribbon. Group the pinecones in threes (always odd numbers) and bind with lengths of florist wire (again, available at Wal-mart in the craft department). Make sure that the twisted ends protrude.
2) Using florist tape, secure the damp foam to the dish, stick candles into the centre and add taller candles around, spacing them all evenly. Poke the spruce and fir around the edge of the foam.
3) Push the shorter candles in around the outside. Cut short sprigs of holly and ivy, using them to fill the sides and centre of the display. Add groups of the red berries at well spaced intervals.
4) Push the twisted wire ends of the bunches of pinecones into the foam, close to the base of the candles and sprigs of greenery. Keep turning the arrangement so that it looks even from all angles. I suggest that you sit on a dining room chair – to make sure that you can see over the arrangement, if it is going on the dining room table.
5) Cut the rose stems to about 6 inches long and push them in and around the bases of the candles. Cut the stems at an angle so that they can absorb lots of water – neither slit nor crush them as this will make it more difficult to push the stems into the foam.
6) Skewer dried fruits on to toothpicks and place in the centre piece in small bunches, or cheat and use pre-wired fake fruit (glass grapes are wonderful). Top the fruit with white berries and cinnamon sticks.

Keep this lovely thing fresh by spraying it with water every day. Keep the foam moist by adding water to the dish from time to time.
We all love the dramatic effect of candlelight, but never leave burning candles unattended, especially when you go to see your guests out and the door is left open. Never leave candles within the reach of small children or pets. Replace your candles when they have burnt to within 2 to 3 inches of the foliage.

There you have it, a beautiful, but inexpensive flower arrangement – if you need further help just let me know.

I think a few words about our precious shorelines is in order here – erosion is costly to repair and lowers your property value.

Shoreline naturalization involves the planting of native trees, shrubs and flowers, which provide hiding places for small fish, animals and birds. Plants clean the lake by filtering water and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Plants also allow water creatures to come to shore amongst the roots and enhance the spawning grounds for fish. They help to prevent erosion, the washing away of the soil from the shoreline, which buries and destroys those spawning grounds. Erosion IS costly to repair and does lower the property value of your area, however, it does not help to lower your property tax!!!!!

One of the biggest advantages of shoreline naturalization is that the Canada Geese, which are becoming a huge problem along our open shorelines, are discouraged from trying to come ashore and build nests. I remember when the “farm” on Centre Island in Toronto was given a pair of Canada geese, they have bred and bred, now it is almost impossible to enjoy the island, for all the poop that is everywhere – there seems to be no room or consideration for people! Geese like open spaces and are very wary of waterfronts with shrubs and trees where natural predators can hide. Water quality is greatly improved by shoreline naturalization. It not only contributes to safer drinking water, but also to less weed growth as shoreline vegetation acts as a filter to help remove any fertilisers and herbicides before they can enter the water supply.

Landowners can contact Kawartha Conservation for a free consultation that includes site visits and recommendations, referrals to local nurseries, landscapers, and professional workshops. Some of the workshops are conducted at the Ecology Garden on Ashburnham.

Ten things that you can do to improve your waterfront living are:

1) Plant shoreline vegetation. Opt for less lawn and more plantings of flowers and shrubs, using wild flowers or plants that are native to our area. On any green areas you may have, encourage wild flowers.
2) Use organic fertilisers. As I have mentioned before, Loblaws is no longer selling toxic herbicides and pesticides. Never over fertilise, reduce any spraying as the excess runs into the lakes.
3) Do not remove natural vegetation between the cottage and the lake.
4) Compost grass clippings (they should be left on the lawn as fertiliser) and leaves so that they are not carried into the water.
5) If you have a pond make sure that you have lots of little fish swimming around.
6) Really discourage Canada Geese and ducks by not feeding those cute little babies – they will come back to haunt you.
7) Trim branches instead of removing trees entirely from your property.
8) Reduce or better yet do not use detergents or bleaches. Use pure soaps that do not contain phosphates as one pound of phosphate makes 500 hundred pounds of algae. It was always fun to wash our hair in the lake, but this is a real no-no. We didn’t know that we were doing any harm in those days, so no more lake shampooing!!
9) Watch for signs of septic tank malfunctions. We had a “break out” in our weeping tiles. Jack being a good citizen called in someone to re-do the septic and weeping tiles; this happened on a Friday, by Sunday it was all repaired. If we had waited until Monday, and then reported it to the township, the township would have paid half the $13,000 bill – we considered it well worth the price to save the lake.
10) Finally, plant drought resistant grasses to reduce the use of water.

And have fun for that is what the cottage is all about! We want the lakes to stay clean for our grandchildren and their grandchildren, so that they may water ski, swim and fish, all without getting sick.

That’s about it for today. Happy holidays to you all and good gardening. Hats, sunscreen, warm gloves and try some of those wonderful green rubber boots with insulated inserts, great for snow clearing.

Lovingly, Beryl