Tag Archives: garden

Sep 7 2025

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE, September 2025

Greetings everyone!

I hope everyone’s summer is going well.  The Washington Post on August 31 reported that this August may be the driest in 150 years, which has posed a real challenge for mum growers in recent weeks.

Our meeting for September will be in-person instead of Zoom. It will be held on Sunday, September 7, at 1:30 pm, at the Charles Beatley Central Library of Alexandria, located at 5005 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22304 (tel: 703-746-1702).  There is plenty of parking at the library. We have reserved a spacious room. The library has a no food rule but bottled water is permitted. 

The primary focus of the meeting will be on organizing for this year’s Annual Show. As a volunteer organization, ODCS depends on member participation to make the show a success. Many of you participated in last year’s show and we hope you’re able to participate in the upcoming show. At the meeting we’ll go over the planned show schedule and the opportunities for participation.  

Members are also welcome to bring one or two of their plants (or photos) for show and tell or for evaluation. This is a forum for questions and answers. I believe this is the first in-person monthly meeting we’ve had in a while, and we hope as many of you as possible can attend!

Attached to this newsletter is the 2025 Show Flyer, as shown above.  Please circulate it to your circle of friends and family and invite them to come to our show.

As always, if you have a friend or family member who is interested in mums, consider providing them a copy of the ODCS Membership Form, which is attached to the email of this newsletter. Have them mail the completed form and dues to the address provided:  Galen Goss, 3128 Village Way, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055.

President,
Andrew Sherman

Jun 23 2025

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE, June 2025

Following our potting activities that took place May1-3, we had two public sales of both garden and Kings mums, the first on May 10 at the Ayr Hill Garden Club Plant Sale, and the second on the following Saturday, May 17, at the Green Spring Gardens Plant Sale.

We were blessed with good weather and good crowds for both events, and together they were very successful, resulting in our selling virtually every one of our Kings mums and most of our garden mums (including the two new garden mums, Fiesta Red and Banquet Pink Bicolor that were recommended to us by Warren Pfeiffer). Afterwards, due to the diligent efforts of Camilla Ng, all of our few remaining plants were purchased by members and others before the end of the month.

Many thanks for all the work put into these two events by Camilla, Shanelle Lu, NestiGjeluci, Nathaniel Gjeluci, Janice Chen, Jack Rubenstein, and Dorothy Pines, and to all the other members who came by to see us at the sales. Thanks also to Tim Moore, who not only hosted our potting activities but kept watch over our plants until the sales.

Some of the remaining mums – the Veritas Yellow Belgian mums – are now part of this year’s Garden mum challenge, with six participants:  Janice Chen, Shanele Lu, Camilla Ng, Rosemary Smith, Doris Shen, and yours truly. They will enter their mums in our annual show.

This past month we welcomed several new or returning members to the ODCS:  Paul Davis, Suzanne James, Joan Matthews, Esther Rimer, and Cathy Roberts.  Good to have you with us!

As always, if you have a friend or family member who is interested in mums, consider providing them a copy ofthe ODCS Membership Form, which is attached to the email of this newsletter. Have them mail the completed form and dues to the address provided:  Galen Goss, 3128 Village Way, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055.

President,
Andrew Sherman

Feb 25 2025

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE, March 2025

Dear ODCS members,

A very happy and healthy New Year and Lunar New Year to everyone!

I hope everyone has enjoyed the winter since our last newsletter of December 2024.
Our group plant orders for garden mums, King’s Mums, and Oregon mums were submitted to the growers in January.
Many thanks to all members who mailed in their plant orders in a timely manner. And a special thanks to Farhad Nourbakhsh and Galen Goss who did the work of processing and preparing your orders for the growers.
As you know, we weren’t able to accommodate orders for pot mums this year due to the increase in cost and ordering requirements. Those of you who ordered pot mums are being reimbursed for that portion of your order. We hope members are able to root cuttings of those pot mums that manage to winter over this spring.

Those of you who did not send in plant orders in December can still purchase plants at the member price at our May plant sales on May 10 at the Ayr Hill Garden Club Plant Sale in Vienna, VA, and on May 17 at the Green Spring Gardens Plant Sale in Alexandria, VA. We have submitted applications to participate in both these events.
If you have a friend or family member who is interested in mums, tell them they can purchase mums from us at these two upcoming plant sales events.
Also, you could provide them a copy of the ODCS Membership Form , which is attached to the email of this newsletter.
Have them mail the completed form and dues to the address provided:
Galen Goss, 3128 Village Way, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055.

John Capobianco, whom many of you know, is now the Chairman of the National Chrysanthemum Society’s Public Relations Committee. He has a budget for advertising in both print and digital formats and has contacted us (along with other NCS chapters nationwide) for ideas on communicating upcoming local plant sales as well as other types of advertising. If you have any thoughts on the matter, let me know and I’ll be happy to pass them on to John.

President,
Andrew Sherman