Mystic Garden Club » conservation

Flowers not blooming in January? Try this Winter Bird Tour:

ShirleyWick — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:04:06 +0000

Winter Bird Tour

From our friends at the New London Maritime Society, there are two events of interest, both featuring Maggie Jones, Director of the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, as speaker:

The Third Thursday Lecture on January 21, 2010, 6:30-8:00pm, is entitled “Winter Birding Along the Shore,” Admission $10 for non-members of NLMS, sponsored by the New London Water Authority.

Then, an Excursion on Saturday, January 23, 2010, 2-4 pm, is entitled “Birding Along the Thames River to Ocean Beach,” meeting at the Fort Trumbull parking lot, Fee $12 for non-members of NLMS, also sponsored by the New London Water Authority. Bring binoculars.

Please pre-register for these events by calling 860-447-2501 and to obtain directions for the lecture and/or excursion.

September 2009 Meeting

Nancy Hevenor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:37:46 +0000

The September meeting was a wonderful success with a presentation by Peter Alden. He inspired all of us to be vigilant in our guard against invasive species. Even some of the beautiful plants like porcelain berry take over and crowd out our native plants.

Invasive Species

More Invasive Species Gathered Locally

Ann Sargent brought in a succulent that she has had for a very long time. It is a Zulu Plant and has fascinating flowers.

Ann Sargent's Zulu Plant

Zulu blossom before it opens

Members enjoyed the social hour

Jill and Gail

Diane & Linda

Pauline, Sandy & Alice

Ceil

F.R.E.S.H. Fall Newsletter

Nancy Hevenor — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:00:38 +0000

The Mystic Garden Club has donated funds to FRESH of New London for several years now. In fact, we were one of the founding groups with a large initial donation when FRESH was getting started. Saturday, September 19th, FRESH held a well attended party at it’s community garden in New London, to celebrate its 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! Please have a look at the very informative FRESH Fall newsletter on our blog to learn more; you will be AMAZED at what this group is doing! Jessica Cartagena was one of the FRESH teens that came to speak to our group a few years ago; she has now graduated from high school and was accepted over college graduates from top universities for one of 30 positions in the PUBLIC ALLIES class of 2010. Visit their website and read the newsletter and feel proud to support this organization! You can also subscribe to their newsletter on their website.

Global Water Shortage

Mystic Garden Club — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:41:00 +0000

http://magazine.angieslist.com/story/global-water-shortage-turns-local

Asian Longhorn Bark Beetle

Mystic Garden Club — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:15:00 +0000

Joan Allen from UConn Home And Garden Education Center will be speaking to our club on May 25, 2010 on the devastation caused by this preditor insect. You can read more in this New York Times Article.

A photo of the Asian Bark Beetle

Earth Friendly

Mystic Garden Club — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:06:00 +0000

The Mystic Garden club is taking steps to be friendly to the environment. Barbara Tacy has been presenting information on packaging, helping us to differentiate between packaging which is recyclable and which is not. Members are encouraged to stop purchasing items which are encased in non-recyclable materials. The impermeable plastic wrapping called “clamshell” packaging is both frustrating and non-recyclable.

The major retailer, Amazon.com has joined with its suppliers to eliminate the very frustrating “clamshell” packaging.

The New York Times reported ..

In Amazon’s “frustration-free packaging” initiative involving Mattel, its subsidiary Fisher-Price, Microsoft and Transcend, an electronics maker, the companies will ship some of their best-selling products to Amazon in cardboard boxes that don’t fight back.

These cardboard boxes are also recyclable. You can read the whole article at Packages You Won’t Need a Saw to Open.

Members are also encouraged to use re-usable shopping bags. (See our blog article Going Green – ReUsable Shopping Bags)

The Mystic Garden Club sells reusable, Earth Friendly shopping bags.

The photo below shows the items presented to identify as recyclable or non-recyclable.

The items on the left can be recycled while the ones on the right must go in the trash or be reused.

Going Green with fewer Catalogs

Mystic Garden Club — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:13:00 +0000

If you are overwhelmed with catalogs and hate to have all that paper wasted you can visit www.catalogchoice.org to choose which catalog mailing lists you’d like to be removed from.

Going Green – Reusable Shopping Bags

Mystic Garden Club — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 23:36:00 +0000

It’s not surprising that the plethora of plastic shopping bags is not good for the environment. I have been reusing my plastic bags whenever I go to a wholesale club but other than that they collect in my kitchen at a prodigious rate. So I decided to buy some reusable shopping bags. I have been very pleased with the bags I’ve received so I thought I’d share what I’ve found.

First I bought a nice, light, reinforced roomy bag from Alchemy Goods. It is very surdy and lightweight and it is completely constructed with recycled materials. The bag is made of recycled banner material and the straps are used seat belts with the handle reinforced by used bicycle tires. The resulting bag is handsome, very strong and lightweight. Not inexpensive but I am very happy with it.

Now one bag will just not get me home from the grocery store. So I purchased a group of 5 nylon bags from EnviroSax They carry twice the amount of a typical plastic grocery bag and they are small and light enough to fit in a little sack in my glove compartment.

Now my major obstacle is just remembering to bring these into the stores! I have succeeded a few times so I’m hopeful I can be retrained. They are a pleasure to use – nice and strong and I’m not inundated with more plastic bags to litter our environment. So I heartily endorse both of these items.