Horticultural Society passes on love of gardening to children
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- Published on Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Mrs. McPhee's Grade 1 class from HMK are part of the Little Green Thumbs initiative by Agriculture in the Classroom Manitoba.
By Miranda Leybourne
The Neepawa Press
Members of the Beautiful Plains Horticultural Society (BPHS) were in front of their garden beside the Roxy Theatre on Thurs., May 18 for their annual spring plant sale. About 50 gardeners showed up to purchase plants and Mrs. McPhee’s Grade 1 class, from Hazel M. Kellington (HMK) school, was also on hand to help spruce up the society’s flower patch.
Mrs. McPhee and her class are part of the Little Green Thumbs program by Agriculture in the Classroom Manitoba, whose aim it is to teach students about agriculture. The children helped to deadhead the crocuses in the BPHS’ garden beside the local theatre. They had a lot of fun and went home with bouquets of their own.
Marlene Vanhove, a member of the BPHS, says it’s nice to see children get involved with gardening at a young age.
“Gardening is the thing, as far as I’m concerned, for the young people,” she declares. “It gives them lots of knowledge about growing their own food...and they loved it!”
Vanhove says she hopes that people of all ages will take more of an interest in gardening and that more people will elect to become members of the BPHS and join the society’s current 11 greenthumbs.
BPHS president Brent Hunter, who works as a florist at Beyond the Garden Gate, says he too hopes to see an increase in the society’s membership.
“We just need some young blood, you know?” he says. “We want to do a lot of stuff. We used to look after several things. Now we do the planters around town and we look after this garden [beside the Roxy]. We meet the second Monday of every month, usually at the library. In the wintertime we meet at 7 p.m. and in the summer at 7:30. Our summer meetings are usually held in members’ gardens, so we do a tour of the garden and then we have our meeting. We try to have speakers at meetings, too.”
This year, the BPHS will be planting red and white flowers in the planters around town to celebrate Canada’s 150th year as a nation. This will also be a running theme at the society’s annual flower show, which is being held on Thurs., Aug. 10 at the local Royal Canadian Legion hall.
“Members bring their best plants and they’re judged. We’ll have a prize list out that people can enter and anybody in town can also enter. There’s arrangements, there’s houseplants, there’s cut flowers, there’s vegetables. We have photography, too, for any photography buffs out there.”
It costs $10 to be a member of the BPHS.
