It's a Garden Party!

It's a Garden Party!

Here's another budget birthday party idea perfect for spring or summer!

Theme: Garden Party

Invitations:

Option: Flowers (of course!) Option: Seed packets, print the party details on plain paper and glue onto seed packets. 
Decorations:

Option: More flowers! If you haven't planted your spring flowers, now is the time to buy them! Option: Artificial daisies in glass bottles...a fun & festive option! Option: May Pole Hunt 
#1. Each child will wind their yarn back into a ball as they follow their yarn trail to the prize. Option: Watering Can Relay 

#1. Each member of the team must carry a full watering can to the flower bed, water the flowers, run back, fill the watering can and repeat! 
Penalty...if any water is spilled on the way to the flower bed, the team member must start over! 
#3. Option: Paint Flower Pots 
#1. Purchase 1 small terra cotta pot for each child (about 50 cents each at Michael's, Hobby Lobby or Garden Ridge) 
#2. Decorate with waterproof terra cotta markers (available at Michael's or Hobby Lobby) 
#3. Let the children plant flower seeds and take home as their party favor!

Option: Tissue Paper Flowers 
#1. Precut 4" squares of tissue paper in a variety of colors 
#2. Fold the tissue paper like a fan into 1" folds 
#5. Tissue paper flowers are cute in their hair, in a vase, etc. 
#8. You can always make these flowers bigger by starting with larger squares of tissue paper. Option: Flower shaped cookie cutter food! (flower shaped sandwiches, flower shaped pieces of melon, flower shaped pieces of cheese & flower shaped finger jello)

Recipe - Finger Jello 
4 envelopes knox unflavored gelatin 
3 small boxes jello 
4 cups boiling water

In a large bowl, mix unflavored gelatin with jello. 

Bok Tower Gardens is situated on Florida's highest peninsular point. It has a wonderful 205 foot tower with 57 bells that play to the public every day. The tower itself stands in a fabulous landscape of over 200 acres with magnificent woodland gardens which offer a good variety of tropical plants and gives visitors the opportunity to see some central Florida wildlife.

The white garden is a popular backdrop for weddings, there is a grove of live oaks and a reflection pool that mirrors the tower itself. The tower and gardens have nonprofit status as an educational institution. The address of Bok Tower Gardens is 1151 Tower Boulevard, North of Lake Wales, Florida 337853. By the time he had reached age 22, his own company called Bok Syndicate Press, was selling women's features to newspapers. Gardens

Frederick Law Olmsted, Junior designed the beautiful gardens at Bok Tower. It contains acres of ferns, palms, oaks, pines, and wetland plants. Singing Tower

The Singing Tower is the centerpiece of the gardens, and was designed by Milton Medary. A 60 bell carillon is set within the 205 foot tall Late Gothic Revival tower. The tower is 51 feet square at its base, changing form at 150 feet high to an octagon with 37 feet sides that include sculptures designed by Lee Lawrie. The tower is surrounded by a 15 foot moat that serves as a Koi carp fish pond. Although the tower's interior is not open to the public, it contains the Anton Brees Carillon Library, said to be the largest carillon library in the world.

Pine Ridge Trail

The Pine Ridge Nature Preserve and Trail is a Longleaf Pine turkey Oak habitat. Pinewood Estate

Pinewood was his winter home.

The estate covers around eight acres of Bok Tower Gardens and is enjoyed by thousands of visitors every year.

The mansion has 30 rooms and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. From time to time, special musical performances are features at Pinewood Estate.

Events

Throughout the year, there are numerous events designed to draw visitors to the Gardens. These events include various concerts featuring folk music, jazz, orchestras, and the carillon bells of the Tower. It comprises the gardens, the Singing Tower with its carillon bells, Pine Ridge Trail, Pinewood Estate, and a visitor center.

Many urban dwellers only have a couple of hundred square feet of ground that's sunny enough to grow a successful garden. I will describe the steps to a highly successful gardening experience in a garden of 1,000 square feet. A 1,000 square foot garden can grow a tremendous amount of produce if you do it properly (how about 5,000# of tomatoes)! Most people seem to be "afflicted" with clay soil, and believe they cannot grow successfully without substantial time, effort, and money spent in amending it. Lay out and stake your garden with 18" soil-beds, and aisles at least 3' wide. Use 4 2" X 2" PAINTED stakes per soil-bed. Single-crop plants mature all at once. Whenever you plant single-crop vegetables, plant only what you can use, give away, sell, or store in the 1-2 week ideal harvesting window. It's for this reason, as well as to get the most from your gardening efforts and limited space, that I recommend growing EVERBEARING crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans, peppers, eggplant, melons and squash. Start your garden by being certain that it's totally weed free, including 4-5' on all sides at the time of planting. NEVER WAIT for the weeds to grow bigger! You might have to do this two or three times, but then you will have a healthy, weed-free garden all season long. Rather than planting everything by seed directly in your garden soil, I highly recommend growing seedlings in a mixture of sawdust and sand - in a 2 to 1 ratio - using plastic trays, as the best way to start many varieties of plants. You can extend your growing season by several weeks by transplanting healthy seedlings of almost all large plants. The seedlings must have constant sunlight to thrive, however, just as if they were in the garden. You can very quickly and easily learn to become competent at growing your own seedlings by reading Chapter 22 of The Mittleider Gardening Course.

If you decide to grow directly from seeds in the ground, make sure your seed-bed is soft and smooth. Then cover the seeds WITH SAND rather than the clay soil (this goes for ALL seeds in clay soil), and less than 1/8th inch deep. Meanwhile, remember that only ONE OUNCE of small seeds like tomato seeds includes TEN THOUSAND SEEDS, so don't plant too many!

Which crops you should plant depends on the temperatures in your growing area. Most places cannot grow warm-weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, beans, melons, and squash in the winter months. Wait to transplant those into the garden until daytime temperatures are 65-70 and night-time temperatures are 50 or above.

Cool-weather crops like cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, beets, lettuce, and the like, can be planted when it's colder, but don't plant if you have frosts at night, and remember that even these hardy plants need daytime temperatures above 50 degrees fahrenheit to grow.

Some people like to minimize the chore of weeding by putting black plastic everywhere. Using black plastic is generally NOT a good idea when planting seeds. The open space needed for seeds to emerge and grow successfully leaves room for weeds to grow as well. Proper and timely watering is essential to a successful garden. Second, weeding around the hose is difficult. You should never sprinkle a vegetable garden. It is terribly wasteful of water, it waters the ridges and aisles, encouraging weed growth, and it increases diseases and pest problems.

The best and easiest watering method I know is the semi-automated method taught in chapter 16 of the Mittleider Gardening Course. This uses 3/4" Schedule 200 PVC pipe, drilled with 3 #57 holes every 4", with the pipe running down the center of the soil-bed and lifted off the soil about 2" by small 2 X 4" wooden blocks. Water is controlled by an inexpensive ball valve placed at the head of each row, and the whole garden is plumbed together for fast, accurate, and highly efficient watering.

If you can't or don't want to automate your watering, simply wrap a large rag around the end of your garden hose, then place the hose in the soil-bed. If your beds are level, as they should be, the entire soil-bed will quickly receive the needed 1" of water. Whether your watering is automated or manual, watering only the root zone of the plants will save you more than 1/2 the water you'd use with traditional methods.

Finally, feed your plants the natural mineral nutrients they must have for healthy growth. The free ebook on the Foundation's website gives complete instructions for fertilizing your garden.

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