President’s Letter – Winter 2025
Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season filled with visits to or from family and friends. It’s the season of rest for the garden and this year’s cold ensures conditions for full plant dormancy which means our plant’s energy can go into good root growth. Many plants perform better with elevated chill hours, some like blueberries, actually require a certain amount. While our gardens are resting, we can begin planning and dreaming of spring and summer gardening. Hydrangea season will be here before we know it!
I hope that all AHS members will find our online renewal process much easier to navigate. Our new membership chair, Jen Mintern, has been working with outgoing chair Liesl Marmon to streamline the process. We think following a calendar year for our renewal process as opposed to our old tour-to-tour year will be much easier for members to remember. All memberships will expire on December 31st of each year and will be available to renew starting on January 1st of the new year. Please remember that if you choose to pay by credit card, a small transaction fee will be added to offset the cost of the card processor. Everyone will need to log onto the Membership Toolkit site to update or confirm your contact information for 2025 before renewing your membership.
Our February meeting is just around the corner and I’m looking forward to hearing our speaker, Scott McMahan, and learning about all the exciting plant discoveries he has made in Southeast Asia as manager of the International Plant Exploration Program at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, ABG. I’m hoping to also learn more about the collaboration between ABG and the Botanical Survey of India to explore parts of Northeast India, a botanically rich area. I hope you will join us on Monday, February 24th at the Woodruff Auditorium at McElreath Hall at the Atlanta History Center. Come for social time and plant raffle tickets at 7pm, meeting to begin at 7:30pm. Bring a friend or neighbor!
Lastly, I have a book recommendation for these cold winter nights, The Well Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature by Sue Stuart Smith. I attended a talk with the author this past fall at the Atlanta History Center and remembered that I had purchased the book but had not yet read it. It’s a life affirming book filled with stories about the healing art and science of gardening. I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved that it validated what I already know – that gardens have the power to heal us mind, body, and soul. Let me know if you read it and if it resonates for you as well.
With Dirty Hands and a Full Heart,
Jennifer Petritz,
AHS President
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