November Club Meeting
November 2024
Monday, November 4, at 7:30 PM
Subject: Gardening Can Be Murder – How Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers
Speaker: Marta McDowell
From the cozy to the hardboiled, the literary to the pulp, and the classic to the contemporary, Gardening Can Be Murder explores the 23 mystery genre’s many surprising horticultural connections. Meet plant obsessed detectives, groundskeeper suspects, toxic teas and tools, and gardens both real and imagined that have been the settings for fiction’s ghastliest misdeeds.
Biography
Marta teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and is a popular lecturer and writer. Her latest book is Gardening Can Be Murder, about the horticultural connections to crime fiction. Timber Press also published Unearthing The Secret Garden, Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, New York Times bestselling All the Presidents’ Gardens, and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, now in its ninth printing. She was the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America’s Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement.
Artistic Design Exhibits
Theme: Chrysanthemum
Challenge: Functional Table/Tray for One – Breakfast Tray, see Handbook, p.76. (A complete floral design must be included.)
Intermediate: A design suitable for use as a Table Centerpiece, to include a minimum of 2 candles, see Handbook, p.73. (Candles are not to be lit.)
Novice:American Traditional Line-Mass Design featured in a Cornucopia, see Handbook, p.71. (Fresh plant material, fruit and nuts may also be used.)
Open: Designer’s choice (one entry per member).
Artistic Design Exhibits – Please read “Artistic Design Rules” beginning on page 13 of the MGC Yearbook as well as the 2017 revised edition of the Handbook for Flower Shows.
Horticultural Exhibits – Please read “Horticulture Division Rules” beginning on page 14 of the MGC Yearbook as well as the 2017 revised edition of the Handbook for Flower Shows.
1. Aloe, potted plant.
2. Chrysanthemum (1 sprig)
3. Leafed branch with fall color, not to exceed 24”
4. Open (maximum 2 entries per member)