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The Ocean Hills Garden Club is gearing up for a busy spring. For the first time, the OHCC Home Garden Tour will be on a Sat., June 1, so more residents and their friends can enjoy this special day together. The Spring Garden Luncheon will be Wed., May 8 to allow everyone to enjoy a more relaxed day to spend with garden friends. Mark your calendars, with more details coming next month for these two favorite events. We will be celebrating the OHCC 40th Anniversary by joining with the Save the Monarch Butterf ly Club to sponsor a special program, "Blooms and Butterf lies." On Fri., May 10 in Abravanel Hall from 10 am-noon, the Garden Club will present Barbara Weiler, Master Gardener and Floral Design star. She will demonstrate f loral arranging, while the SMB will have stations set up featuring growing plants and information on the Monarch Butterf lies. Refreshments will be served and there will be drawings for plants and f loral arrangements. We hope you join us for this special celebration. You don't want to miss the April 10 Garden Club meeting, when the topic will be "Is it a Horticultural Myth?" Our speaker will be Master Gardener, Dawn Standke. In addition to debunking horticultural myths, Dawn likes to grow rare fruits and vegetables that attract birds and butterf lies. Join us for some Horticultural Myth Busting where we will cover topics including: Should I put banana peels on my plants? Do eggshells, aspirin, Epson salt, or Tums cure blossom rot on tomatoes? Will a "penny ball" drive away snails and slugs? Which plants can hurt me? What are some facts on the new invasion mosquito species, the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti? And many more… It should be an interesting meeting. If you have any plants or cuttings you would like to share, there will be a table at the side entrance. We will meet in Abravanel Hall, social time and goodies at 9:30 am and the meeting begins at 10 am. New this year to our meeting is our question box, if you have a gardening question you would like answered, drop it in the box before the meeting. We will pick one to discuss at the meeting, it will also be answered on the OHCC Garden Club Facebook page. Written by: Jan Vaccaro 32 | OHCC LIVING | APRIL 2024 | One of the challenges we sometimes face as photographers is too much of a good thing – too much light. Recently on a trip to Arizona we ran into that. For the first time that I can recall, my first move in editing the photos, which were shot RAW on my "proper" camera, was to back off the light considerably, then boost the color and you end up with a well composed picture. You'll be reading this in April, which in 2023 was "Graypril," so there's no telling whether too much light will be a problem this month. The Photo Club plans to have OHCC resident Robert Genat come back as a guest speaker at our April 18 meeting, and he always entertains and (especially) educates. For May we are planning for two photo shoots, the first on or about May 16, of the Monarch Butterf ly Garden. We've never done anything like that, and it will be challenging, and may give us a chance to break out the long lenses. The annual OHCC Garden Tour was moved back in the calendar to June 1 but we will have access to the Garden Tour homes on May 31. Whether we'll have May Grey for our photo shoot is to be determined. If we don't, we may have too much of a good thing. Last year we had little to no sun during our photo shoot, as you can tell from the absence of shadows on the photos. The Photo Club would like to invite interested members to join our Board. We have elected officers for key positions, but we know there are club members out there who are experienced photographers and know more about it than we do. We would welcome suggestions for club activities and educational opportunities. Contact a Board member if interested: Co-Presidents - Jody & Jim McDonough; Vice President - Paul Elsberry; Treasurer - Kathy Thornton; Secretary - Shellie Bean. ~ Jim McDonough, jamespmcdonough@gmail.com, (760) 593-9994 Photography Garden Club

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