FOR THE LOVE OF HERBS at Mounts Botanical Garden on Saturday, February 15, 2014, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Hutcheson Auditorium and Portico and in the Garden: Free for Mounts members, $10 for the rest of us. To register, call the Mounts at 561-233-1796.

The Mounts celebrates all uses of herbs with special lectures, demonstrations, culinary treats from gourmet truck vendors and an opportunity to purchase herb-centric items like herb and spice blends, preserves, plants, oil and vinegars, and soaps made or grown by herb enthusiasts. The Evening Herb Society will be selling herb cookies baked by members along with their cookie cookbook.

The program will end with Mounts dedicating three recently complete additions: The Garden of Well-Being (the extensively enhanced and renovated Herb Garden we’ve all raised funds for and worked for), The Garden of Extremes, and the Begonia Border, replacing the Begonia  Garden devastated by Hurricanes.

The day’s educational programs will run from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Speakers will be our longtime medicinal and unusual herb friend, David McLean, founder and retired curator of Nova Southwest University’s Pharmaceutical Garden, and he’ll bring his rare medicinal plants; further, a talk of sustainable herb growing from horticulturists of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach; and new to us and most welcome, a local holistic doctor.

During this time the Hutcheson Portico will be featuring an Herbal Bazaar of mostly Evening Herb Society members: David McLean’s plants, Glenford Smith with usual and unusual tropical herb and spice plants; Roland Gaudet with culinary herbs and his sister, Linda King’s jams and hot mango chutney. Mount’s renowned Garden Guild, headed up by EHS’s Tom Hewitt, will have herb plants and youngsters of the plants you see and long for in the garden.

Meg Vandereedt and Spice Scentsations will be there featuring her own herb and spice blends and the new sensational, flavored sea salts; Kitty Phillips with her new line of herb-flavored oils and vinegars; EHS’s home baked fresh herb and spice cookies and our ever popular “An Herbal Fantasy of Cookies Cookbook” for those who want to bake at home. Two of Palm Beach County’s famous gourmet food trucks will be on hand, one will be featuring herb-flavored dishes and the other is vegetarian. There’s lunch and snack attacks taken care of.

At the end of the event on the portico, the Mounts will have a formal dedication of two new gardens, and our Herb Garden, diligently worked on for years by the first Herb Society in the county (Herb Society of Palm Beach County) and, beginning in 1988, The Evening Herb Society of the Palm Beach. The garden has been renamed the “Garden of Well Being.”

Those of us who haven’t been to the Mounts recently will be charmed by the new display of cacti and succulents, orchestrated by Horticulturist Joel Crippen. With luck, the new Begonia Border should be in full bloom, February being begonia’s biggest bloom fest.

The Garden of Well-Being’s foundations and design, originally taken from Herbal Fantasy speaker Holly Shimuzu’s design from the National Herb Garden in Washington, DC, remains but are now highlighted. Concrete beds are enhanced with an “old Florida” look of coral rock, the path is poured with tabby shell rock; the big oak tree has night lighting for evening events that mimics moonlight. There’s a water bowl or fountain in the garden’s center. All this “hard scape” is thanks to Mounts Board Director, Phil Maddux of Palm Beaches, Sanchez and Maddux, and the generosity of the companies used by the landscape design firm.

Plant choices were first suggested by Holly Shimizu and then refined somewhat to suit our climate, emphasizing the tropical herbs and spices by Joel Crippen who obtained the plants, and EHS Treasurer, Ingrid Menz, who is in the garden with towel and clippers month after month along with President Meg Vandereedt and Past President, Donnie Brown looking after it.

Mounts and Evening Herb Society and Morning Herb Society now have a treasure of a historic garden, unique in Florida, we feel, and it’s all for your enjoyment and education. Come see it and fall in love with The Garden’s very real and alluring fragrances and tastes. Come out and celebrate the new “beginning” of our garden on February 15, all for the “Love of Herbs.”

President Meg Retires

by Donnie Brown and Ingrid Menz

What a great President Meg Vandereedt has been for the past four years (2010 – 2013); she also had the stamina, by several years, to be our longest serving president, and doesn’t that tell you EHS has been very happy with Meg at our helm. Although Meg  has retired as president, she remains on our Board of
Directors as Past President and will continue to do some of those things she’s so talented at, such as our March Auction and the plant ordering (no small job!) for the semi-annual  Mounts Plant Sale.

Meg came to EHS as a guest at the first Herbal Fantasy, one of five weekend educational seminars, featuring nationally known speakers, in the 90’s. She soon found herself volunteering, taking a place on the Board, working plant sales and events, helping keep EHS running smoothly, and sharing delicious
culinary expertise at our monthly meeting’s Tasting Table. On Long Island, where she grew up, Meg had a catering business and she continues to exercise her gourmet talents. Find her recipes in the reprint of EHS’s “Herb Cookbook” and in her Herb Scentsations blends and salts available at the February 15
“for the Love of Herb” event at Mounts Botanical Garden. If you travel to Plant Sales across the State, you’ll also find Meg and her Herb Scentsations at many of those shows.

Meg has always shared her many talents with EHS, revitalizing our Annual Auction, making it one of our most entertaining evenings and a splendid fundraiser for our work in the Mounts Herb Garden. Refining the running of the Herb Booth at the Mounts Plant Sales and overseeing the gourmet
lunch the board members make and managing the volunteers, was a pet project of Meg’s.

A major project for Meg, especially her final two years was overseeing the transition from The Herb Garden at the Mounts to The Garden of Well Being, which has its dedication on February 15th. EHS had begun raising funds, saving dollars, holding auctions, seminars, and a remarkable rummage sale for
some 15 years for the enhancement and enlargement of our Herb Garden and Meg saw it through to the beautiful, lush, educational garden it finally has become.

Meg worked diligently in finding speakers with new and vital herbal topics in both the culinary and medicinal field. She found interesting plant vendors and encouraged our members to share their expertise at our Holiday Bazaar. She worked on our publications as a contributor and editor and kept our society
running smoothly and happily with her good spirits and obvious enjoyment at being with EHS members.

Thank you with all our hearts, Meg, for putting in so much time, day light and midnight hours, for our herbal cause. You’re the BEST!