Nobleton Notes
St. Paul's Youth Group will help serve dinner at Evangel Hall
By Angie Maccarone (905) 859-5174

St. Paul's
Presbyterian Church
Youth Group
to Evangel Hall

Are you in Grades 9 to 12? Then you can join the Youth Group at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, as they travel downtown to Evangel Hall to help serve dinner this Saturday (Jan. 19). We will leave the church at 3 p.m. and return around 10 p.m.

The Prayer Group will meet tonight (Jan. 16) at 7:30 p.m.

The men's and women's studies on Thursday mornings continue tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.

The Saturday morning men's study continues this Saturday (Jan. 19) at 8:30 a.m.

Join us for worship this Sunday (Jan. 20) at 9:45 a.m. as we welcome Rev. Winston Newman to the pulpit. Nursery care (for children five years and younger) is provided during the service and Sunday school for all ages follows at 11 a.m.

The Adult class will be starting the ALPHA program this Sunday and they will remain for lunch following the video presentation and discussion.

For more information about any of our activities or events, please contact the church office at (905) 859- 0843 or visit our Web site at www.stpaulsnobleton.ca

St. Mary CWL

The St. Mary Catholic Women's League (CWL) in Nobleton will be holding a bake sale Feb. 10.

It will be after the 9:30 a.m. mass in the gym at St. Mary School.

Volunteers are needed to do the baking, and lades are asked to drop off their goodies before mass in the gym the morning of the sale.

If there are any questions, please contact Lucy at (905) 859-4712, or Frances at (905) 859-4451 after 5 p.m.

Horticulture

"It's June in January . . ." again and I've been out in my garden over the last few days, planting a dozen or so late-fall purchased perennials that were still in pots when that first heavy fall of snow in November caught me off guard.

They included foxgloves (digitalis), daylilies (hemerocallis), speedwells (veronica) and bearded tongue (penestemons), all of which had green top growth in good condition and/or good solid root systems very much alive. Now a couple of pots containing fleabanes (erigerons) didn't show much sign of life, but I still planted them with a little prayer and I'm hoping for the best.

Unfortunately mice or moles ate the columbines. They also nipped the green tops off the my sweet william (dianthus barbatus), but left the roots alone so I planted it too. As well, I've been putting in some tulip bulbs and small spring flowering bulbs (crocus), aconites (eranthus hyemalis), scilla and English bluebells (endymion nonscriptus), the hyacinths of the mediaeval monastery gardens. Up until fairly recently, it was thought these bluebells would not winter in our area, but now it seems gardening experts say they will. I planted some in the autumn of 2006, and they bloomed beautifully for me last spring. I'll have to wait and see if these late planted ones will do the same. Keep in mind as long as the ground is diggable you can put in spring flowering bulbs.

As I sit here at the kitchen table writing the rough draft of this week's article, I face a gorgeous coral flowering tuberous begonia on the table centre. Last June, when I was buying some bags of composted cattle manure from a pile stacked near the supermarket garden centre's dumpster filled with reject plants, I saw this very sorrylooking, almost bare-rooted begonia on top of the pile. Its leaves, though wilted, looked like they'd revive with a good drink. I said to the young lady helping with the bags that if I could take it, I'd give it a good home and she gave it to me.

At home, I got busy gardening and although it was occasionally watered I neglected it shamefully. Then one morning some two weeks, later I had a twinge of conscience, saying to myself "You'd have been better to have left it where it was than to have brought it here and let it die."

So I potted it up put it in a shady place and gave it some TLC. It did get some new growth, but really didn't do much and certainly didn't bloom. Toward the end of October, when I brought all my houseplants indoors, I brought it in too. It sat there lost among the tropicals.

In early December, I noticed it had much new growth and then by Christmas (the holidays) it put out buds and was soon covered in lovely double blooms. I'm so glad now that I was able to rescue it.

By the by, if your flowering houseplants have stopped blooming and foliage plants aren't putting out new leaves, they have gone into a dormant stage and should be watered sparingly every 10 days or so (unless they appear wilted) until early March. Some houseplants like to dry out between waterings during dormancy (not desert dry). Poke your finger about two inches into the soil and if it still feels dry it's time to water.

It's best to keep dormant plants out of strong direct sunlight. I regularly water my anthurium (flamingo flower), which has continuously bloomed for over two years, and also my alocasia amazonica (grown for foliage), which keeps producing new leaves

Seniors' euchre

Seniors' euchre for Jan. 8 winners were (for the ladies) Sandy Tower, Gwen Potter and Mary Sheardown, and (for the men) Paula Lattanville, Walter Hill and Alf Walker. Jan. 15 featured afternoon euchre and Bid Euchre.

The seniors are planning a trip to Casino Rama Feb. 11. Please call Lou at (905) 895-0519 for more information.

Nobleton Women's

Institute

The Women's Institute (WI) wishes everyone a Very Happy New Year.

The first meeting of the New Year will be held at Joan Jackman's place at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 17. The meeting will be on citizenship, culture and community. The Motto will be "Getting our books in order."

The books are Nobleton Tweedsmuir Books - started by all members of the W.I. branches in 1945, when Lord Tweedsmuir (the Governor General of Canada at that time) and Lady Tweedsmuir suggested that all little towns and places should keep a history of their towns and villages. King Township had seven WI branches, and all have disbanded, except for Nobleton. These histories are all in libraries.

This next meeting will have the members go through Nobleton's Tweedsmuir books and prepare them to be copied, so that the public can view them.

Nobleton WI is really getting excited about celebrating its 100th anniversary in June. Many exciting things are being planned.

Ladies of the community, we welcome you to our meetings the third Thursday of the month at 7:30 p.m. at Nobleton Community Call. New members are a must, so that WI can continue in Nobleton.

Many busy ladies can make things happen in a community.

Sears colouring contest

The winners in the Sears Winter Colouring Contest were Emily Lalonde of King City, Sara Fazzari of Nobleton, Stefania Capobianco of Schomberg, Madeline MacRae of Bolton, Nicole Ferrari of Nobleton, Brittany Hendrych of Nobleton, Sabrina Valenzano of King City and Luca Ferrari of Nobleton, with honourable mention going to Kathryn MacRae of Nobleton.