By Tracy Jordan —

PERTH AMBOY — Club News: Floral Designer extraordinaire Peggy Koehler, a wizard with teaching anyone how to make arrangements, taught our group how to design at low cost. With a total for materials consisting of about $20 worth of flowers from Shoprite, some clippings for fill from her yard, containers of all sorts from around the house and a lot of creativity, she created 7 gorgeous bouquets than would cost a small fortune otherwise.

Here’s some club news – we are aiming to restore our gardens damaged by Sandy as soon as the Public Works Department, under the guidance of Lisa Nanton, fills them in with enough new soil and checks that the irrigation systems still work. These were the Ferry Slip museum, foot of Smith Street, the Hummingbird Garden (gazebo gone at foot of High Street), the Butterfly Garden (where High, Water and Sadowski Parkway all meet) and the Veteran’s Memorial on the Sadowski promenade. We are also now selling t-shirts to help us raise much-needed funds – expect a notice out soon in the Guardian and on Facebook about how to purchase these. We will be out there soon on Saturdays prepping the soil and planting – join our page on Facebook for notices of where will we be each Saturday (or other days during the busy planting time.)

As always, our monthly meetings are at 7:30 pm, the first Wednesday of the month (so May’s meeting is May 1) at the St. Peter’s Rectory, 188 Rector Street, Perth Amboy NJ 08861. We are always in need of more members for our public garden maintenance. Skill level is unimportant; you will learn a lot about plants, nature, teamwork plus have a great time. For more info, or to obtain a membership form, email naturebynoelle@yahoo.com or asilmo08861@hotmail.com.