Horticulture for Seniors, a committee within the Master Gardeners, celebrated their 10th anniversary on February 22, 2010. Their committment to bring horticultural activities to enhance the lifestyle of the senior citizens in Essex County has grown over the years. The Tea Party had a grand turnout of over 50 guests.

The Committee Members worked at making this one of the best meetings the group has had. Maya Bloom purchased several varieties of tea from the Teatulia Co., which were sampled by our senior guests, and showed a video produced by the Teatulia Co. demonstrating how the growing and the producing of  TEA helps to improve the economy in a 3rd world country.

Joyce Stewart, Unn Boucher, Anita Gibaldi, Debi Graf (MG student in current class) and others gave talks about how tea is grown, where tea is produced, and the role tea drinking has played to shape history and culture and the differences between what we know as TEA and herbal teas.

The committee collected several tea pots and served all the guests. They also baked scones, herbal cakes, chocolate and tea cakes, and many other goodies.The guests all said what a wonderful time they had. Refreshmens and a cookbook with recipes of goodies which accompany tea in different locales was also produced by committee members.  A slide show of recent Horticulture for Seniors programs was shown by Helen Kesner.