Aurelia C. Scott

If the mention of garden clubs makes you think of leisured ladies in white gloves who discuss flower arranging while drinking tea from a silver service, think again. Think of Dublin Lake rescued from pollution and invasive plants by members of the Dublin (NH) Garden Club. Or the mountain nature trails designed by the Modadnock (NH) Garden Club. Or the closure of a burning dump masterminded by the Cumberland (ME) Garden Club.

Albeit, silver tea services still exist. And some clubs still ask members to wear white gloves for special occasions. It can also be said without exaggeration that flower arranging remains a popular topic in every garden club in New England. Yet the style of garden clubs is changing.

Diana Lawrence, who started a garden club in Grafton, Vermont last year, says “Banish the notion of an elite, upper-class social club. Today’s modern garden clubs are democratic and embrace both novice gardeners and the community. A garden club can be a simple affair, with a handful of the faithful getting together informally around a kitchen table or at a local library to discuss a pre-selected topic, swap plants, or help tend a school garden. Or it can be formal – a stalwart civic contributor devoted to conservation and affiliated with a national garden club organization.”

In essence, though, whatever the type of club, it is all about “the lure of gardening,” says Lawrence. “The endless variety of techniques, plants, problems, opportunities, and experiences. There’s always another aspect of gardening waiting to be unearthed. That’s where garden clubs come in.”

Judy Quattrochi, president of the Wilton (CT) Garden club says that, “education is really what draws people to garden clubs. Not the simplistic sit-down-and-teach-me kind of thing, but education in the form of communication. You get together with people who have similar interests and you share experiences.”

“I joined my first garden club in order to learn. And I continue to belong for the same reason,” says Dorothy Cannon, member of both the Dublin (NH) and Grafton (VT) Garden Clubs. “You never stop. Garden clubs offer a fabulous education.”

The first garden club on record in America was founded by twelve friends in Mrs. E. K. Lumpkin’s parlor in Athens, Georgia in 1891. The members of the Ladies Garden Club revealed a hands-on interest that would appeal to today’s practical garden club members. At that first meeting, they discussed how to make cuttings.

Subsequent topics must have been as stimulating, because 120 years later the Ladies Garden Club of Athens, Georgia remains active. Its longevity is unsurprising to anyone who has belonged to a garden club. Once hooked, garden club members become unabashed boosters of their favorite form of getting together.

“I have met the most intelligent, interesting, accomplished women of all ages in garden clubs,” says Judy Quattrochi. “If you spend an hour weeding a garden with them, you come away with such profound knowledge about life. They are optimistic people. And they know how to get things done.”

Most garden clubs meet monthly about ten times a year, although summer-only and winter-only clubs also abound. Members pay annual dues ranging from $5 to $25 depending on the club. Meetings typically consist of a review of club business, followed by a speaker or hands-on demonstration. Some are able to pay for renowned national and international speakers. Others rely on volunteer speakers.

Whatever the situation, the goal is to meet everyone’s interests, from container gardening to preserving snowy owl habitat.

When clubs were filled with women who did not work outside the home, garden clubs met during the week and the pace could be s-l-o-w. Occasionally, it still is.

Susan Dana, president of the Lenox (MA) Garden Club says, “My mother is 90 years old, but even she finds the pace of her (Pennsylvania) garden club too slow. They read the minutes out loud, have all the committee chairs report, and you have the speaker sitting there tapping her foot waiting for something to happen. These days, you have to accommodate people’s expectations for spending their time effectively.”

Her mother’s club, she adds, is finding it difficult to attract younger members. “And I can understand why. I wouldn’t join a club like that,” says Dana, who is an active new retiree, “let alone someone with children.”

Yet things are changing. Lenox Garden Club welcomes member’s children to their efficiently-run meetings, and it varies meeting times depending on the topic. The snowy owl lecture was held at night, for example, and was open to the public. Grafton Garden Club meetings last ¾ of an hour at most one Saturday morning each month. New Hampton (NH) Garden Club has both day and evening groups. Wilton Garden Club provides childcare.

Increasingly, garden clubs also offer hands-on education doing everything from planting gardens at Habitat for Humanity houses to designing historically accurate kitchen gardens, from helping students learn botany to providing garden therapy in nursing homes.

“There is a lot more community outreach done on a larger scale by garden clubs now,” says Jean Thompson of the New Hampton (NH) Garden Club. “When I began in garden clubs forty years ago, the most community-oriented thing we did was filling the planter boxes at the welcoming sign at the edge of town.” Today the club is helping a fifth grade class build a greenhouse. And they recently implemented a program to help homeowners plant native bird and butterfly habitat throughout town.

“We have all kinds of things a person can do in a garden club,” says Mary Lou Smith, past president of the Maine Garden Club Federation and member of the Cumberland (ME) and Longfellow (ME) Garden Clubs. “These days, there are so many conservation and environmental programs that you don’t even have to have a garden or be interested in planting to belong.”

Extra events, such as flower shows, garden tours, or plant sales round out a typical garden club’s list of activities. The events are as financially essential to today’s ‘new’ garden club as they were socially necessary to yesterday’s. Money raised at those events is what funds all the community outreach work and the many college scholarships that garden clubs offer to students interested in some aspect of horticulture

The impetus to join a garden club can take many forms. Judy Quattrochi joined the Wilton club (her first) after a disappointing telephone call. “I called some friends one February morning to share my delight that snowdrops were blooming along my driveway.” Her friends were not interested. “I said, ‘I wish I could find someone to share my thrill!’” Within a few weeks she walked into a meeting of the Wilton club and said, ‘I don’t know a soul here, but tell me how to be part of this.’ And they took me in,” she concludes.

Claire Hunt retired to Boothbay, Maine in 1990 after spending her professional life in Michigan. “It was quite a daunting experience to shed my professional identity,” she says. She did not know anyone in her adopted home. “I joined the garden club as a way of meeting people and as a way to find an anchor.”

Hunt found a whole new life. After taking the National Council of State Garden Clubs’ landscape design course her gardening life snowballed. She is now president of the Boothbay Botanical Gardens and president of the Garden Club Federation of Maine.

“It’s all because of this wonderful groundswell [in garden clubs] for recognizing the potential in people to do some good. If it could do that for me, it could do that for anybody.”

So, a tea and crumpets past has largely been replaced by callused hands and water bottles. Is everyone welcome to join the labor? The answer is a gently qualified yes. Some clubs restrict membership to people resident in a community for more than a year. Others are limited to the number of members that will fit into each other’s homes. Some require evidence of commitment, such as volunteering for a flower show, prior to acceptance. And it must be said that some clubs do not accept men, although that seems to be a fast-changing relic of the past.

Yet gone are the days when, “you had to have won blue ribbons in certain flower shows, and know people, and then they voted you in or blackballed you.” Mary Lou Smith, who was informed of precisely those requirements by one garden club that she hoped to join, shakes her head. “When I heard about that, I thought, ‘not for me.’”

“It’s good that things have changed,” says Dorothy Cannon. “Anybody who’s interested should be able to belong. It’s ridiculous not to be able to.”

Claire Hunt, whose theme for her federation presidency, is ‘garden club reaching out,’ agrees. “If garden clubs continue as narrow and exclusive, they’ll implode. The only way we can thrive is by responding to changing demographics. We need to appeal to professional men and women, active retirees, working parents. We need to go all the way from silk and pearls to jeans and sweatshirts. Gardening is the number two leisure activity in the country and garden clubs should be leading the way.”
For ultimately, she says, garden clubs are about community.

Susan Dana looks out her living room window toward a literal garden of friends. “We have plant exchanges in the Lenox club,” she explains. “As I walk around my garden, I say ‘that came from that friend, this came from another friend.’ You plant a very personal garden as a result.” She pauses in thought before continuing. “The generosity and kindness of people has been a joy. I treasure the friendships. I think they’re what makes garden club important.”

“A lot of learning, a lot of community action, and a lot of friendship,” says Jean Thompson. “That’s garden club.” © - 2007 Aurelia C. Scott