The Westport Garden Club’s annual plant sale is this Friday May 13 (9:30 a.m., Jesup Green). The club celebrates their 98th anniversary with over 1,000 perennials from members’ own gardens, all potted up for sale.
The event has happened every year since 1924 — except World War II, when members’ gardens grew vegetables to support the war effort, and 2020 during COVID.
The sale reopened last year, with cautions in place and an online pre-order/ curbside pick-up option. It was so successful, it’s been retained this spring.
The Garden Clubs uses funds raised to maintain gardens around Westport. This spring they replanted the Nevada Hitchcock Garden at Cross Highway and Weston Road with native species. It now supports the Pollinator Pathway Project, launched with Wakeman Town Farm and Earthplace in 2019.
Fothergilla species — deciduous Eastern US natives — are spectacular 4-season shrubs.
That garden was created in 1941 to honor the club’s co-founder, a reporter for the New York Herald. She moved to Westport in 1920. As a columnist for the Sunday Post (now the Connecticut Post), her column “Your Own Garden” was a popular feature.
The original garden featured 137 dogwood trees. Over the years many fell to disease, and were replaced by other plantings.
Original Nevada Hitchcock dogwoods.
The new plan features hydrangeas, Clethera, Baptisia, Joe Pye, butterfly weed, and goldenrod — all plants that promote the abundance and diversity of beneficial insects \.
Information about beneficial native plants is available at the plant sale, along with tips for home gardeners.
Westport Garden Club members prep the Nevada Hitchcock Garden.
