Tag Archives: Westport Garden Club

How Our Gardens Grow

Posted on May 6, 2015 | Comments Off

You can see the Westport Garden Club‘s work all over town.

In the early 1970s, Ginny Sherwood asked fellow members to reclaim a 3-acre landfill on Imperial Avenue. Her vision of a refuge along the Saugatuck River came true. Today, Westporters love the hidden-in-plain-sight beauty of Grace Salmon Park.

It’s a delightful spot for a walk, picnic or simply a few moments of peace and quiet.

Over the years though, the land has flooded. Vegetation has been lost. It needs improvement.

The Garden Club will once again help. Members are recommending which plants to save, and which native species to add. They’ll provide volunteers to do the labor, and keep Grace Salmon Park looking great.

To accomplish this — and so much more — the club needs funds. They raise money the best way they know how. This year’s annual plant sale is set for Friday, May 8 (9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.) at the Saugatuck Congregational Church.

Among the Westport Garden Club's many activities: keeping the Compo Beach entrance looking gorgeous. Members were hard at work recently. (Photo/Ann Pawlick)

Among the Westport Garden Club’s many activities: keeping the Compo Beach entrance looking gorgeous. Members hard at work recently (from left): Roseanne Mihalick, Jane Eyes, Jenny Robson, Debbie Tiede, Lori Meinke, Sue McCabe. (Photo/Ann Pawlick)

The Garden Club is one of those organizations whose work Westporters constantly admire, even if we don’t know it’s theirs. They’re responsible for — among many other things — planting, weeding, pruning and mulching sites like the Compo Beach entry and marina; Adams Academy; the Earthplace entrance; the Library’s winter garden near Jesup Green; various cemeteries, and the Nevada Hitchcock Memorial Garden at the Cross Highway/Weston Road intersection.

We also owe the club thanks for what we don’t see.

In the 1930s — just a few years after its founding — the Westport Garden Club persuaded the town to ban billboards on all local roads.

The prohibition still stands.

So on Friday, buy a plant to support the Westport Garden Club. For nearly 100 years they’ve made our hometown look beautiful — just like home.

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Posted in Beach, Environment, Library, Organizations, Places

Tagged Earthplace, Grace Salmon Park, Nevada Hitchcock Memorial Garden, Westport Garden Club

Oh My 06880 – Photo Challenge #5

Posted on February 1, 2015 | 17 comments

Last week’s Photo Challenge was quite challenging: graffiti on the inside of the Saugatuck River retaining wall by the library — visible only at high tide. Robert Mitchell was the 1st “06880” reader to identify it correctly.

Today — as snow blankets the ground, with more to come — we turn our thoughts to the Westport Garden Club. For 90 years, they’ve done good deeds all around town. But where can you find this sign hangs? Click “Comments” — and add any Garden Club stories, too!

(Photo/Lynn U. Miller)

17 Comments

Posted in Organizations, Photo Challenge

Tagged Lynn U. Miller, Westport Garden Club

A Time To Plant, A Time To Buy Plants…

Posted on May 6, 2014 | 3 comments

The Westport Garden Club is 90 years young this year.

They’ve come a long way since 1924. Back in the day, members sent their gardeners to do the heavy lifting. In 2014, they do it all themselves.

And the Westport Garden Club does plenty. Last year, for example, they planted hundreds of bulbs at Adams Academy on North Morningside. They also did a complete update of the Nevada Hitchcock Garden, at the well-traveled corner of Cross Highway and Weston Road.

They’re constantly at work, maintaining gardens at cemeteries, the Earthplace entrance, and many other spots. Their work is invisible — until it’s not done.

You know their work at Compo Beach, even if you don’t realize the Garden Club does it. Their handsome “Beach Buds” garden greets everyone at the entrance, while the Charles Lucas Garden at the marina honors an avid gardener who died in a boating accident. Lucas was not a Garden Club member — though he was often 1st in line at the annual plant sale.

Russ Miller, though, does belong.

That’s right: the Westport Garden Club welcomes men. In fact, John Morris joined in the group’s earliest year. (He was a librarian. It is believed he organized books on flowers. He was recruited for his library skills, not his interest in gardens.)

A marker, in a garden the club maintains.

But Miller is gung ho. A Westporter for 10 years, he’s spent the past quarter century in landscaping. He wanted to get involved in community service, and knew the club maintains gardens all over town. He’s beginning his 2nd term on the board.

These days, he and other members are busy preparing for the annual plant sale this Friday (May 9, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Jesup Green). It’s right before Mother’s Day, guys. Construction at the usual site — Saugatuck Congregational Church — is the reason for the new location. (Interestingly, just a few yards from Jesup Green is the Westport Library’s winter garden, which the club maintains.)

Hundreds of perennials will be on sale, plus garden-related items, homemade baked goods, antiques and collectibles. Club members are on hand to give horticultural advice.

Proceeds help maintain local parks and gardens; Staples Tuition Grants; the Sound Waters program for elementary school children; 4 Colonial-era cemeteries, and speakers for meetings.

This winter, some of us thought spring would never come. For 90 years, the Westport Garden Club has known it always will.