Local garden clubs in action

by Lynn M. Steiner

The South Coast is fortunate to be home to several garden clubs that do a lot to enhance the quality of life in their communities.

This comes in the form of scholarships, funds for environmental projects, educational programs, community beautification projects, and more, all of which make a real difference in the lives of residents.

Most garden clubs have community beautification projects. The Tiverton Garden Club maintains gardens at Pardon Gray Preserve, Tiverton Town Farm, Exit 4, and Grinnell Beach. The Little Compton Garden Club maintains a memorial garden behind the school, the historical herb garden at the Little Compton Historical Society, and a newly installed pollinator garden. The Sogkonate Garden Club maintains gardens at the school, Brownell House, Burchard Triangle, and the Demonstration Meadow at the Recreation Field, all in Little Compton. The Bristol Garden Club tends gardens in Thomas Park and at the library, and they are in their fifth year of a project to plant thousands of daffodils throughout the town. Offering educational programs to the public is a high priority for garden clubs. The Newport Garden Club holds an annual conservation meeting in October each year. This year, they are collaborating with The Norman Bird Sanctuary on October 11. Sogkonate Garden Club in Little Compton hosts monthly speaker programs open to the public, as well as field trips and workshops. In August, the Bristol Garden Club (bristolgardenclub.org) will offer demonstrations in Kokedama and Ichibana at the annual Black Ships Festival in Independence Park, which celebrates the unique partnership between the U.S. and Japan. Providing scholarships and grants to local organizations is high on the list for some clubs. Garden Club of Buzzards Bay has given thousands of dollars to community projects along the South Coast region to schools (public, private, and charter) land trusts, museums, libraries, the zoological society, the YMCA, and others. The Little Compton Garden Club funds helps fund many community projects and provides an annual donation to a local scholarship funds as well as to the Garden Club of America. The Buzzards Bay Garden Club has a partnership with Our Sisters School, a school for girls with an outdoor classroom, garden, and a greenhouse. The Sogkonate Garden Club partners with the local school on several projects, including starting seeds with first graders and making graduation centerpieces for eighth graders.

Creating and sharing holiday decorations is a popular project for garden clubs, including the Little Compton (littlecomptongardenclub. org), Tiverton (lindamjenkins@cox. net), Sogkonate (sogkonate.org), and Buzzards Bay Garden Clubs (gardenclubbuzzardsbay.org). The Newport Garden Club is very busy during the holidays, making and decorating wreaths to be donated to Lucy’s Hearth, which holds a sale open to the public to raise funds for this women and children’s shelter. They also decorate the Edward King Senior Center for the holidays and decorate wreaths with traditional colonial flair to donate to the Newport Historical Society, who puts them on the doors of the Old Colony House downtown as part of the Christmas in Newport celebration. Local gardens clubs have many ways to raise the funds they need for these projects. Plant sales are popular and provide a real service to the community. The Garden Club of Buzzards Bay holds a plant sale each May at the Rotch-JonesDuff House and Garden Museum in New Bedford. The Sogkonate Garden Club hosts their annual Blossoms and Sweets Plant sale Memorial Day weekend in Little Compton.

Garden tours are another way for clubs to earn funds. Club and community members willing to share their gardens on tours provide a delightful way for community members to enjoy private gardens while helping support the great work of local clubs. The Little Compton Garden Club will be holding its self-guided Coastal Gardens of Little Compton tour on June 17, rain or shine, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. For more information and to buy discounted tickets in advance, go to littlecomptongardenclub.org.