Summer 2022 Newsletter

Editor's Note: Due to the timing of the Garden Tour, we decided to postpone the June newsletter to July to include good news about the Tour, Annual Meeting, and other updates. Happy Reading and have a great summer! 

--Dodie Bump, Editor

Greetings from President Kirby

We Did It!

After two years of postponement due to the pandemic, we finally held our Gardens by the Sea Tour on June 10 & 11. To kick off the Tour, we had a fun "Preview Party" at La Grua on June 9. This was an opportunity for 150 guests to find out what private gardens were on the tour and to view (and purchase) paintings by the featured Artists in the Borough. The weather was perfect for our record turnout of almost 2,800 visitors who toured nine beautiful gardens over the two-day event. Visitors also shopped at the Marketplace on Wadawanuck Square, with 28 vendors offering a wide range of merchandise. Charlie Nardozzi gave two informative talks to 80 guests about cottage gardening and pollinator gardens at Stonington Harbor Yacht Club. Eleven Plein air artists created stunning paintings while working in five gardens and around the Borough. Several of their paintings were sold during the tour. Mystic Paper Beasts added an element of whimsy and delighted children and adults alike with poetry and song. I am happy to report that we exceeded our financial goals for the tour. This money will fund future SGC community projects, scholarships, and education programs. 

Click here for an album of photos!

(Includes photos taken by Dodie Bump, Laura Frommer, Jill Corr, Lisa Szaro, and Wanda Sullivan)

The tour would not have happened without the hard work and dedication of our Tour Planning Committee and Volunteers. Almost every club member volunteered at least one shift during the tour. We also had about 75 non-members volunteer to help. That says a lot about the importance of the tour to our club and our community. 

I would like to personally thank the following Tour Planning Committee members for their time, energy, and support. Most of this team started planning back in 2020 and stuck with it. They are responsible for making this tour a success and a lot of fun too!

Gardens by the Sea Tour Planning Committee: Susan Alston-Millette (Signage), Carole Barnard (Preview Party & Celebrity Event), Dodie Bump (Marketing, PR & Website), Joanne Caldara (Artists in the Borough), Jan Chamberlain (Marketplace), Jill Corr (Marketing & PR), Deb Dodds (Gardens), Caroline Muller (Artists in the Borough), Laurie Paige (Preview Party), Alejandra Welch (Tickets), and Kirby Williams (Logistics & Parking). 

-- Laura Metzger, Tour Chair

Annual Meeting

Our Annual Meeting was held on Tuesday, June 21, at Saltwater Farm Vineyard, followed by a delicious catered lunch. Members participated in a plant exchange, and there were lots of beautiful flower-festooned hats. 

Twelve awards were given out at the meeting recognizing extraordinary contributions to the club:

• 25 Years of Service Award: Marcia Fix
• GCA Garden History and Design: Gail Hamsher
• GCA Club Appreciation Award: Laura Metzger
• GCA Medal of Merit: Deb Dodds
• Club Commendations: Pam Wright, Helen DePersia, Carole Barnard, and Mary Suter (Jill Corr and Dodie Bump received theirs at the May membership meeting)
• SGC President’s Award: Laura Frommer
• SGC Gardener of the Year Award: Candy Sanford 

Check out this album of photos taken by Laura Frommer.

Horticulture Pam Wright, Chair

Calling all members!

Let’s plan our next season together. Please send me your ideas for horticulture workshops, projects, and/or presentations for the 2022/2023 season. Here are some thoughts to spark your ideas: pickling, canning & preserving your harvest, bulb lasagna container, amaryllis display at Stonington Free Library, terrariums, kokedama (Japanese moss balls), salt-tolerant native plants for coastal areas, and grow & show plant of the year.

Email or call me with suggestions by Aug 1. Thank you!

P.S. I also am happy to report that the June 2021 New Member planting at the Quiambaug Fire Department has filled in nicely. In keeping with the patriotic garden theme, we added ten each of White Sky High Single Late Tulips and Red Pim Fortuyn Triumph Tulips. All the tulips were purchased through our Flower Power Fundraiser and looked fantastic!

COMO Floral Sales Booth Susan Alston-Millette & Shonah Drakos, Co-Chairs

Join us to help make the SGC booth at the Como Village Fair a huge success on August 6, 2022. Net proceeds from our efforts will directly benefit the COMO!

Please click here for available shifts on SignUpGenius.

Please note that the time slots are different based on the job. There are slots on both Friday 8/5 and Saturday 8/6! We need help in several areas:

1. Friday morning traveling to different homes to cut, then condition flowers and greens at 15 High Street.
2. Friday afternoon, some setup is needed if you are flexible and somewhat strong!
3. Saturday morning, early, we need floral designers to help make arrangements to sell at the fair. Shifts start at 8 am.
4. Saturday throughout the day we need floral designers to create masterpieces!
5. Saturday from 10-4 we need volunteers in the booth selling.
6. Saturday at 4 pm we need helpers to take down the booth and return tents to the Thrift Shop attic.

We also need your clean vases, preferably with a 4 inch or less opening and at least 3 inches high. There are three drop-off locations:

1. Stonington Free Library at Wad Square - M-Th 10-7, F-10-5, S-S 10-3. There will be a bag for vases inside the front door near the desk
2. 38 Broad Street in the Boro - Kirby’s House, she said to put them on her front steps 
3. 18 Mary Hall Road Pawcatuck (near River Road) - Susan Alston’s house. Just leave anywhere on the front steps or porch.

If these locations are not convenient or for any other questions, please contact Susan Alston (41sujo@gmail.com, 413-531-7614) or Shonah Drakos (ssdrakos@gmail.com, 203-253-7960)

Visiting Gardens Linda Visscher, Chair

With summer here, a delightful respite could include a visit to the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s center for medieval art. On a recent visit, I was able to join the Garden Tour at The Met Cloisters, offered daily at 2 pm. I learned that gardens were the setting for romances in medieval literature (& perhaps in practice!), a sensual atmosphere created by the pastoral setting, the color and aroma of the plants, the presence of birds, and desired privacy. In the religious settings of cloisters, the use of nature in the columns’ capitals represented paradise, a stone-carved replica symbolic of the garden of Eden. Plants were the basis of the medieval diet, used in medicines, for housekeeping, in ceremonies, and magic. Illuminated “Books of Flowers” documented medieval plants, examples of which are found at the Met’s Cloisters today. And, of course, over 100 actual plants are portrayed in the Unicorn Tapestries. It’s definitely worth a visit!

With the close of our 2021/22 Stonington Garden Club season, I would like to profoundly thank the members of the Visiting Gardens Committee for their enthusiasm, support, and dedication. What fun it has been to come up with activities to engage our members in so many diverse “Visiting Gardens” ways! Please join me in thanking Carole Barnard, Annette Born, Joanne Caldara, Linda Dohrmann, Kay Graham, Evelynn Lyons, Anna Bell McLanahan, Rita Nason, Carole Nossek, Dorie Singer, Vivie von Walstrom, Alejandra Welch, and Pam Wright.

Happy summer wishes to all!

Photos below were taken by Linda Visscher at the Cloisters

Photography Laura Frommer, Chair

Our Photography Bench Show, "Beyond the Sea," was a success with fifteen entries in five classes. Members enjoyed the slide show and in-person display of photographs at our May membership meeting. Thank you to Ann Franzen for serving as our judge for both Bench shows this year. Ann Franzen is a GCA Judge and Zone II Chairman for Club Committees.  Jill Corr's photo of wildlife at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, Florida, was selected as Best in Show for our Bench Show.

Plans for a Garden Photography tour at Harkness Park this summer are in the works. The Photography Committee, led by outgoing Zone II Photography Representative Jill Corr, will be on hand to assist members with the process of framing and composition. We will learn photography techniques, including photographing wide-scale landscapes and close-ups. The time and date are TBA.

The latest GCA Focus magazine can be viewed here; it has many interesting articles, including topics such as Shooting the Milky Way and Infrared Photography.

Here's a link to the GCA Annual Meeting Photo Show. Congratulations to all who entered the show and those selected as finalists, including Jill Corr.  

Check out the June issue of the NEGC Photography Group newsletter here. Includes information on the NEGC Photography Group Photography Show, “Gather in the Garden,” to be on display at the fall NEGC Meeting on October 18-19, 2022, at the Event Center in Nashua, NH. Entries are due August 1st.

SGC members Laura Frommer and Jill Corr’s photos were featured on both the GCA website homepage and eNews. 

The Zone II Meeting and Flower Show were held June 14-15 in Hartford, CT at the historic Goodwin Hotel. Both Jill Corr and Laura Frommer received awards for their photographs:

• CLASS 4 ~ NATURE’S BOUNTY - Jill Corr, 1st, Stonington Garden Club (Zone II Rep Entry)
• CLASS 5 ~ PARKS AND REC - Laura Frommer, 1st, Stonington Garden Club 
• SPECIAL AWARDS: The Garden Club of Hartford Novice Award: Laura Frommer, Stonington Garden Club & The Garden Club of Hartford Creativity Award: Jill Corr, Zone II Rep Entrant

Southampton Garden Club Photo Contest

Two of Jill Corr’s photos recently won acclaim in the Southampton Garden Club (Zone III) photography contest, A Grecian Odyssey.

Class 1 - U.S. National Arboretum, National Capitol Columns originally sited in 1828, moved to the Arboretum in 1980’s by landscaper Russell Page. Win: Second Place

Class 3 - Buddhist Temple, Trang Thailand. Win: Third Place

COMO Children's Learning Garden Wanda Sullivan, Chair

The COMO Children's Learning Garden is looking fantastic!! After all the effort to get it ready for the Garden Tour, it's now flourishing with beautiful flowers and lots of veggies.

We still welcome any help with the garden - Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 8:30 - 10:30 am. Come for one hour or two!

Please email Wanda Sullivan at wsullivan15@comcast.net if you can volunteer or have any questions.

Garden History and Design Gail Hamsher, Chair

The year 2022 is the 150th birthday of our country’s first female landscape architect, Beatrix Farrand. Ms. Farrand studied at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston and was well known for her extensive work at Yale and Princeton, which is still fundamentally in place. Her exceptional courtyards throughout the Yale campus, for example, have been preserved through the various renovations of the campus infrastructure.

Most importantly, we have a perfectly maintained Farrand garden within our midst at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford. The east garden is entirely her design, and the west garden was a renovation. Eolia at Harkness State Park is well worth a visit. The gardens, maintained by The Friends of Harkness, are a delight. Have a pleasant summer. I enjoyed my time sharing with you all things garden history and design.

Photo by Richard Cheek from "Cottages & Gardens" website

Club Receives ARPA Grant!

The Stonington Garden Club applied for a Borough of Stonington COVID-19 Response Grant, and we were awarded $2,000. This money will be used to fund our club's community garden projects, education programs such as climate change (which was canceled during the pandemic), and other charitable contributions planned in the next fiscal year (2022-23). These ARPA funds were available to our organization because our major fundraising event (Gardens by the Sea) was negatively impacted by the pandemic. These funds were facilitated and coordinated by the Ocean Community Chamber of Commerce.

L to R: Shaun Mastroianni, Borough Burgess, Laura Metzger, Deb Dodds, and

Maria Allen, Chairman of the Ocean Community Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.

SGC Awards Two Scholarships Michelle Kutz, Chair

Our $1,000 scholarship award winners for 2022 are two deserving Stonington High School seniors:

Brendan Coan Environmental Studies Award

Brendan has an impressive 4.43 GPA and intends to study environmental policy and activism at Northeastern University in Boston. Brendan’s interest in what impacts the environment reaches back to childhood visits to his father’s workplace, where they found themselves discussing topics such as ‘Why are microplastics an issue?' and ‘Why do companies such as Coca-Cola continue to use plastic bottles despite these troubles?’ Brendan has a real passion for promoting sustainability in our community. He helped with a student government project last year involving the purchase of rainwater barrels for the school. His position was to coordinate how the project fit the 4C’s curriculum at the school. Brendan hopes one day to bring his gained knowledge from college back in Stonington to support best practices in environmentally friendly processes surrounding the local aquaculture and fishing industries. Brendan truly values and enjoys nature, taking time to bike the local trails and venture out on the water by boat. His father taught him the importance and need to protect our planet, and he plans to continue learning what more he can do.

William Sawin Environmental Awareness Award

William rises from a family deeply rooted in working toward earth sustainability. He will attend Middlebury College in Vermont, and as William notes, it is "home of the oldest undergraduate environmental studies program in the US.” William is planning his environmental studies with a focus on the area of social science but has yet to decide whether policy or economics. He is fortunate to enjoy the influence of his aunt, Beth Sawin, a climate scientist who works with a sustainability and solutions think tank at Multisolving Institute. He also benefits from his grandparents' continued commitment to leaving a small footprint by living simply and sustainably off their land. Also, his grandfather has long kept records of flower bloom dates, observing in current times how some varieties of tomato plants struggle when before they thrived, and other natural phenomena like flash floods that once were rare and are now too common. William is shown daily by his family the importance of protecting our world when playing soccer, surfing, and generally enjoying the outdoors. This school year, William shadowed the land steward at Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. This experience further deepened his foundation in the environmental sciences and secured his interest in support of ecological balance. In fact, William intends to participate in Middlebury’s Green Panthers athletic program and become a Green Liaison athlete, promoting sustainability wherever they go, with team, coach, and fan support. William hopes to bring back and implement a program like this at Stonington High School one day.

Photos include Deb Dodds, scholarship winner, Michelle Kutz, and Elisa Whitman

SGC Receives Hero Award from Stonington Historical Society

As you know, the Stonington Historical Society (SHS) recently chose the Stonington Garden Club and our member Joyce Pandolfi to receive their 2022 Hero Awards! Each year, the SHS Board of Directors awards the Hero Award to individuals and organizations that exhibit extraordinary dedication and service of distinction in furthering the mission of the Stonington Historical Society. The club has a long history of supporting and collaborating with the Historical Society on various projects and fundraisers, most recently including the Lighthouse Garden and Deck the Walls. Joyce was recognized for her many years of dedication to the Historical Society in a variety of roles. The Hero Awards were presented at the SHS Cannon Ball on June 25th. 

SGC Marches in the Boro July 4th Parade!

In honor of the parade's Grand Marshall, our own Candy Sanford, an enthusiastic contingent of club members marched in the Boro July 4th Parade with shovels, rakes, and other gardening implements. We also marched in recognition of our Hero Award. SGC Member and the other 2022 Hero Awardee, Joyce Pandolfi, marched with the Historical Society. A grand celebration of our community and country!

Grand Marshall Candy Sanford!

Lois Cole and Kirby Williams getting ready to march.

Joyce Pandolfi marched with the Historical Society

Membership Update Kirby Williams, Chair

Current Membership (as of 7-1-22)

Actives           54

Friends           26

New Members      7

Secondary Members  3

Lifetime Members   2

Honorary Members    1

    TOTAL        93

Lighthouse Garden & Post Office Garden

Upcoming Tours, Conferences & Webinars of Interest

• Doug Tallamy to Speak at Guilford High School Performing Arts Center on Sept. 12, 7 p.m., presented by Guilford Land Conservation Trust. For more info and to register, click here. 
• Environmental School Course 1, “The Living Earth” - September 22 & 23, 2022 - virtually, via Zoom. More info will be posted on the FGCCT website soon.

This newsletter is a publication of the Stonington Garden Club, Inc., Dodie Bump, Editor

Cover photo by Dodie Bump

Stonington Garden Club is a proud member of The Garden Clubs of America,

The Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut, Inc., and National Garden Clubs, Inc.