May 2022 Newsletter

Greetings from President Deb

Programs Carole Barnard, Chair

Our May Membership Meeting will be held at the La Grua Center on May 11 at 10:30 am (NOTE NEW TIME), followed by a luncheon.

As Deb mentioned, the meeting will include a Photography Bench Show followed by a demonstration of flower arranging by Mary Lynn McRee. She will share tips and tricks to turn a bouquet of supermarket flowers into a creative design. 

Many thanks in advance to those members bringing food and beverages for our luncheon!

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Horticulture Pam Wright, Chair

Plant a Tree!

 NGC President, Mary Warshauer, is collecting trees! She has asked us to record the trees we are planting for the Plant a Tree initiative.

Please call or email Pam Wright your tree name, Latin and common, and where and when it was planted. All trees count, but natives are preferred. We have until May 2023 to submit our count! For more information, click here.

COMO Children’s Learning Garden

Thank you to all the members who helped clean up the Children’s Garden, including the Pollinator Garden, on April 21. We will continue to assess and add plants where needed so that we will have a spectacular showing for the June tour.

Habitat Restoration Project

Monarch Watch offers free milkweed for large restoration projects. Pam's application was accepted, and the milkweed is on the way! Free milkweeds are for large-scale (two acres or more) native habitat restoration only. Habitat restoration is defined as the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats. Gardens or landscaped areas do not qualify as restoration and are not included in this grant. The portion of the property where milkweed will be planted must meet the minimum acreage requirement. Roadsides and trails are acceptable areas. For more info, click here.

Reminders:

• April 29-May 1 - Fine Art & Flowers at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. Arrangements created by florists, garden clubs, and interior designers are showcased throughout the museum beside the artworks that inspired them. 
• May 25-26 Middletown Garden Club (Zone II) Flower Show, “The Enduring Inspiration of Trees,” at the Wadsworth Mansion at Long Hill Estate in Middletown, CT. Click here for more information.

Floral Design Mary Lynn McRee & Kirby Williams, Co-Chairs

Have Fun with Flowers!!!

As mentioned above, our membership meeting on May 11 will include a floral design demonstration by Mary Lynn McRee.

NOTE: It’s not too soon to start collecting vases and planting flower seeds for the SGC Floral Sales booth at the COMO fair on August 6, 2022! Bring them to Kirby Williams' barn, Susan Alston-Millette's home in Pawcatuck, or contact Susan to arrange for pick-up.

Visiting Gardens Linda Visscher, Chair

With spring at our doorstep, spending time in our gardens and being outside after cold winter months is very welcomed. One feels reassured by the change of seasons, actually, one can feel positively euphoric! For me, Visiting Gardens’ activities have always been more than the actual visiting of gardens. Please understand, I love the wonder of seeing other gardens, being inspired by those past and present who created them. But I have also been intrigued with how we carry the idea of gardens with us throughout the year. In many ways, it is that other manifestation of gardening that sustains us when the ground is frozen, the days seem forever dark, or when we are simply in need of inspiration. How does that love of plants, gardening, and landscape live within us and others regardless of the season? 

People have always used the natural and cultivated world to express themselves through their art, crafts, and writing. We bring the outside inside, making it timeless. Time travel can even seem possible as we look at art made by others and find greater insight into the past. The exhibition New London County Quilts & Bedcovers, 1750-1825 at the Florence Griswold Museum provided such a window. 

The exhibition presented quilted petticoats, embroidered bed rugs and valances, and appliquéd and whiteworked quilts created by women in New London county during the time it was still a colony through to independence. Imagine the process of designing, planning, and executing the intricate patterns for these functional household items. While other motifs were used, it is the stylized floral images that are most prevalent. I must wonder how lovely it would have been to be surrounded by one’s floral bed hangings in the middle of winter, warmed under the gardens found on bed rugs, or cushioned by hidden petticoats with intricate floral and animal patterns. Their gardens - their idea of gardens - certainly lived with them and inside their homes throughout the year. And, their welcoming of spring certainly is echoed in our own. 

Martha Wheeler Williams (Stonington) Crewel-embroidered Bed Valances (detail). Ca 1740-50. (Mystic Seaport Museum)

Phebe Denison Billings (Stonington): Bed Rug, 1742. (Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy)

Bridget Bradford (Montville): Bed Cover (detail), 1805. (Hunterdon County Historical Society, New Jersey)

Photography Laura Frommer, Chair

Our Photography Bench Show, “Beyond the Sea” will be held at the May 11 membership meeting. We have fifteen entries in five classes from our members. There will be a slide show presentation with the judge’s comments and awards as well as an in-person display of the photographs. This year’s judge, Ann Franzen, is a GCA Photography Judge and Zone Chairman for Club Committees (Zone II), and she will join us to answer any questions. Ann has been a member of the Fairfield Garden Club for over 25 years.  

If you are bringing a print of your photograph for the bench show, please come about a half hour early (10:00 am) so I can put your photo(s) in a white mat for display. If your photo is not 8 by 10, please let me know the size before the membership meeting by emailing me at lefrommer@gmail.com. The mats are sized for 8 by 10 photos. 

Photo "Footprints on a Sandy Beach" by Laura Frommer

For members interested in submitting a photograph to the Southampton Flower Show on June 23, please click here.

The Westerly Land Trust is running a photo contest with photos due by October 1, 2022. All photos will be considered for their calendar. See the image for more info.

The New England Garden Clubs’ Photography Group publishes an excellent newsletter - the latest issue (Spring 2022) includes information on a Photography Show at the fall NEGC Meeting, October 18-19, 2022, in Nashua, NH, and a great article by our own Jill Corr! Check it out here.

The videos from the GCA Photography Conference in March are now available on the GCA website. Click here for all the links.

Plans are in the works for a Garden Photography tour at Harkness Park this summer (date TBA). The Photography Committee, led by 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 landscapes and close-ups.

COMO Children's Learning Garden Wanda Sullivan, Chair

Please stop by the COMO Children’s Learning Garden soon to see the 400 beautiful and cheerful tulip plants that have bloomed! They will all be dug up this coming Friday (May 6) at 10:30 am, so don’t wait too long!

A special shout out to Annette Bienkowski from Cove Ledge Beer, Wine & Spirits, for arranging the donation by owner Todd Drevos of four raised beds from her new location on Water Street in the Borough. They will be used primarily for growing flowers.

Photo by Annette Born

We would also like to welcome you to join us for Planting Day on May 10 from 9:30 - 11:00, with a rain date on May 12. We only have five volunteers right now, and we need at least ten, so each child will have a one-on-one experience. 

We will welcome four groups of ten children to plant seeds that Deb germinated over the winter months. Each group will have a 20-minute window for planting. Join us for all four sessions or any that you can fit into your schedule. Please let Wanda know (wsullivan15@comcast.net) which times you can volunteer to help the children plant the vegetables and flowers:

9:30-9:50: Group 1

9:50-10:10: Group 2

10:10-10:30: Group 3

10:30-10:50: Group 4

Photo by Deb Dodds

Other CG News

We are very excited to have Vilma Gregoropoulos from Terra Firma work with us in the Children’s Garden on Monday mornings from 8:30 to 9:30 am. She is willing to demonstrate best practices for vegetable and flower planting and cultivation, so this will be a great opportunity to learn from an expert.

Kay Graham, who is pursuing a Master Gardener’s degree, will also be volunteering on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9:00 to 11:00 am. Please let me know if you are available to volunteer on the same days to learn from her expertise. 

We are meeting every Thursday from 2:00 - 4:00 PM until we complete spring clean up and ensure that the Children’s Garden is ready for the Gardens by the Sea Tour, so please bring a rake, clippers, trowel, etc. and join us. Your participation is greatly appreciated, and the garden is beginning to look great; so many thanks!

Please email Wanda Sullivan at wsullivan15@comcast.net if you can volunteer. 

Garden History and Design Gail Hamsher, Chair

April 26 was the date of Frederic Law Olmsted’s 200th birthday. Many celebration activities were conducted in the parks he created throughout the country.

The purpose of this newsletter message is to wrap up our focus on Olmsted’s six principles of design that governed the creation of his many public spaces. I hope you will have an opportunity to visit one of these parks keeping in mind his six principles of design: the genius of space, unified composition, orchestration of movement, orchestration of use, sustainable design and conservation of nature, and finally, the importance of connecting the parks to the surrounding areas. As one experiences these public spaces, I hope you will be able to actually determine the application of these principles in the (his) overall design.

Photo from the Olmsted 200 website

Conservation Lisa Szaro, Chair

On April 22, Lisa Szaro and Laura Metzger cleaned up the Rain Garden at Wayland’s Wharf. Even after 12 floods this past year, the garden is in remarkable health and will continue to help keep pollutants from reaching the harbor.                                                Photos by Lisa & Laura

Membership Update Kirby Williams, Chair

Thank you for voting on our three prospective members, Mary Boyer, Terri Brennan, and Alexa Pearson. I am pleased to announce that all have been approved and will join us in May as our latest “new members.” Please click here for brief biographies and contact information to add to your club book.

Current Membership (as of 5-1-22)

Actives                       56

Friends                       25

New Members              7

Secondary Members     2

Lifetime Members         2

Honorary Members       1

    TOTAL                  93

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS TODAY!

TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY!

Note: Every SGC member has already purchased a tour ticket, but other tickets are available (Preview Party, Celebrity Speaker).

Check out this video about the Tour that Jill created! Just click on the image.

And did you see these articles about the Tour?

• Gardens by the Sea: Tour, Marketplace, Artists, and More! - SBMA Blog May 2022
• Gardens by the Sea Blossom Anew (starting at pg. 44) – The Day Sunday Magazine May 2022

Lighthouse Garden Michelle Kutz, Chair

Four hardy souls began work at the Lighthouse Garden on a chilly yet beautiful late April day! 

Stonington Point is an especially wonderful spot to enjoy some early morning garden fun. Weekly, participants carry on lively conversations amongst themselves and with the friendly folks who pass by on their morning walks. We are guided by a professional gardener Vilma Gregoropoulos, and several master gardener members are often in attendance along with other accomplished gardeners and members learning a new skill or two. Truly this garden is for everyone!

If you are interested in learning about anything gardening, and specifically the weekly care needed to keep a garden in tip top shape, please join us every Tuesday, 8:00-9:00 am! Bring your questions and your clippers. We work and learn so much in just an hour each week. This work is light, no heavy lifting. You will be encouraged and invigorated to address your home garden.

Please contact Michelle at michellekut@me.com to be put on the weekly reminder list and also to receive notifications if we must skip a week due to weather.

Hot off the Press!!!

Annette Born was recently pleasantly surprised to learn that one of her photos was on the cover of What to do in Pelican Bay in Mid April 2022!

Upcoming Tours, Conferences & Webinars of Interest (not mentioned above)

• North Stonington Garden Club’s Annual Plant Sale - The North Stonington Garden Club will hold its traditional annual plant sale from 9:00 am to Noon on Saturday, May 7, at Wheeler Elementary School. For more details, click here.
• Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill - Thursday, May 19 - The annual Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill celebrates a long tradition of urban gardening. Since its first garden tour in 1928, when the club was founded, members have opened their gardens on the third Thursday of May. To buy tickets, click here.
• Sakonnet Gardens Open Garden Tour - Sunday, June 5 - To benefit the Little Compton Garden Club’s community projects, sponsorship of “Open to the Public” programs, scholarships, and gifts to local charities. Click here for more information. 
• Newport Flower Show - June 17-19. Tickets are still available! Click here to order today.

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

Cover photo of a Tulip in the COMO Children's Learning Garden 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.