I'm not a garden club member in my town, and honestly don't think I would ever join one. I think we have one, but I've never felt an urge to find out anything about it, not out of snobbishness, but only because I'm just not much of a joiner. It took me quite a while even to post for the first time here on Gardenweb, I think I was a member/lurker for at least a year before I posted.

I do enjoy the company of gardener friends in small, one-on-one doses (actually, it's usually two-on-one, are you listening, FGirl?) maybe four or five times a year. The once or twice a year swaps fulfill all my need for interaction with other gardeners. I guess my gardening is really a mostly solitary pursuit, and I like it that way. Maybe I'd learn more from joining a garden club, but my own stubbornness and need to "do it myself in order to learn" would get in the way.

Hehe, I consider myself riffraff too, and I'm staying that way. Was it Groucho Marx who said I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member?

There is a garden club in my town. I went to one meeting - not to join/investigate - but to discuss getting them involved in the beautification of our downtown LONGTERM.

Boy was I disappointed. Instead of enthusiasm for being recognized and asked to participate, they whined and complained up a blue streak.

I've gone to their plant sale twice - and was disappointed at the lack of variety, organization and knowledge they presented.

They do a "hidden gardens" tour in our town each summer to raise money. I don't want to pay $15 to see someone's backyard all full of annuals (put in so that it looks pretty).

Now - that said - I'm told that there HAS been a change and that the club is so stagnant that they're looking for new members with new ideas. Sounds right up my alley! I'm far from shy about sharing ideas LOL.

So actually, I AM considering attending their next meeting and maybe even joining!

I'm glad you asked this question, Runktrun. It brings up an important issue. The world of the snobbish garden club pretty much died with white gloves and hats. Yet the prejudice lives on...and on...and on. With a very few exceptions, it just is not so.

I speak from personal knowledge as I have been a member of one club and then another for, um, a very long time. The vast majority of clubs are indeed eager for new members. When I wanted to join my current club, I just called a member I barely knew and asked her to sponsor me, which she did. And she got a second sponsor for me.

Since then, the sponsoring thing has been eliminated. Ironically, the reason it existed in the first place was to make sure people joining really gardened and weren't joining for social reasons.

Did you know that National Garden Clubs is the largest garden organization in the country? Did you know there are over 30,000 garden club members in Massachusetts alone?

Have you driven along the interstate and noticed the lack of billboards? That was an early achievement of garden clubs. Town buildings, parks, libraries and streets are planted and maintained by garden clubs. Garden club members teach gardening to children in elementary school and organize hands-on plant and flower projects with the elderly in nursing homes.

We run recycling awareness projects and were pioneers in the green movement. We clean up rivers and streams and attend town meetings to advocate for these issues. The conservation of native plants was one of the first--and continues to be--one of the most important contributions of garden clubs to our cities and towns across the country.

There is flower arranging for those who enjoy that (I don't) and horticulture and landscape design classes and activities for those so inclined (that's me!)

That's only the tip of the iceberg, if you have even had the patience to read this far. Try out your local club, at least for three meetings. If it's not what you want, there's always another in town or in the next town. Just promise me one thing--delete "snobbish" from your idea of garden clubs.

Our local garden club has meetings (during the day, when I'm at work) which are written up in the Falmouth Enterprise. The meeting reports, apparently sent in by the club secretary, seem to be all about the food and the centerpieces, with occasional nods to different gardens - club awards to members. Nothing especially interesting goes on, as far as I can tell from these reports.

We also have a local "civic beautification council" that, despite the grandiose name, is actually all about gardening. They organize volunteers who go out to the beautiful library lawn (it's an expansive open space in the center of Main Street, and has some choice trees, and is an oasis in our busy town) and plant donut rings of annuals around all the trees. Sometimes they adopt a neglected public space, and plant invasive barberry and other undesirables (to be truthful, they also sometimes do a nice job, and sometimes they use interesting plants). They have plant sales that feature annuals donated by nurseries and some awful things that people dig up - it's like a flattened out mirror image of a GW plant swap! I honestly do try to shop at these sales, but usually come home empty handed, which is quite an unusual thing for me.

I'd actually consider joining that group, just to get them to stop with the donut rings, but I'm just too darn busy.

What does interest me is a 'looser' group of people from different towns who get together for garden outings. No regularly scheduled meetings, no reports in the newspaper, and no donut rings. To some extent, I've found that group, right here on GW-NE.

You hit a raw nerve with this one, kt!

When I lived in New York all those years, the idea of joining a garden club seemed obsure, at best. . .I had
visions of Upper East Side ladies with their perfectly
white-gloved hands, meeting over tea to "worry" over the
tulip plantings on Park Avenue each Spring. . .an absurd
exaggeration, I came to learn, but with the wealth of
superb public gardens there - N.Y.Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, Wave Hill, Central Park Conservancy, et al - joining a garden club just seemed so,
well, unnecessary. . .

Now, I'm located in a small town in New Jersey, and they
had a garden club. . .but after attending those first two annual Garden Tours, and seeing what they were touting as "gardens", it came as no surprise that this
erstwhile garden club collapsed. A few years later, at the
urging of a town official who knew I was a gardener, I joined a group whose sole resposibility was to plant and
maintain eleven (11) simple signpost plantings at each of the various entry points to our town. . .disaster again.
These "interested gardeners" would meet once a month, with
minutes read, a treasurer's report, a rigid agenda of new/old business, etc. . .it was an absolute farce - they were really only there to gossip and chat about anything and everything NON-garden! There's an interesting development to this particular story, but since it's not germaine to your basic point, I'll leave it for now. . .but the point
is, here was a group charged with "gardening" and they
didn't know an annual from a perennial, compost was an alien concept, weeding and mulching were things you hired other people to do.

I also tried hooking up with the NJ Gardening Forum on GW
but that turned out to be unbelievably sterile ground. . .
it was when I went to click on their forum one day last year, that I accidentally clicked on NE Gardening right above it and discovered the whole lot of YOU - an eclectic
passel of actual gardeners, and I've been happily contributing here ever since. (Since I'm a Yankee-in-Exile,
born and raised in Massachusetts, I was told I could hang out with you kids. . .)

Finally, right after moving here, I joined the Pennsylvania
Horticultural Society (primarily because membership
includes 2 tickets to their annual Flower Show, a life-long
addiction of mine!) ,but what an extraordinary collection
of fascinating people THAT revealed - gardening culture in
the Philadelphia region is truly in their blood! - but since it's 60 miles away, being deeply involved is problematic.

So, I guess my long-winded answer to your question about
garden clubs is: sure, some of them might be great, but like most things, each of them is only as good as it's
collective members - AND, their reason for having a garden
club in the first place! My ultimate solution, quite
serendipitous, was finding a local gardener (feeling equally cut off from other gardeners) with whom I share a
lot of time in our own gardens, visiting other gardens
(here a plug for the Garden Conservancy's Open Days program), and sharing a steady stream of books and magazines on our mutually favorite subject. This, to me,
has been the ideal solution, and I fervently hope that
every gardener out there is lucky enough to find one or
two other soul mates - gardening alone is a fevered and
wondrous passion, but being able to SHARE a garden is
simply nirvana. . .

Carl

KT, you are very aware that your little ecosystem is unusual. Just remember, no matter how fancy the hats, how white the gloves, how upscale the pedigree or how famous; the population of your area is completely dependent on what you call 'rift raft'. They just don't want to admit it. Trades people are at the top of the heap. Absolute panic sets in when the bluefish are running and the rift raft are unavailable to do repairs, mow lawns and serve the population. Don't put yourself down.

Join the garden club. There are some fabulous gardeners there. Always has been. Such as the well known Polly Hill, Nelson Coon, the Eldridge sisters, all now gone. Is Trudy Taylor a member? She loves to talk gardening by the hour.

I also have an independant streak, but I figured that I might as well beautify my community so I attempted to join the club. I went to their annual plant sale and approached the information booth inquiring about membership. Although membership is "open," I was told they probably have only one or 2 spaces available. It seemed like a weird comment, but I gave my information and requested they contact me.

2-3 months later, I received a letter in the mail inviting me to apply. The letter requested I fill out a questionnare...and what was line #3....HUSBANDS NAME?

Needless to say, I opted out of applying. In this day and age, sexism is alive and well. Couldnt they have asked SPOUSES NAME? The snotty tone of the letter, the rigid rules, and the fact that I would be the only male member were enough to discourage me.

Unfortunately, a bunch of white gloved grandmas are not going to have my strong back to help move plants about.

Fortunately, I have decided that I will have to start a group of guerrilla gardeners here in central mass to beautify my community.

Sunshineboy

"I dont care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". Groucho Marx

I have never joined a garden club but I have admired them from afar. One garden club that seems really nice is in a small town where I don't live. Most years, I attend their plant sale. That is where I get to see some of the neat things they do.

Their plant sale goes pretty fast, with most plants selling in the first half-hour. I missed out on the unusual night blooming cactus one year because I had no idea what it was. I did buy a bunch of their hypertrufa pots they made though!

Apparently the club got together, rented a cement mixer and everyone went to town making those great pots. They made some extra and sold them. I said to my boyfriend at the time, "I can't believe those ladies ran the cement mixer." He insisted that they served Margaritas so their boyfriends would do it. Lol.

One lady online said that her gardening club gets to try out new plants for free, or discount amounts. In the hellebore community they mentioned in one post how they purchased a lot of starts for $1 each!

Other clubs take field trips to botanical gardens and places with a lot of plant interest. Most clubs take an interest in native species, which is something I would like to learn about more. Often some members with have beautiful gardens and the meeting will include a tour. I always love to tour!

I am so busy, I could rarely make a meeting. But I am ready to retire and join (in a few decades). I suppose some of the clubs are wonderful and others do not have the organization. The people who know how to organize all these great things make all the difference. Until I have the time, my garden club is here, online.

:)

Ginny, sounds like you've got a great club in your town! Mine is more like Nan's:

"...Our local garden club has meetings (during the day, when I'm at work) which are written up in the Falmouth Enterprise. The meeting reports, apparently sent in by the club secretary, seem to be all about the food and the centerpieces, with occasional nods to different gardens - club awards to members. Nothing especially interesting goes on, as far as I can tell from these reports..."

My local membership consists of primarily older women - not that there is anything wrong with that, but I think they are quite set in their ways, and while they do do some community projects - plantings (mostly annuals) outside public buildings, plant sales, etc. - it does not seem that they have done any major projects or community-related things around town.

I did a winter-sowing seminar for them once, and they were a nice bunch of ladies. I won't say that I felt like I didn't fit in, because quite frankly, it was like hanging out with my numerous great aunts, so it was comfortable and familiar and enjoyable on a certain level. But could I make time in my busy schedule to "hang out" with these ladies as they judged flower arrangements or made wreaths? I have too much to do to join a garden club for that reason.

I will say this - it's very possible many garden clubs are made up of older people because they are not convenient for younger ones. The new director of my local club told me they were trying to recruit new, younger members. But the club continues to have their meetings mid-mornings and mid-week, and they don't seem to take into consideration that people have jobs, kids, busy schedules. And most importantly, IMO, they don't seem to get the idea that the busy people who DO want to join, want to join in order to DO SOMETHING - not sit around and talk. If we are going to try to fit them into our busy lives, we want to make it worthwhile.

So, perhaps it's a catch-22. Perhaps if some of us younger, community-oriented, action/project-oriented folks would indeed join, the clubs would change. Whose to say that these "ladies with the white gloves" wouldn't love to throw down their gloves and get their hands dirty? Maybe they just need the motivation. You know, a kick in the pants, lol.

So, after my little sermon, will I join my club? LOL, probably not! But that's because I work 3 jobs and have 2 kids and just don't have the time right now. In a year or two, when my kids don't need me so much, I just might join.

:)
Dee

P.S. Carl, you've got me interested in the outcome of that "develoment"... ;)

I've been a member of my local club for a year or so. It's a very old organization and the main club, which does seem like virtually all women, meets mid-day on a weekday. I've never been to one of the daytime meetings but I suspect that many members are fairly old school; the list of past presidents tends to run to the "Mrs. Horace Smith" variety, for instance. BUT, they started an evening meeting which working people can actually get to! It's small and fairly informal, and has interesting topics or activities. We've learned about native plants, invasive plants, garden design. We've gone on tours of members' gardens. The overall club sponsors community plantings, runs plant swaps, tries to clear invasive plants from public areas, and this year is doing a fall weekend garden tour. I'm not aware that they've ever required sponsors, and certainly seem very welcoming. I also went to a public talk by Leo Blanchette sponsored by another town garden club, and they were likewise very friendly and welcoming. There was a pretty wide variety of ages in the room, and a number of men as well. I'd certainly take ginny12's post seriously and look into your local club. You may be pleasantly surprised. Another bonus, your membership will probably give you discounts at local nurseries.

Thank you all for your varied,interesting,and humorous thoughts about garden clubs. Yesterday while trying to escape from the stress of attempting to salvage whats left of our retirement from AIG I went off to my local garden club meeting as a guest. Frankly I had a whopper of a headache and did not enter the building with a sunny disposition but was relieved to discover a room full of fifty or so gardeners who refrained from following Roberts Rules of Order and dove right into announcing up coming happenings such as getting the green house cleaned up and ready for the winter season, interested people needed for a morning of invasive plant removal at a local beach, and looking for people interested in participating in Bostons Art In Bloom project. Immediately afterwards a local orchid grower spoke about orchids here and in New Zealand, although I have never grown nor do I ever intend to grow orchids the lecture was very interesting. My first impression has left me open to becoming involved. Thanks kt

Too funny.
Today I saw a flyer from our local garden club (that, in and of itself, is a first!).

Second, it was to advertise a FREE event (!) - on a Saturday (!) - for children (!!!)
They're hosting a walk and then the making of fairy houses.

I'm impressed with the fact that they're doing something other than a garden tour or plant sale. Well sure, they'll hold a fall plant sale with the fairy house workshop but that's a SMART move.

I think that we'll go and check out the Garden Club. Who knows, maybe I'll post that I've joined!