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 What's the Scoop?
We want to hear the "Scoop" from you about your club's happenings, special projects and activities. Other clubs might like to know what you're doing, too.This is the perfect spot to share your knowledge and ideas! Be included on this page of our website.
Send your news and photos to our Website Director.
NGC Wants CONNECTICUT on Flickr!
Share your garden club pictures with the world. Send pictures of your Blue Star Memorial plantings and dedications; your flower shows; your daffodil plantings; your civic beautification projects; your aquatic eco-systems projects; your Plantings for Public & Special Places projects; your glorious hydrangeas (President Shirley’s favorite flower); your Arbor Day plantings; the list is long. Be sure to identify the club or district and the location.
We’d like a monthly feature of a garden club’s project – so send a series of 6-10 pictures of your club’s project.
Mostly we want Connecticut represented. Send pictures to Robin Pokorski at RobinP@juno.com. Then visit the site (www.Flickr.com/NationalGardenClubs) and find pictures for your newsletters and flyers and ideas for projects and plantings and staging and, and, and – it’s all there for you! |
Can't find a previous submission from your club? The Local Scoop has become so popular, we've had to archive earlier submissions — find them here.
 Honoring Our Past
Preserving History in New Hartford
Volunteers from The New Hartford Garden Club are assisting in the upkeep and restoration of the Old Nepaug Cemetery. November brought a hearty garden club work crew to the Old Nepaug Cemetery for the planting of 200 daffodil bulbs in a third year of effort to brighten the little cemetery on Route 202. Outside their customary town projects, members rallied around member Linda Dryansky when she became involved with maintaining the Old Nepaug Cemetery and quickly realized it was a far more extensive project than initially anticipated. The list of necessities grew overwhelming as mowing, weed control, bulb planting, repairs and preservation of the stones, etc. were initiated by the intrepid but diminutive crew.
The town's past can be viewed carved in each stone, and history deeply marks the hallowed ground. The Old Nepaug cemetery holds 161 interments... and while most of the graves are from the 1800's, the oldest stone is the grave of Shubael Crow (a Veteran Revolutionary War Pensioner) marking his death in 1798. Obelisks, carved stone, gravestones, markers and sculptures requiring repair, cleaning and straightening await the spring when volunteers will have at it once more.
Plans are to organize a separate and dedicated non-profit to manage the care and restoration of the cemetery as well as chronicle the compelling history represented by each headstone. If you have been seeking a rewarding way to contribute to a community project and would like to help, please contact Linda at lindadryansky@sbcglobal.net. Our winter wish list is: a non-profit guru who can shepherd volunteers through the process of setting up the organization, a marketer who can create and discharge press releases as needed, a grant writer, a biography buff/historian to search out and record the family histories from the stones, and volunteers to bring energy and ideas. Donations are welcome, and will be used for cemetery repair and upkeep. For more information, readers may contact Linda Dryansky at 860.738.4538 or lindadryansky@yahoo.com.
Holiday Wrap-up
Southbury Garden Club Trims Trees With Lutheran Home Residents
(Pictured below: Southbury Garden Club member, Ingrid Ferenczy, and Lutheran Home resident, Mary Kinzly, pause to admire the live boxwood tree they decorated for use as a holiday centerpiece in the dining room.)
 The Southbury Garden Club held a boxwood design workshop where members created beautiful miniature boxwood trees to decorate their homes during the holiday season. In addition they assembled 15 extra trees to donate to the Lutheran Home in Southbury.
A dozen garden club members brought the trees and ornaments to the Lutheran Home, where they spent the afternoon helping residents deck the trees. The long lasting live trees were used as centerpieces in the dining room during the holiday season. Both club members and residents look forward to this annual activity and the chance to share friendships and memories of past holiday seasons.
The program is part of the club's ongoing civic outreach garden therapy program. In the spring, members fill baskets with a live plant and assorted small toiletries for the residents at Safe Haven, the organization which provides emergency refuge for women attempting to leave abusive relationships.
The club also presents annual awards to local businesses that have used landscaping to make Southbury an attractive place to live and shop. Members also maintain community gardens at several town parks and decorate the town buildings with greenery during the holiday season.
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Country Gardeners of Glastonbury's Focus: Giving
 Country Gardeners of Glastonbury GardenClub focused on giving in December, first by decorating the front entrance of the Wells-Turner Memorial Library with a wreath made from more than five types of evergreens. The club also donated toys, clothes and gift cards to the Toy Shop, organized by the town's department of Social Services.
(Pictured at left: Janine Fielder (l.), Social Work Coordinator, accepts a donation from Donna Nowak (center) and Trish Manfredi on behalf of the club.
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Cheshire Garden Club Sponsors Annual Community Event
 For the past 57 years, Cheshire Garden Club has sponsored a Holiday Door Decorating Contest. Residents can enter one of six categories: Holiday Door, Entire Front, Youth Motif, Vintage Home, Garden Club Member, and Public Building. The Cheshire Herald devotes an entire page to six captioned photos featuring the winner in each category.
At left, Cheshire Garden Club member Inge Venus, chairman of the event, congratulating Suburban Garden Club member Jessica Fischer as the winner of the Garden Club Member category. |
Young Gardeners
"Tweens" Create Free Floral Holiday Centerpieces
 In the fall, area school children, ages nine through twelve, attended a free holiday floral design workshop, co-sponsored by the Southbury Garden Club and the Southbury Public Library.
Each participant was given a container and a wide assortment of fresh autumn flowers and greenery. Despite the fact that all the participants used the same supplies, each child created a unique centerpiece for their holiday table.
Experienced designers from the Southbury Garden Club were on hand to assist and offer advice. The library and garden club co-sponsor several free activities throughout the year.
Attendees were: Nathan Gibson, Dylan Kim, Keith Hornack, Ryan Monde and Julia Kossakowski, all of Southbury. Courtney Gibson, Erica Royle, Victoria Lannone and Katelynn Brody, all sixth graders at Long River Elementary School in Prospect, used the workshop to fulfill some of the requirements for a Girl Scout merit badge.
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 New Hartford Garden Club Is Coming Up SPROUTS!
New Hartford Garden Club’s first SPROUTS program on January 22 was a great success…and great fun! Even a last minute reschedule because of snow couldn’t stop eager SPROUTS, children under the age of 12, from attending at the South End Fire House in New Hartford. The educational, fun, family-oriented “SPROUTS” gatherings are designed for parent and child to enjoy together as they explore kid-oriented garden and nature activities.
“Bird Stories and Bird Feeding” was quite the success for 12 children ranging in age from 5 months to 9 years, and for their grandparents, mothers and fathers who gathered to learn about birds and bird feeding. A bird-themed storytime started the event as Trish Brett, a gifted storyteller, read the classic tales, The Best Nest by P. D. Eastman and The Ugly Duckling. Trish guided a lively conversation about the kinds of homes birds like best and the unlikely friendship of a ducking and a kookaburra.
 After the stories, the children were eager to dig in and get messy, and with much adult encourage-ment…they did. Pinecones coated with peanut butter gave everyone the chance to perfect their “gyrate in birdseed” technique. Bagels were a big hit, prepared with one side coated with peanut butter. The SPROUTS dug their hands in pans filled with birdseed, making each bagel a bird feeding work of art. To feed their bird friends, all went home with several pinecones and bagels to hang on trees or shrubs in their yard.
As the bird feeding project finished up, everyone participated in celebrating a great afternoon by sharing the first SPROUTS cake and other great tasting treats. Both adults and children left feeling eager to attend the next Sprouts program. Linda Lindell, a garden club member and grandmother, had quickly signed up her two granddaughters saying, “I can’t think of a better way to enjoy my grandchildren and give them a gift of knowledge at the same time.” Abby, 3, and Ava, 6, were eager to start.
Future SPROUT programs will be designed to interest children with no garden experience as well as the “dirt worthy” young SPROUT already familiar with gardening. SPROUT programs are free to children under 12, but a materials fee of $5. may be requested when necessary. Allergy warning: As you see, some programs will entail using peanut butter and bird seeds which may contain nuts. If you would like to be included on the New Hartford Garden Club’s SPROUTS email list, contact us at: NewHartfordGar-denClub@gmail.com For information, contact Tricia Brett “SPROUT Coordinator, 860-379-7944 pbrett450@gmail.com * Mary Femniak, 860-379-3321
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 First Graders Adopt a Tree: Year One
(Long Hill Garden Club)
In Trumbull, first grade children currently adopt a tree and journal its seasonal growth. A proposal to plant a class tree on each of the elementary school campuses yearly was presented to the curriculum director and the science coordinator of the Trumbull Public Schools. Each principal chose a tree from a list prepared by the Conservation Committee. Care was taken to choose an appropriate site, avoid flowering trees which attract bees, and nut trees to which children might be allergic.
A short ceremony took place at each school where members led children in a pledge to care for their tree, reading a poem about trees, and singing a song. High school students volunteered to water trees to earn credits for high school graduation. In one year we've touched the minds and hearts of 450 children. |
Civic Contributions
West Hartford Club Honored
 Connecticut Landmarks hosted an appreciation luncheon for the West Hartford Garden Club at the Butler-McCook House & Garden on Main Street in Hartford. The Garden Club has maintained this historic garden for the past 14 years. The garden was originally designed by Jacob Weidenmann (designer of Bushnell Park and Cedar Hill Cemetery) in 1865 and is open to the public. From left, Madeleine Hexter, Judy Joly, Effie Economou, Sheryl Hack (Executive Director of CT Landmarks), Sylvia Wenger, Paige Falasco, Ann Painter, Shirley DeLong, Margaret Pulito, Martha Kenner, Paula Mooney, Judy Nellen, Ellen Clarke (President, Garden Club), Sandra Peterson and Steve Kovack
Click here for archived news and photos from FGCCT Clubs!
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