As our Indian Summer and beautiful autumn foliage wane, the Granite Center Garden Club is already planning how to make the 2014 season in the greater Barre area even more spectacular.
Most of us are treated to the beautiful flower beds along the roadways of downtown Barre City but never knew exactly who was behind the spectacular designs and gardening.
The Granite Center Garden Club is a small club of approximately 25 active members along with the honorary and associate members.
Each year they are involved with many project besides the highway gardens, such as Barre Town and Barre City Butterfly Gardens at the schools, and providing trees and other landscaping stock for special projects like the Travis Mercy Skateboard Park and even the Central Vermont Medical Center and Habitat for Humanity homes.
Remarkably, the Granite Center Garden Club is in its 75th year and has a very colorful history of ╘civic beautifications.╒ But, as the four members pictured above all say, ╥We need more new members who can still bend at the knees!╙
GCGC now meets the second Monday of every month, 6:30pm, at the Universalist Church in downtown Barre to discuss work plans and activities for the coming season.
╥We always have lots of fun at our get-togethers,╙ points out Christine Rousseau, a past president and one of the longest serving members.
Another past president and longtime member, Sue Talmadge, put together an impressive history and yearbook of the GCGC.
The Granite Center Garden Club was an outgrowth of an organization of men who called themselves The Flower Growers Association. Twelve women met at the home of Mrs. Donald Smith on April 5, 1938 to discuss the possibility of establishing a garden club in Barre. By the end of the afternoon they had agreed to organize a club and affiliate with the Federation of Garden Clubs of Vermont.
The objective of the club ╥was to increase the knowledge of horticulture and better methods of gardening, to promote the conservation of natural resources, to participate in the community through garden club projects, and to maintain contact with the FGCV and the National Council of State Garden Clubs.╙
This year╒s GCGC officers are: Blanche Adamski and Susan Barrett (Co-Presidents), Rousseau (1st VP), Jane Mitchell (2nd VP), Shonnie Foran (Recording Secretary), Suzanne Stone (Corresponding Secretary), Theresa McMahon (Treasurer), Talmadge (Federated Garden Clubs of VT Delegate), Phyllis Andrews (Parliamentarian), and Clara Geist (Past President).