Helping to beautify its community

Founded in the early 1920s, the Garden Club of Lawrence has contributed greatly to the beauty of its home community by helping to educate its members and improve their gardening skills.

The garden club was created by residents who were interested in gardens, growing plants and arranging flowers. It is part of the Garden Club of America, a volunteer nonprofit organization with 200 member clubs and about 18,000 members, according to its website.

To celebrate the Garden Club of America’s centennial, the Lawrence club held its flower show at the Lawrence Beach Club in Atlantic Beach on July 12.

“It’s designed to enhance people’s knowledge and skills about horticulture, flower design and conservation,” said Donna Ganson, who is president of the Garden Club of Lawrence. She oversees the club’s committees and has served as president for three years.

The club has about 50 members, and it usually has a lecture once a year on conservation or horticulture, said Jane Keegan, the chair of the flower show and a member of the club for eight years. This year the club’s main project was the flower show, and there were a couple of workshops focusing on how to arrange flowers.

Floral design, horticulture, photography and conservation were the four sections at the flower show, said Keegan. “It’s to display our garden club’s talents and show what everyone has grown in their gardens, the photos they have taken and our ideas about conservation in the area,” she said.

There were about 100 horticulture entries, 35 flower designs and 24 entries in photography, and awards were given out by the Garden Club of America in each section, Ganson said.

All Lawrence garden members are residents of Lawrence and are passionate about improving their surroundings. “Everyone in it often wants to make the environment pure and do everything we can to save the environment,” Keegan said.

Keegan joined the garden club because she wanted to learn about flower arranging and planting, as well as to pursue her interest in conservation, taking care of marshland and protecting the local environment, she said. Ganson became a member because of her passion for gardening. “We provide the upkeep and planting at the Five Towns Child Care Center in Inwood in the spring and the fall,” Ganson said.

The club attended the dedication ceremony of the Thain Family Forest at the New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx, in November 2011, consisting of a symposium about local forests and then a discussion of forests from both a regional and world perspective, said Jessica Schuler, the director of the Thain Family Forest. The club also donated an heirloom apple orchard to Rock Hall in Lawrence to celebrate the Garden Club of America’s centennial year, Ganson said.

Members are also working with the Nature Conservancy to manage stations that will measure the impact of sea level changes, mercury contaminations and other contaminants in Lawrence’s marshland. Ganson said, the stations will be in place by the end of the year and the collected information will be used to help improve the environment.