The Quiet Corner Garden Club has grown. In the past two years we added 21 new members. In 2017, we had 28 members. We now have over 90 who come from more than 15 towns in our area. We have 15 Master Gardeners or Certified Naturalists in the club. We met the challenge of the pandemic in many ways. We met by Zoom for online meetings, videotaped our small in-person lectures, and used our online newsletter to reach our members during those long months at home.
We had a very successful annual spring plant sale Mother’s Day weekend. Despite the weather, hundreds of customers showed up. We are fortunate that our plant sale is held indoors in the huge Agriculture Building at the Woodstock Fairgrounds. We worked on many civic projects over the past few years. We renovated a courtyard garden in a senior housing community in Danielson. We rebuilt planting tables for a nursing home’s outdoor garden therapy program, and planted shrubs in the front yard of a local sober house for women, both in Putnam. We donated plant tables and tools to the Mary Fisher Elementary School and helped develop a community garden in Thompson. We donated a red maple to the Pomfret Library.
In Woodstock, we built window boxes for the North Woodstock Library, planted an apple tree for Arbor Day and created a children’s garden at Roseland Park with the help of some Boy Scouts, created a permanent garden display at the Woodstock Fairgrounds, and continued work on a three-year project to create a memorial garden at the Woodstock Middle School. This year we will donate new perennials to the Killingly Community Garden and have other civic projects in the planning stage, including the renovation of the beds at the Eastford Town Hall, maintenance at the Palmer Arboretum, to plant annuals at Roseland Cottage on Memorial Day weekend in Woodstock, and, in Putnam, to donate shrubs to Rotary Park and to create container gardens downtown.
Our club has several floral workshops each year. We like to go on trips to visit a variety of beautiful gardens in New England. We hope to have photography workshops soon. Twice a year, we have pot-luck dinners, and often have informal breakfasts and lunches. We stage two plant swaps each year.
This July we will host a self-guided garden tour: Gardens and Art in the Country, featuring eight lovely and diverse home gardens in Woodstock, Pomfret, and Putnam. Each garden will have entertainment: artists painting landscapes; musicians; craftsmen. There will also be a huge Arts & Crafts Fair next to the Registration Booth on the Woodstock Fairgrounds. There‘s always something going on in the Quiet Corner Garden Club!
