The Garden Club of New Haven – Rooted in History. Planted in the Present. Branching into the Future.
Since its founding in 1924, the Garden Club of New Haven (GCNH) has promoted knowledge of gardening and an appreciation for the ways in which gardens and the natural world enhance the quality of our lives. The club’s educational work in horticulture, its environmental activism, and its civic engagement aim to secure a future for the Greater New Haven community in which the beauty of nature is both celebrated and preserved.
The Club has a robust schedule of events planned for their 100th that began in 2024 and extend into 2025. The goal of the Centennial Committee is to create a year-long celebration with programs and events that reflect GCNH’s core mission for the past 100 years. This is a joyous period for the club, a time for proud reflection on our achievement-filled past and happy anticipation of all we can do in the future. This is also an opportunity to recognize and salute our many civic partners in the New Haven community. The tagline for their celebration is
Rooted in History. Planted in the Present. Branching into the Future
In November, 2024, The Cherry Shaw Swords and Virginia Thorne Shaw Annual Lecture, Public Green Space featured the lecture: “An Urban Imperative,” a panel on the importance of public green spaces with a focus on looking towards the future. Speakers included Sophie van Haselberg of the New York
Restoration Project, Lynn Kelly, executive director of the New York Restoration Project, Sarah Charlop Powers, Executive Director of the Natural Areas Conservancy and Eric Sanderson, landscape ecologist and Vice President for Urban Conservation Strategy at the NYBG. Moderated by Colleen Murphy-Dunning, Program Director of the Hixon Center for Urban Sustainability, Urban Resources Initiative and Will Ginsberg, Community Foundation.
On Monday, September 29, 2024, Garden Club ambassadors met with staff and students of Common Ground High School, Urban Farm & Environmental Education Center, including members of their Green Job Corps, to plant shrubs along the hill in an area known as their ‘sacred space.’ As Joel Tolman, Common Ground’s Director of Community Impact & Engagement, said, “we’ve been talking about ways to continue to restore this habitat on our campus and I’m excited for this opportunity to garden together and be part of your 100thanniversary celebration.”
GCNH and Common Ground School (which was started in the late 1980s) are bound together by shared past projects and their shared mission to support a knowledge of gardening and the preservation of natural resources through collaboration and connection with the community.
The club also put together and published a book of members’ beautiful gardens. Coming in May 2025, GCNH will celebrate their close ties with the New Haven Green.
