LONDONDERRY, Vt. – Remembering July 2023, the geographic area of the state where some of the worst Vermont flood devastation occurred, the Green Mountain Garden Club members lead forward in community landscape restoration.
“The Green Mountain Gardeners is a group of community members who foster horticulture, beautification, and conservation of all natural resources in their mountain communities,” states Linda Saarnijoki, club president.
At a recent monthly community education meeting, speaker Peter Isakson of Londonderry spoke on the topic of “Straw Bale Gardening,” only one of the many community program offerings on topics such as sustainable gardening, pruning, growing micro-greens, and care for flowering plants.
“The garden club’s community outreach efforts include support of Flood Brook Student Activities Cooperative, wreath making, boxwood tree workshops, and decorations for the home-bound,” reports Martha Dale, committee club member and vice president of the Federated Garden Clubs of Vermont (FGCV).
The gardeners’ beautification efforts of brightening the lives of local residents and visitors include spring clean-up in Londonderry, maintenance of Weston’s Farrar Mansur Museum, flower plantings at the town hall in Landgrove, and planting trees and bulbs in the mountain towns.
Thanks to the Green Mountain Gardeners and the Federated Garden Clubs of Vermont, Doris Van Mullen, club president, reports a flood relief donation to the Friends of Main Street Flowers Project, a community fund in Londonderry to restore the village planters, which are beautifully filled with gorgeous flowers each year, and were washed away in the July flood.
Londonderry is the largest of the four Green Mountain Gardeners towns, the location of the hardware and grocery stores, the site of the most severe devastation, and the place garden members travel through several times a week. “Contributing to the beauty of the town, as well as aiding in flood relief, fits our mission and the Federated Garden Clubs of Vermont,” says Saarnijoki.