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The purpose of The Garden Club of America is to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening, to share the advantages of association by means of educational meetings, conferences, correspondence and publications, and to restore, improve and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic improvement.
Founded in 1913, The Garden Club of America is a volunteer, nonprofit 501(c)3 organization comprised of 200 member clubs and approximately 18,000 club members throughout the country.
Garden Club of New Haven Helps Manage Rainwater Runoff
Garden Club of New Haven has created a brochure about managing rainwater for homeowners in the community. A major source of pollution, rainwater runoff collects pesticides, oil, and other hazardous materials and washes them into storm drains that empty into streams, rivers, and larger bodies of water. Installing rain barrels, catch basins, and trees, as well as minimizing impervious surfaces, are ways to help.
Ag Secy Perdue Responds to GCA Call for Neonics Ban
Faced with continuing threats to monarchs, bees, and other pollinators essential to food production, The Garden Club of America Executive Board on May 5, 2017, sent letters to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. The letters and the response received describe the concern and the GCA's efforts to protect pollinators.
A Must-See Gardening Exhibition Awaits in Washington
Don’t miss Cultivating America’s Gardens, on exhibit through August 2018 in the Smithsonian Libraries Exhibition Gallery at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, a collaboration between Smithsonian Gardens and Smithsonian Libraries, gives visitors a snapshot of the history and culture of the American garden from its earliest beginnings to the present day. The exhibition draws from the collections of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Gardens (AAG), which was established in 1987 in conjunction with a donation of historic slides by the GCA and is continually augmented by efforts of member clubs to document diverse gardens across the country.
In 1939, thousands travelled to the New York World’s Fair to visit The Horticulture Exhibition Gardens on Parade. The GCA contributed the Woodland Garden and Garden of Tomorrow, participating along with the Horticultural Society of New York, The New York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Society of American Florists, and the New York Florists’ Club. Harriet Pratt, president of the nonprofit formed to manage the exhibition, also was the first secretary of the GCA (1919-27).
Partners for Plants: Restoring Blue Hills Reservation Habitat
Partners for Plants is a joint habitat restoration program of the GCA Conservation and Horticulture Committees. Its purpose is to facilitate hands-on projects between local GCA clubs and land managers on federal, state, local, and other significant public lands. Since 1992, there have been nearly 400 projects across the United States. The Milton Garden Club is restoring a native plant garden at the entrance to Blue Hills Trailside Museum, interpretive center for Blue Hills Reservation, a 6,000-acre state park in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. The club recently created a rain garden under a downspout there to prevent rainwater from running across a path and washing away fertile soil in the restoration area. Click here to read more about the GCA's Partners for Plants projects.
The GCA offers 28 merit-based scholarships and fellowships, awarding more than $330,000 to 86 scholars in 2017.
For example, the GCA Award in Coastal Wetlands Studies funds a graduate student annually at $5,000 to support field-based wetlands research. Read more about the four 2017 recipients: Janet Walker, in the Joint Doctoral Program in Ecology at the University of California, Davis, and San Diego State University; Samantha Apgar, doctoral candidate, the University of Connecticut; Elisabeth B. Powell, a master's student in the Biodiversity, Earth, and Environmental Science Department at Drexel University; and Nate Stott, a master's student at Bowling Green State University.
GCA Scholarships are available in medicinal and tropical botany, native bird habitat, conservation and ecological restoration, desert studies, landscape architecture, urban forestry, garden history and design, coastal wetlands, and pollinator research.
Annually since 1995, the GCA has identified a stellar North American native plant to receive its Montine McDaniel Freeman Medal for Plant of the Year.
Magnolia ashei is The Garden Club of America's 2017 Plant of the Year.
Nominate a Plant - recognize a plant that is under-utilized but worthy of preservation, propagation and promotion.
The health of our wetlands is in real jeopardy, but we are far from helpless in our everyday lives. Simple efforts, multiplied many times over, can contribute to wetlands survival.
Download the GCA's Position Paper on Clean Water.
Read more about what individuals can do at home and in their communities.
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