Carothers Environmental Scholar on the Benefits of GCA-Funded Field Research
Garden Club of America Funds Wetlands Biodiversity Research
Sid Hancock

Zoë Riggs, 2024 Mary T. Carothers Summer Environmental Studies Scholar, credits GCA-supported research in Loreto, Peru, for helping build “a more rounded, empathetic, and critically thinking young professional.” Riggs, an undergraduate in Environmental Sciences at Montreat College, conducted field research this summer that included surveys of wetland plant communities and herpetofaunal - reptiles and amphibians of a particular region or habitat - communities. “Exposure to a variety of ecosystems and kinds of organisms,” explains Riggs, “allows an ecologist to expand their frame of reference when asking questions about the natural world.”

Read more

Indianapolis GC’s Garden Walk Supports Community Projects
Proceeds from Garden Tours Give back to Community

The Indianapolis Garden Club’s (IGC) Garden Walk has returned more than $825,000 in grants to public spaces in the Indianapolis community. The walk, conceived 28 years ago, sells tickets and sponsorships for visits to five or six private gardens on the first Wednesday in June—rain or shine. The Garden Walk is a June tradition and a beloved community event. Patrons leisurely stroll through the properties that range from owner planted and lovingly tended to architect planned, manicured estates. Grants, funded by the Garden Walk, reflect the mission of the IGC and the GCA, to restore, improve, and protect the quality of the environment.

Read more

Garden Club of America Medalist Awarded the Elizabeth Medal of Honour by the Royal Horticultural Society
Charles R. “Chipper” Wichman, president emeritus of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, honored for horticultural contributions

On March 26, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), the United Kingdom’s leading gardening charity, awarded the Elizabeth Medal of Honour to the Garden Club of America’s 2018 Medal of Honor recipient and president emeritus of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), Charles R. “Chipper” Wichman, for his outstanding contributions to horticulture, gardening, and plant conservation. NTBG is a network of botanic gardens, preserves, and research centers in Hawaii and Florida.

Read more

GCA/Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize Fellows to Research “Landscapes after the Fire”
Rome Prize Applications Open on August 24, 2024
Sid Hancock

The GCA’s 2024-2025 Rome Prize Fellows in Landscape Architecture Megumi Aihara and Dan Spiegel will begin their joint fellowship at the American Academy in Rome this winter. Their project, “Landscapes after the Fire,” will study written and visual images of post-fire landscapes across cultures in film, literature, and architectural artifacts. Aihara and Spiegel will focus on the simultaneous devastation and renewal brought about by fire, searching for written and visual images of possible futures that suggest a path for reimagination, resilience, and inhabitation. Applications for the GCA/Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize, which will open August 24, 2024, and are due November 1, 2024, are accessible through the GCA website

Read more

Cambridge Plant & Garden Club 
Partners with Local High School to Sell Native Plants
Native plant sales raise funds and nurture beneficial bugs.
Jan Ferrara, Zone I

Like many GCA clubs, Cambridge Plant & Garden Club (CP&GC) has sought to educate and encourage gardeners to add sustainable native species to their gardens. What better way than to host a native plant sale?! For the third year, the CP&GC collaborated with a local high school to sell native plants. It is a pairing of expertise: Cambridge Rindge & Latin School (CRLS) students handle the technological know-how—creating a native plant “zine”—and physical help before and during the sale, while garden club members select and order the plants, develop the marketing information, and promote and manage the sale. The sale goal is not to make money, but to get native plants out into the world and raise awareness of the benefits to butterflies, bees, and birds.

Read more

San Francisco Bay Area Clubs Celebrate Collaboration with Save the Bay
Six GCA clubs mark ten years of shared environmental service with a Day on the Bay
Lindsey Meyersieck, Communications Committee

This past October, as the sun glistened on the San Francisco Bay, members of six Northern California GCA garden clubs happily reconnected as they boarded the historic USS Potomac—FDR’s presidential yacht, now docked in Oakland, CA—for a brisk and educational Bay cruise. The mood was celebratory as members from Carmel, Hillsborough, Marin, Orinda, Piedmont, and Woodside-Atherton garden clubs eagerly gathered to view and learn about the beneficial results of their shoreline restoration efforts.

Read more

Late Bloomers Garden Club and the Emerald Trail Butterfly Garden
New urban trail in Jacksonville, Florida welcomes butterflies and their benefactors
Laura Draper, Communications Committee

In 2024, the city of Jacksonville, Florida welcomed the beginning of its exciting new Emerald Trail, a signature outdoor destination of trails, greenways, and parks encircling the city’s urban core. This “emerald necklace” of parks will eventually connect fourteen historic Jacksonville neighborhoods to waterways and to the downtown area. It reflects the original vision conceived over 100 years ago by Henry Klutho, one of the architects instrumental to the rebuilding of Jacksonville after the great fire of 1901.

Read more