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.
Carothers Environmental Scholar on the Benefits of GCA-Funded Field Research
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.”
Indianapolis GC’s Garden Walk Supports Community Projects
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.
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.
GCA/Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize Fellows to Research “Landscapes after the Fire”
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
Cambridge Plant & Garden Club
Partners with Local High School to Sell Native Plants
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.
San Francisco Bay Area Clubs Celebrate Collaboration with Save the Bay
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.
Late Bloomers Garden Club and the Emerald Trail Butterfly Garden
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.
The Garden Club of America offers 29 merit-based scholarships and fellowships in 12 areas related to conservation, ecology, horticulture, and pollinator research. In 2024, $459,000 was awarded to 100 scholars. Follow GCA Scholarships on Instagram for the latest news about pollinators, coastal wetlands, native bird habitats, and much more. Connect to a larger world of horticulture and conservation through Garden Club of America scholars. Browse the scholarship offerings.
Since 1995 the GCA has identified a stellar North American native plant to receive The Montine McDaniel Freeman Medal: GCA Plant of the Year.
The 2022-2023 GCA Annual Report is now available. Click here to view the digital version.