Garden Club of Yorktown celebrates a century of helping the community bloom

For 100 years, the Garden Club of Yorktown has been getting its hands dirty — and the town has been blooming because of it.

Founded Sept. 24, 1926, the club is celebrating its centennial this year, continuing a mission centered on gardening, civic beautification, education and community involvement.

For members, however, the club has always been about more than what grows in the ground.

Gail Orser has been part of the club for 42 years, making her one of its longest-standing members. She joined after a neighbor invited her to a meeting when she was interested in gardening and looking to become more involved in her community.

Over the decades, gardening has given Orser more than flowers and plants. Her backyard has become a reminder of the friendships she has made through the club.

“I can walk around and remember people who are no longer with us, or have moved out of the area,” she said. “It's sort of like a friendship garden in one's backyard.”

Nancy Truitt, a member for about 12 years, joined after retiring while looking for a group of people she could work with and a way to become involved in the community.

As Truitt has explored the history of garden clubs, she said she has become interested in their broader civic role. Historically, she said, garden clubs gave women a way to become involved in public life at a time when they had fewer avenues to do so.

That civic role, she said, remains visible today through projects that combine beautification with community causes, including the club’s work recognizing veterans and maintaining public spaces.

“It's very funny—you don't think that it's a political organization,” Truitt said. “In the broadest sense of the word, political, it is.”

Today, the club maintains five pollinator gardens and town planters from spring through the first frost. Members also organize educational programs, workshops, trips and visits to members’ gardens.

The club has increasingly emphasized native plants and pollinators, reducing lawns and creating spaces that support bees, butterflies and other insects.

One of its largest recent projects has been The Veteran Memorials Circle behind Town Hall, where members created a pollinator garden. The site also features a historic millstone discovered by a club member near Brookside School and moved to the memorial area.

The club has about 75 members, according to Orser, with social media helping attract new gardeners. Members range from beginners to experienced gardeners, creating opportunities to share knowledge and learn from one another.

“Gardeners are nice people,” Orser said. “You can always trust gardeners.”

As she has looked through the club’s handwritten journals, Orsner said she has been struck by how little its fundamental mission has changed over the past century.

“We added in the pollinators and the native plants and education, but it's still beautifying your own yards, beautifying your community, educating people,” she said. “It's basically unchanged in 100 years.”

The club is marking its centennial with a display at the library this month, along with a centennial dinner. The Yorktown Grange Fair also featured the club’s 100-year history, among other events and activities.

After a century, the Garden Club of Yorktown continues to bring residents together around gardening — and the idea that taking care of a community can start with something as simple as a garden.