Fifty Plus Gardening bythe Month

Newly Sprung in June Love, Roses and Other Reasons to Garden

Did you know that June 1-7 is National Garden Week? It’s really quite confusing: although the National Gardening Association celebrates National Gardening Month in April, the National Garden Clubs celebrates National Garden Week the first week in June.
One thing they do agree upon—let’s celebrate gardening!
If you have been putting off visiting one of our local gardens and need a little push to get moving, here is your reason: Visit a garden to celebrate National Garden Week.

Looking for Someone Special?
Are you single and lonely? Are you disenchanted with the bar scene, the classifieds or speed dating? A great way to meet other singles, especially the best kind—those who share your interest in and love for gardening—is to go to public gardens or join a gardening club. A chance meeting could blossom into a lifetime friendship, or more.
Start, or join an existing neighborhood garden club. You could possibly find romance and save money at the same time by getting together with neighbors to purchase plants, topsoil, compost, hardscape or mulch in bulk quantities.
Other garden-related ways to find someone special are as simple as getting to know your neighbors. Start conversations by complimenting neighbors on their gardens.
Share a cutting of a favorite plant with a neighbor. In fact, this can turn into a social gathering—attend or host a plant swap. This is an event in which everyone brings plants, cuttings, or seeds to share. Often people bring varieties not readily available commercially. As the summer marches on, you could share your garden’s bounty with a neighbor.
If you are a bit on the artistic side, you could organize a garden poetry circle. Everyone has garden stories to share. Free your creative side by expressing them as poetry, read aloud to like-minded gardeners. Now that’s romantic.

Family Fun
Celebrate National Garden Week by taking the young people in your life to local gardens. For example, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden (www.lewisginter.org) offers a variety of children’s activities throughout the summer. Wednesday afternoons in June are “drop in and dig” days, in which visitors can participate in simple gardening tasks under the guidance of Children’s Garden staff and volunteers.
Lewis Ginter is also participating in The Green Hour, a National Wildlife Federation program that encourages families to spend time outdoors to help cultivate a love of nature and wildlife in young people. At Lewis Ginter, The Green Hour program includes story time and nature activities on first and third Fridays at 11 a.m.

Time on Your Hands?
If you are looking for activities that are fun and rewarding, look no further than your local garden club. National Garden Clubs (NGC) is a not-for-profit educational organization with its headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. It is composed of 6,218 member garden clubs, as well as several hundred international affiliates.
Both the beautification of communities and the preservation of natural resources are of great import to NGC. They organize study courses, flower shows, garden and home tours, environmental studies, recycling, civic improvement, and in general encourage the planting and maintenance of gardens and trees. They are always looking for volunteers, and would welcome you with open arms. See www.gardenclub.org for information.
Other volunteer activities to celebrate National Gardening Week:

- Organize a community green-up day to clean up your local green spaces. The activity could be as simple as cleaning up trash around your local park, or could even be expanded into a town beautification day.

- Volunteer to plant and maintain a garden at your town library or senior center. Donate past issues of gardening magazines to the library or senior center, giving them new life many times over.

- Volunteer at your local school’s garden. What’s that you say? Your local school doesn’t have a garden? Now is a good time to start one! In fact, you can sort through your gardening gear (who among us doesn’t have too many, pots, seeds, tools, stakes, etc.) and donate the excess to a community gardening program or school garden.

I hope this month’s column has motivated you to get out and enjoy your local gardens. Here is an inspiring quote from National Garden Clubs:
“National Garden Week is a week set aside to promote gardens, gardening and their rewards. It is a time for appreciation and celebration of the regularity of the seasons, the soil, the sun, the rain and the knowledge we have gained in using those to carry through from seed to blossom.”

Marie Gardner has an M.S. in biology and a Ph.D. in education and is a Virginia Master Gardener. Email suggestions for future columns to MGardner@vcu.edu. Please include "garden column suggestion" in the subject line.

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