Garden club celebrates 20 years

The Sisters Garden Club is celebrating the coming of spring - and its 20th year anniversary.

Now approximately 50 members strong, the club takes pride in continuing to carry out its founders' original purpose: to enhance the natural beauty of Sisters by maintaining public spaces around town.

According to this year's president Kathy Plank, the club's mission is "to encourage gardening and gardeners and to teach when we can and help each other learn to garden in this difficult climate."

Club volunteers maintain the Point Garden on Cascade Avenue (Hwy. 20) in front of the Subway restaurant. "That is public land, but it is planted and maintained by the Sisters Garden Club with funds that we raise," Plank said.

Currently, the club is in the midst of an extensive renovation of the garden that started last winter. The work is so extensive that the group has contracted Mike Burke of Sisters Landscape Co. to assist. (See "Downtown garden gets face lift," The Nugget, November 22, 2006, page 13.) As soon as the ground is dug out and debris is removed, club members will start planting the area.

The club also maintains the area across the street from the Point Garden where the log cabin is located, and the area around the gazebo at Village Green Park, as well as the planter boxes at the library.

"Our people take care of these and prune and weed," Plank said. Garden club members also plant the annuals that bloom throughout the summer and fall at all of these locations.

"We are busy, busy, busy people."

The only times the club reaches beyond its own volunteers to maintain its gardens is for large landscaping projects such as the current renovation at the Point Garden and for some spraying.

The club, a non-profit organization with 501c3 status, sponsors one major fund-raiser each July in conjunction with the Quilters' Affair, an event that takes place the week preceding the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.

The Quilt Show Garden Tour is held on the Thursday before the quilt show and is a tour of approximately five area gardens and sometimes homes. This year's event is slated for July 12. Tickets are available to anyone who is a registered participant in the Quilter's Affair event and may be purchased at the Stitchin' Post. "If someone local (who is not a registrant of Quilter's Affair) wants to go on the tour, we (the garden club) would be happy to have them work as hostesses," said this year's tour coordinator Claudia Grooney. For more information contact her at 549-4983.

The club is in need of one more garden or garden/home for this year's tour. Anyone who has a nice garden who is willing to share it for the tour is asked to contact Grooney.

"We need one more for this year, and we would love to have a waiting list (for next year)," Plank said.

Club membership is open to all. Annual dues are $15, and a member's spouse may join for an additional $7.50.

"We're always looking for new input, new ideas, new people, new energy, new enthusiasm," Plank said.

The club meets on the second Saturday of each month at various venues. April's meeting was held in the council chambers at City Hall. "This is our first time in this building," Plank said.

Some months a guest speaker talks about a particular aspect of gardening. Other months members share ideas amongst themselves. "We have some really knowledgeable members about local gardening who have been at it for a long time," Plank said.

According to Plank one of the greatest benefits of the club's meetings is that the group is small enough that everyone has the opportunity to ask the questions they want to ask.

Master gardener Liz Douville was Saturday's guest speaker. Douville, who has lived in Central Oregon for many years and regularly writes gardening articles, spoke about vegetable gardening in containers.

Although the club does not have a Web site, the organization recently joined the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce, and information about the club and its activities and events can be accessed at the chamber's Web site http://www.sisterschamber.com. Announcements about the club's monthly meeting are also published in The Nugget.