The Garden Club of Virginia celebrates 82 years of Historic Garden Week.
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Roger Foley
Flower Power
Impressionist painter Gary Melcher's garden at Belmont was restored by the Garden Club of Virginia in 1991.
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Photography by Roger Foley
Montpelier's vast landscape includes 2,650 acres of terraced gardens, rolling hills and horse pastures. The two-acre formal garden was, in James Madison's time, a four-acre plot for flowers., shrubs, fruit trees and vegetables.
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Photography by Roger Foley
Impressionist painter Gary Melcher's garden at Belmont was restored by the Garden Club of Virginia.
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Photography by Roger Foley
The Gillette gardens of Staunton's Woodrow Wilson House.
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Photography by Roger Foley
Yellow iris
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Photography by Roger Foley
Eyre Hall on the Eastern Shore
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Photography by Roger Foley
Anne Cross, chair of the 80th Historic Garden Week.
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Photography by Roger Foley
Portraits of past presidents of the Garden Club of Virginia hang in the conference room at the Kent-Valentine House.
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Photography by Roger Foley
Ann Gordon Evans, current president of the Garden Club of Virginia.
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Photography by Roger Foley
Laura Francis, a Garden Club of Virginia member from Alexandria.
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Photography by Roger Foley
A Garden Club member from the 1950s holds a tour book from Historic Garden Week.
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Photography by Roger Foley
Garden Club of Virginia members Mrs. Massie and Mrs. Williams in the library at the Kent-Valentine House.
The idea still seems preposterous, even more than 80 years later. “How about if we all planted flowers and trees that would bloom in April, and how about if we open our houses, and how about if we go and arrange all the flowers, and then we act as hostesses and invite the public in and give them tours? And then do it again every year?” This idea, which was suggested during a 1928 meeting of the Garden Club of Virginia, muses Rossie Fisher, was ambitious.
Challenging though it was, says the 35-year member from Goochland, the suggestion set into motion an all-volunteer enterprise that would grow to attract 25,000 visitors a year from around the world. This year, as the club sponsors its 82nd Historic Garden Week tour, that daunting proposal can’t be second-guessed—the ritual is a harbinger of spring, its green road signs an indicator of purpose beyond the prettiness. The tours have raised millions of dollars to restore gardens across the state, and a collective sense of pride outweighs any astonishment that this feat is perpetuated year over year.
“It’s well oiled,” Fisher says of the club’s skill at orchestration, “and I am in awe of what these women accomplish.” Some see the GCV, which was established in 1920 and has 47 member clubs and 3,400 volunteers, as one of the most quietly influential organizations in Virginia. But “it’s not frou frou, and it’s not white gloves,” assures the organization’s former president, Ann Gordon Evans of Hampton. “It’s down to business, because we have work to do. What would the state of Virginia look like without these restoration efforts? I’m just bowled over when thinking about it.”
The club’s first restoration was at Kenmore Plantation, which received the inaugural tour’s proceeds—$14,000. Since then, all of the projects that have followed have been significant and meticulously researched: gardens of Presidents and statesmen, business leaders and artists, churchyards and campuses and five centuries of landscape from mountain to shore, all open to the public and important to modern understanding of Virginia history and horticulture. (In 2014 the Garden Club of Virginia published the results of its first economic impact study, estimating the cumulative impact of Historic Garden Week over the last 45 years to be $425 million.)
Restorations have included the east garden of the Executive Mansion, Montpelier and Poplar Forest. “Each project is different,” says past restoration committee chair Sally Guy Brown, a 32-year member from Alexandria. “Some take a couple of years to complete, and others three to six months. We are connected with these properties for a long time.”
The GCV is unique in its restoration mission, Brown adds. “We are the only organization in the whole country that does this restoration work” as a benefit of house tours. “This is money these historic properties don’t have available. We have enabled them to restore their landscape the way it used to be. Some of these gardens may have disappeared if we hadn’t put this money back into the ground.”
GCV member Margaret Page Bemiss of Richmond, with photographer Roger Foley, documents the club’s restoration projects from 1975 to 2007 in the book Historic Virginia Gardens to foster, as Bemiss writes, “a greater understanding of the men and women who made these beautiful landscapes, and the society in which they lived.” Lists of native trees and shrubs, plants and vines, and those introduced into the landscape from the 1600s onward, give scholars and even casual gardeners a significant reference point from which to launch future efforts.
Finding hundreds of private homes, gardens and historic sites to feature on dozens of separate tours each year is an intriguing challenge, says Mason Montague Bavin, who has served as the chair of the Old Town Alexandria tour. “You might admire a pretty house while you’re out walking your dog, or you might just have a random conversation with someone,” she says. “In some cases, you find a homeowner who has a beautiful garden or has just finished a renovation project. Some years it’s more of a challenge, because it’s a lot to ask someone to open their home to the public.”
Once the list is confirmed, a year of behind-the-scenes preparation culminates with tour day in April. Club volunteers collect materials they’ve grown and construct magnificently detailed flower arrangements to enhance the style and character of each house. Betsy Worthington of Lynchburg, a member since the late 1980s, says one of the most unforgettable was a composition of tree peonies positioned in the stairwell of a Goochland country estate. “I was a young member, and I will never forget it—a Hogarth curve very simply done, but it just took my breath away,” she says.
The volunteers who design the arrangements “are creative and passionate about the art of arranging flowers that are suitable to a specific home,” Bavin says. “And whether it’s on the kitchen counter or the mantelpiece, the buzz of creativity is just amazing, and it’s a wonderful collaboration. It is work, but it’s all great fun—and contributing to the community is very important to us, so this is a great way to do that.”
As soon as the tour is over, “we begin working on the next year,” says Laura Francis of Alexandria. “It requires recruitment of homes and the diplomatic handling of homeowners who might have 2,000 people trooping through their house. It requires a great deal of coordination to fit all of the pieces together. These are long-term commitments—but it’s very gratifying.” In some cases, homeowners agree a few years in advance and spend the intervening time perfecting their gardens and interiors with the tour’s high standards in mind.
For some, the art of arranging flowers is a lifelong passion, nurtured by club members whose gardens are a pastiche of plants shared with one another. Katty Mears, a member since 1955 whose Eastville garden is planted in “drifts of one,” she says with laughter, found her passion for flowers in kindergarten. “My first blue ribbon was at St. Catherine’s School,” she recalls. “I still have the container—a teeny bronze urn, and I put in it yellow buttercups and dock, which is a weed. I can see it now ... ” That led to her love of unusual plants and materials, some discovered along the Eastern Shore’s rural roads, where she was often seen collecting. “That’s one thing about the club —I think I’ve been on most every road in Virginia,” Mears says of spending time with her sister Helen Murphy and other club members, looking at homes and gardens, scouting for materials, enjoying the history and beauty of a world in slower motion.
Garden-related road trips tend to create lasting bonds among many club members. Anne Cross, who was the chair of Historic Garden Week 2013 and a Hanover county resident, logged more than 1,500 miles on her car in 2012 attending tours across the state. “It was great fun and a good feeling,” she says of the shared experience with Ashland club members. “We would be texting, sending pictures and Tweeting about the tour—that’s something new for us, using social media,” she says, hoping to attract an energized base of younger members to sustain the organization’s momentum.
“I just heard a new member say, ‘It’s all business at the meetings; there’s no time for chit chat,’” Rossie Fisher adds. “There are so many professional women members, and they bring such skills. I think it’s extraordinary that, in today’s world, we can ask women to give us the amount of time that we actually require,” she says, noting that all members are expected to assist the tour efforts in April. “Historic Garden Week is precious. It’s a treasure, and we depend on the members to make it possible.
“The joyful part is, you can sign up to be a gatherer of flowers, an arranger, a helper or a hostess. I love to be able to show respect to the person who has opened their house to the public and to tell their story,” she continues. “I just love the goodwill that it spreads.”
Though garden week captures much of the limelight on the club’s annual calendar, it is conservation that inspires some members to action. In 1923, the first committee ever established by the club was for conservation. It focused on the grounds at the College of William & Mary and was “way ahead of its time,” Ann Gordon Evans says. “Women in the 1930s felt this issue was important and were just committed to it. That has continued; the committee is a viable, active one.” Increasingly, members take leadership roles researching and presenting educational forums on topics such as uranium mining, pesticides, climate change and plastic waste in the environment.
“Sometimes we tell legislators about an issue before they realize it’s going to be an issue,” notes Peyton Wells of Richmond, a member for 13 years. “When they see us coming, they’re aware they will be hearing about it. A lot of people don’t know this, but we educate people. We learn about these issues and get the word out ... [so] people can make up their own minds.” She and other club members have given talks about climate change in several states recently, “not shoving it down a person’s throat,” Wells cautions, “and not politically charged.” Instead, they work to fulfill the club’s mission—to celebrate the beauty of the land, conserve the gifts of nature and challenge future generations to build on that heritage.
At a creative level, the club’s connections help members develop talents that otherwise lie dormant. Laura Francis of Alexandria, a member since 1997 and a graphic designer, says that club membership showed her that “flowers are another medium in the artistic world” and that starting a floral design business was an unexpected offshoot of her volunteer work with the group. “This is a marvelous, creative way of expressing oneself,” Francis says, “and I find the breadth of ages [currently 35 to 95] in this organization tremendously appealing.” Older members mentor younger ones, and wisdom of the ages—particularly gardening expertise—is respected and put to use. Cross, whose Hanover garden holds thousands of azaleas, daffodils and perennials, says that along with intergenerational friendships, members nurture each others’ gardens by sharing. “My garden is full of plants other members have given me over the years—it makes it really special,” she says, such as rambling roses rooted for her by the late Lois Wickham of the Ashland club. “You meet a lot of interesting and intelligent women who rise to the challenge” of the varied roles they fill within the group, and their interwoven gardens are a lively symbol.
As times have changed, so have styles in floral design. While the blowsy, English centerpiece will always have its devotees, members are open to experimentation as they follow floral design movements from past to present. “The Garden Club of Virginia is steeped in history and traditional styles,” Laura Francis says, but recently, "we are judging contemporary flower arranging, much more abstracted designs, more manipulated materials, looking at the essential elements of design. I find that tremendously exciting.
“The Garden Club has taught me how to look at the world differently,” Francis continues. “It has taught me to look very closely at the natural world around me and to appreciate it considerably more. We are skilled at sustaining a history and yet hopefully looking forward. We have an opportunity as a group, which has been conscientious about the natural world, to push that strategy to younger people who may perceive our organization as antiquated, to see us as vibrant and viable. We have all that history sitting behind us and are so cognizant of how critical their stewardship will be to the future.”
It is, members say, a full slate with many objectives and opportunities to serve. Some research environmental issues for annual Legislative Day, others organize and present flower shows and develop programs on many topics, all while the machinations continue for garden week. An added focus is the effort to inform an international and local audience about the ultimate benefit of the tour. “I hope visitors are beginning to get the message,” says Ann Gordon Evans. “What we would like for them to take away is that their ticket goes toward the restoration of our wonderful, historic gardens in Virginia—and how involved the 3,400 members are in this. Most every single member helps in some way in the production of Historic Garden Week—it brings our club members together, and there’s a spirit that just carries through and through.”
Cross, who will lead long-term goal setting for 2020, the club’s 100th anniversary year, agrees with that assessment. “It’s a wonderful combination of things I believe in: being with people who appreciate nature and beauty and flowers and horticulture,” adding, “We have fun together, but we do good together. Doing something we know has made a difference in how Virginia looks.”
Says Cross, ours is “a state people love to visit for its beauty and history, and this is a roll call of the most important gardens in Virginia. When you think of Virginia, you think of these places.” VaGardenWeek.org
