

THE CMJES IN COUNCII 



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I. DO THE GARDEN CLUBS PROGRESS? 

 ELLEN P. CUNNINGHAM 



An Ex-president 



Forecasting the Future With its Ever Widening Horizon and Increas- 

 ing Cooperation Among Various Groups of Gardeners of Both Sexes 



\F WE interpret "progress" to mean size and number, 

 there must be a unanimous "Yes," and that is the end 

 ' of the subject; for are not garden clubs springing up 

 far and wide, appearing already in over twenty states 

 and including perhaps six thousand members? But is it a ques- 

 tion of something more than growth and multiplying? We 

 will try to take a few measurements of the movement by view- 

 ing the clubs that stand in the foreground of to-day down the 

 perspective of their past. 



How can we tell whether the garden clubs are really progress- 

 ing or not? Let us first examine what a garden club actually 

 is, or may become. Is it mostly garden or mostly club? If 

 horticulture be our chief concern, we think in terms of planting 

 and cultivating; others, it is whispered, clothe the club in the 

 regalia of fashion and parade it at afternoon teas. And, by 

 the way, why are these garden groups called "clubs"? If, as 

 sometimes, the garden club is often used as a means to a " social" 

 end, why were they not named "societies"? Garden clubs 

 seem to be of American origin, one of our best "native plants" 

 of organization, appearing first in Philadelphia, in 1904. 



Looking backward, as a former president of a large garden 

 club, to a period only a few years ago, I wonder whether most 

 of us then forming the organizations did not regard our gardens 

 essentially as horticultural experiment stations, where we 

 slaved in all kinds of weather, until too tired to drag one muddy 

 shoe after another? It was very novel in those days to hear 

 of diversified public activities just beginning in some of the 

 clubs. We had seen little of the grafting on to plant material 

 of "garden designs," "color schemes," "decorative treatment 

 of garden ornaments, " or of "flower arrangement, " in the scien- 

 tific form of to-day. So here we find one affirmative answer to 

 our opening question, for the art of gardening has responded 

 to the call of the clubs to an extent impossible had they not 

 progressed in knowledge and culture. 



When Men Step In 



HAVE the clubs, as organizations, progressed in proportion 

 to the gardens they represent? Which is now of greater 

 importance — the garden or the club? One president of a club 

 frankly stated his belief that "the women with their frills and 

 fancies have nearly ruined the garden clubs just as they did 

 the Garden of Eden!" 



This brings us to the fact that though women started the clubs, 

 the men are serving as presidents of about a tenth of them, in- 

 cluding some of the most intelligent organizations in the coun- 

 try such as the Garden Club of New Orleans, with its head- 

 quarters in Tulane University, and the St. Louis Club, which 

 is on intimate terms with the Shaw Botanic Gardens. Further, 

 though only two years ago the editor of a popular periodical 



contended that men were not interested in much besides sports, 

 it is discovered that this is the new day of garden clubs com- 

 posed exclusively of men, notably those of Ridgewood, New 

 Jersey, and of Ramsey County, Minnesota. In my presi- 

 dential period I heard of only one, the Lenox Garden Club, 

 of which the chief executive was not a woman, and rarely were 

 men members, even as "associates." At present many of the 

 clubs welcome them in one form of membership or another. 

 One member-at-large of the Garden Club of America received 

 a special award at the New York Flower Show in 1921 for his 

 miniature winter garden arranged entirely of plants native to 

 Connecticut; and at this year's Show, first honors went to an- 

 other masculine member-at-large for his miniature model of 

 an Italian garden. This rather proves the pertinence of the 

 recent remark of a well-known representative of the Short 

 Hills Garden Club that men are stimulated by the shows and 

 meetings of the garden clubs. 



What relation has all this to the progress of garden clubs? 

 Naturally the business end of the men's clubs receives attention, 

 especially in the matter of cooperative buying, which might be 

 more generally adopted. Association with professional men 

 of arts and letters, as in the Washington (Conn.) Club, gives a 

 broadening outlook. It is too soon to decide very much in 

 detail just what the ultimate effect of the entrance of men into 

 the garden clubs will be, but it will make for general progressive- 

 ness if some of the seeds of influence prove true to name. 

 Doesn't it look as if one of the directions in which the men will 

 steer progress will be toward the development of a more demo- 

 cratic attitude? For instance in California, the Santa Clara 

 County Flower Lovers' Club, organized only in 1916, has al- 

 ready grown to about a thousand members who are endeavoring, 

 under the leadership of their president and founder, to broad- 

 cast inspiration to beautify every home garden in the county. 

 Women are included in the membership, but the president is a 

 man. 



Of Mechanics and Committees 



WHAT about the mechanism of the garden clubs, do we 

 find that it too has progressed? Certainly there are more 

 Committees — necessary in some cases, especially in the larger 

 groups — but is there not danger, if " a weed is only a flower out 

 of place," of having the business of committees "naturalized" 

 so successfully that they may crowd out some of the choice 

 blooms? A president of a flourishing club is lamenting that 

 their meetings have been deprived of much of the time formerly 

 devoted to the enjoyment of the gardens since affiliation with 

 a national organization has brought such multiplicity of affairs 

 to their attention. Is it progress to lose the joyous spirit of 

 the garden? After all, is the club for the garden, or the garden 



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