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March 29, 2024

Club working to make downtown beautiful

DOWNTOWN BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT— Members of Alexander County Garden Club stand in front of the Alexander County Library. Pictured above: seated, from the back to front – Diane Self, Regina Bruns, Mai Yang, Sharold Abernathy, Sandy Abernathy, Venus Bowman, Paula Phillips, and Betty Long; back row, standing, L-R – Phill Bowman, Mike Roberson, and Connie Killian; kneeling – Jennifer and Eric Schumacher. (Photo courtesy of Susan Lydick Greene.)

Novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne said, “I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.”

If your days in the autumn sunshine include preserving your harvest, collecting your seeds or planting some garlic, you will definitely feel at home with the like-minded people in the Alexander County Garden Club. The Garden Club is open to all interested residents of surrounding counties and exists to provide a non-profit, philanthropic, and educational organization for its members. Community members who have an interest in any type of gardening, horticultural, agricultural, and environment activities will find the club warm, welcoming and educational.

The club meets once a month, on the second Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm and unless a field trip is scheduled, meets at the Alexander County Cooperative Extension Office at 376 1st Ave SW, Taylorsville.

The October meeting saw the club gathering Sunday, October 14, 2018, to round up plants purchased from Carmen’s Greenhouse in Hiddenite by the Town of Taylorsville.

In September of 2017, the club took on a Town beautification project that had members planting the empty cement pots that lined Main Avenue in Taylorsville, as well as the flower beds in front of Alexander County Library and near the old hospital.

October’s plantings included plants that were expected to be hardy enough to survive through winter and plants that would provide color in both the fall and spring. October’s project included cleaning up and freshening the pots with additional soil and color, replacing plants that did not survive, and repositioning several planters. Store owners have been asked and agreed to water the plants.

An example of downtown plantings.

ACGC President, Susan Lydick Greene stated, “The club really enjoys working together on projects like these. It was a fun evening for the group. This project is really special because it requires the cooperation of the club, the town, the shop owners, and Carmen Huffman from Carmen’s Greenhouse. We depend very heavily on the cooperation of the shop owners to water the planters. Additionally, when we check with the store owners before we place the pots, we find they are really pleased to be included in the project by watering the plants that brighten their store fronts. We don’t need to do anything to the pot in front of Cline’s Florist, but we always stop in to check, and again, as in last year, they donated some supplies to the project, which was really lovely.”

The next general meeting will be held Thursday, November 8, at 6:30 p.m. at the Cooperative Extension office. The group will have a speaker and refreshments are available during the meeting, and a small door-prize will be awarded.

For further information about next month’s speaker or the club, visit our website at http://alexandercountygardenclub.org/, or Facebook page at Alexander County Garden Club or please contact Susan Lydick Greene at slgreene13@gmail.com or 828.638.8513.

For directions to the Alexander County Cooperative Extension, you may call Susan or the Cooperative Extension Office at 376 1st Ave SW, Taylorsville, NC 28681, telephone number: 828.632.4451.

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