The Grantham Garden Club's public plant sale has become part of the fabric of our little town. I recently learned the history of the sales and want to share it with you.  In 2002 the fledgling club didn't have sufficient funds to purchase flowers in advance.  The sale was made possible by Bloomin' Acres who didn't take money until after the sale (and even took back the few plants that didn't sell). The first plant sale coordinators were Maureen D'Agostino and Joyce Coviello who handed out flower assignments to club members. The volunteers drove to Bloomin' Acres in Newport and had the pleasure of picking out pretty flowers and loading them in their cars to take to the church basement where the Town Hall was located. The proceeds from that first sale were donated to the Dunbar Free Library. Subsequent sales' proceeds funded scholarships, educational programs, and town beautification. (To date $40,500 have been awarded to students pursuing degrees in the environmental sciences.) 

Carole White was in charge of the perennial piece of the  sales for many years. Every member of the club donated two perennial plants which meant pure profit for the club.  This nice practice is no longer an option given the arrival of Asian jumping worms and the potential of spreading them.  Carole and JoAnn Pippin handled public relations for many years including putting up all those plant sale signs around town.  Back then the club didn't rent a unit, so Carole stored the large metal signs under her deck. 

To quote Carole White "The plant sale began outside the white church, then graduated to their basement and finally to Town Hall where we truly 'bloomed.' (Pun intended).  The plant sale grew so big, we even had a holding area where customers could leave a big box or hanging plant with us and continue shopping."
 
In 2004, plants were purchased from Pleasant View Gardens in Louson, NH. When Maureen got a call that the truck was on its way, she called the GGC’s Telephone Lead to get the telephone chain started.  Before cell phones, the fastest way to get the word out was to set up the plan in advance with folks calling the people on their list. 
 
When Maureen became ill in 2005, Claire Vogel took over the sale.  That was the year that the new town hall opened. When Claire asked to use the town hall for the plant sale, the response was understandable reticence given the idea of plants and their accompanying dirt brought into the new building.  They finally agreed when Claire promised that the room would be left exactly as it was found.  Near the end of the sale, Claire was aghast to see that the tiled floor had red and purple stains on it and realized that some geranium, begonia, and fuchsia petals had fallen and been ground in by busy shoppers.  Despite scrubbing as hard as possible, the stains could still be detected.  Active garden club member Marilyn Mullen came to the rescue. Marilyn hurried home and brought back lots of cleaning products. Sure enough, with a little elbow grease, the floor soon looked pristine. Phew!
 
Another obstacle in the those days was that the Town Hall had only two tables.  The Fire Station lent the tables that they use for their annual Old Home Day chicken barbeque.  The tables had to be transported to and from the Fire Station which makes us appreciate the convenience of all the tables and chairs available at Town Hall nowadays. 

There's more to the story--stay tuned for Part 2.  

​To help recognize and celebrate the Grantham Garden Club’s 25th anniversary, the club decided to join this year's Grantham Old Home Day parade on June 29th.  Nancy MacKenzie and Nancy Menton known as The Nancy’s took on the volunteer task to come up with ‘something’ for the parade.  The Nancy’s went above and beyond and wowed everyone with their  masterpiece—the flowered mini-cooper. (Mini-cooper provided by Nancy MacKenzie.)
 
The Nancy's made a pattern and cut out green material to completely cover the car with faux flower petals.  Volunteer teams showed up on June 5th and 10th to work on the flowers that began their lives as leis.  Eastman Rec provided a room and a bunch of glue guns to augment a meager supply. The volunteers were given carte blanche to mix and match different colored petals and glue them together in stacks of three or four to give them depth.  There were more than a few yelps heard initially when inexperienced glue gunners got hot glue on their fingers, but GGC volunteers are a tough breed and soldiered on. 
 
Armed with thousands of pretty petals, The Nancy’s took it from there.  The day before the parade, they spent the afternoon in Nancy Menton’s driveway under blue skies gluing all the flower petals onto the cloth and then attaching the flower covered cloth to the mini using magnets.  Nancy MacKenzie added the final touch with a Live Free and Bloom license plate.
 
Grantham Old Home Day has been celebrated since the 1800’s. It’s traditional for parade participants to hand out goodies to the folks lining the route.  Fittingly, the garden club contingent gave out packets of wildflowers.  Weeks beforehand, Nancy MacKenzie had put her grands to work filling little envelopes with the seeds.  One of the grandchildren had commented “I thought it would be boring, but it was fun.”  Coincidentally that's what a lot of GGC volunteers often say!
 
When Old Home Day dawned, there was intermittent rain so umbrellas were added to the signs the walkers carried.  We were more worried about all those pretty flowers but soon learned (we should have known) that flowers--even faux flowers--love a gentle rain so they were happy.  At 10:30 sharp the parade began and the rain let up so the mini convertible top finally came down to reveal The Nancy’s in their flower bonnets.  The GGC contingent paraded down Rte 10 to the sounds of “Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make my garden grow” as The Nancy’s perfect their royal waves.  Nice to think of wildflowers growing in people's yards  thanks to the GGC.
 
The Grantham fire trucks led the parade so they could be the first ones to the Recreation field to help with their famous chicken barbeque. Renee Gustafson was waiting at the GGC table to hand out business cards and tell people about the club.  All the parade vehicles parked on the rec field so people could check them out up close. When an admirer asked who the vendor was that made the flower cover for the mini-cooper, The Nancy’s knew they had done a professional job. 
 
A great big thank you to The Nancy’s and all the volunteers pictured below.