The history of the plant sale continues with the transition to purchasing the plants from Jolly Farmer in New Brunswick, Canada.  Luck and timing played a major role.  Plant Sale Chair Claire Vogel was shopping in Kristina Cole’s store Remembrance Fine Lingerie one day while Kristina was looking through the Jolly Farmer catalog.  Kristina had been ordering plants for the Lebanon Garden Club for years. Claire looked over the catalog, was impressed, and started ordering from their nursery in addition to Pleasant View.  Claire continued to order from both Pleasant View and Jolly Farmer for three years before deciding to purchase exclusively from Jolly Farmer starting in 2008.   
 
The next multi-year lead was Kristina Burgard.  Kristina wasn't even a member when, at the urging of a friend,  she came to a garden club meeting to check it out.  At that very first meeting, Kristina not only joined the club but also agreed to take over the helm of the plant sale. Amazing! Kristina ran the plant sale from 2012 to the 2017 making adjustments each year including adding a pre-buy option for members, posting cards with information on all the plants, using colored sticks to indicate prices, purchasing lots of signs to promote the sale on “Saturday at 9 at Town Hall” and arranging for the donation of large scaffolds to display hanging baskets.  Kristina was a real mover and shaker in the club for many years including being the vice president in 2015 and 2017 and president in 2016 and 2018.
 
Nancy Crocker was the next person to step up to the plate and was the plant sale chair for the 2018 and 2019 sales. Everything was running smoothly until the 2020 pandemic came crashing down.  Nancy, plus GGC president Elise Kendall, and the Steering Committee made the difficult decision to cancel the public sale but felt that people needed flowers more than ever so members were given the opportunity to order flats of Jolly Farmer plants.  On a brutally hot day in May, the Jolly Farmer truck arrived. A group of masked volunteers spread out at the Town Hall parking lot to sort and then deliver the flowers.  Imagine how that must have been for folks who had been stuck at home for months to receive those hanging baskets and flowers to plant in their own gardens—a place of serenity in a world turned upside down.
 
When the pandemic was over, the smooth transition and all the moving parts that made up the sale were lost and there was no plant sale in 2021, Ray Miner and Pete LePre missed the opportunity to buy wonderful Jolly Farmer plants and volunteered to run the member only plant sale in 2022.  The next year, the club started to cautiously get back into the public plant sale business with the sale being combined with the Grantham town wide yard sale.  While it was a financial success, keeping those plants alive for a few weeks after the Jolly Farmer delivery was time consuming for Ray and Pete so the yard sale/plant sale experiment was abandoned and the club decided to go back to the original plan of pre-buy for members and public plant sale. Ray and Pete took care of the pre-buy while Kristina Cole and previous plant sale chair Claire Vogel ordered the flowers for the public plant sale.  There weren’t nearly as many plants for sale as in the pre-covid sale years, and they sold out in 90 minutes.  The plan for 2025 is to combine the member buy and the public plant sale into one large sale.  A few days before the Saturday public sale, members will have the opportunity to purchase plants from a large selection plus  enjoy a 10% member discount. 
 
As times change; the club reacts, is willing to take some risks, and makes decision as to what would be best for the club, its members, and the town.  

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.