Three Rivers Garden Club

March 21, 2022

With the goal of creating a garden club that might one day join the Garden Club of Virginia, a group of ladies from New Kent and Charles City counties began to organize in 2015, with the support of the GCV and mentored by the Ashland Garden Club. The group adopted the name Three Rivers Garden Club, referring to the York, Pamunkey and James rivers that flow through the two counties. Member Ginny Green designed the club’s colorful logo which features a great blue heron hunting among cattails and invokes thoughts of life on the local rivers.

After Three Rivers officially launched in February 2016, it assisted the Ashland club annually with Historic Garden Week tours and co-hosted a tour in New Kent County in 2018. Bonds of friendship emerged between the two neighboring clubs and several joint club meetings boosted camaraderie. Over its first four years, Three Rivers offered its members programs with outstanding speakers on conservation, beautification, restoration, gardening and flower arranging. Three Rivers grew to more than thirty members, participated in community beautification projects, took field trips to Maymont and beyond, and developed club traditions like its annual holiday luncheon at Upper Shirley Vineyard.

Upon recommendation of the Ashland Garden Club in the fall of 2019, the GCV Membership Committee determined that Three Rivers had met the requirements for GCV membership pursuant to GCV bylaws. Many Three Rivers ladies then attended the biennial meeting of the Ashland, Brunswick and Petersburg garden clubs in November to meet GCV President Jean Gilpin at the Kent-Valentine House and to become further acquainted with GCV. Jean and other GCV board members held further discussions with the president and leadership of Three Rivers to clarify the obligations associated with GCV membership.

TRGC accepted an invition to join the Garden Club of Virginia in 2020, becoming the forty-eighth member club, the first to be admitted since 1997. Julia Boyd served as the club’s president.