The Franklin Garden Club

March 22, 2022

The Franklin Garden club held its first meeting in 1945 and was invited to join the Garden Club of Virginia in 1955. The club expanded its membership when it invited members of the the well-established Garden Gate Garden Club of Franklin to join in May 1967.

The club celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1995 at its end-of-year meeting by taking in 17 junior members to learn, work and grow together before becoming active members of the chartered original club. These new, young members quickly assumed leadership roles in the Franklin Garden Club and enthusiastically participated in Historic Garden Week, GCV flower shows, conservation forums and numerous other state meetings and events.

Community Involvement

Members of the Franklin Garden Club come primarily from three communities — the city of Franklin, Courtland and Southampton County — connected by ten miles of Route 58. This stretch of highway has been an ongoing club project for many years with plantings of crepe myrtles, dogwoods, flowering pears and bulbs. When noting that harsh conditions had taken a toll on plantings, the club planted additional trees in 1996.

The club has also created public plantings at local libraries, the YMCA, hospitals, schools and parks. In the early days of the club, members planned and installed the Memorial Park between Clay Street and Meadow Lane in Franklin and planted dogwoods throughout the city. The club’s work over the years was instrumental in Franklin being designated a Tree City USA. Other ongoing projects have included sponsoring a local child to attend Nature Camp in the summer for many years.

During the 1980s, the Franklin Garden Club assisted the Southampton County Historical Society with planning, funding and planting the memorial garden at its headquarters, the Rochelle Prince House in Courtland. The Franklin Garden Club has continued to support the former Garden Club of Virginia restoration by creating outdoor holiday decorations, maintaining the front gate plantings and funding SCHS requests for specific needs. A group of loyal club members also gathers to perform periodic yard clean-ups.

In 2005, the Franklin Garden Club and Rawls Museum Arts co-sponsored a day with Dr. Mary Sweeny Ellett from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts who presented “Gardens Since Eden.”

Conservation, beautification and education have always been high priorities for the Franklin Garden Club. It purchased ecology and environmental video materials in the 1990s for the Franklin Library, encouraging use by local schools and citizens. In 1995, the club sponsored representatives from the Wildlife Center of Virginia (then located in Weyers Cave) to visit all schools in the city and county. When the River Keepers presented a program to FGC members in 2005, the club voted to become a dues-paying member of that organization.

In 2013, the club began a partnership with the Historic Southside Chapter of Virginia Master Naturalists to participate each April in the Clean Rivers Project. Master Naturalists continue to present programs for club meetings upon request. The club received a substantial grant from the Master Naturalists and River Keepers to be combined with club funds for a conservation project. Members chose to fund a 1.5 mile trail around the upper line of Blackwater Park in Franklin — the Franklin Garden Club Trail — and continues to find ways to support educational projects in the park.

The club continues to support the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Virginia Marine Science Museum in Virginia Beach and Nature Camp in Vesuvius.

The Franklin Garden Club has sponsored special guests in the community for educational presentations:

• William D. Rieley, Landscape Architect for GCV, presented a fascinating story about Popular Forest, Thomas Jefferson’s country home near Lynchburg. With remarkable audiovisuals, Mr. Rieley took club members on a journey from Paris to Virginia in the early 1800s, making the connections between the style of the home and the choices of the landscape materials and their placements.
• Franklin native Brooks Rainey Pearson, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center in North Carolina, spoke about legal issues of interest to both North Carolina and Virginia, especially those regarding solar farms and other methods of energy capture regarding the environment.
• Peyton Wells from the Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton spoke about the emerging problem of uranium mining in the mountains in Virginia.

When Hurricane Floyd came through Franklin in September of 1999 and destroyed the downtown business district, the club planned a pocket garden park called Chamber Walk on the site where a destroyed building had been removed. The club applied for the 2000 Garden Club of Virginia Common Wealth Award and was awarded $5000. Through the efforts of the club, the City of Franklin and Franklin Garden Center, the pocket garden park was installed and dedicated on May 28, 2003, with Garden Club of Virginia representatives and civic leaders present for the unveiling of the memorial plaque.

FGC members often travel around Virginia to support fellow GCV member club fundraisers and actively support GCV flower shows, conservation forums and horticulture field days. Destinations have included the Kent-Valentine House, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Bacon’s Castle and the Virginia Museum of Culture and History. An unusual field trip took club members to the HRSD Nansemond Regional Treatment Center to learn about SWIFT — Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow, to explain the process of converting raw sewage into drinkable water.

Fundraising

As the new millennium began, the club focused on hosting the Garden Club of Virginia Rose Show in 2008 and 2009. Preparation began early to organize logistics and finances. The club received generous donations and in-kind assistance from local businesses and foundations to fund the shows, but additional funding depended on member fundraising projects. These projects were spread out over at least five years and included auctions, bus trips, plant sales and topiary sales. Members also began creating flower arrangements special occasions — cocktail parties, community events and weddings. This business adventure achieved goals far beyond fundraising by providing not only experience in flower arranging and event planning, but also by strengthening friendships among members.

More recent fundraising events have included an extremely popular candlelight Christmas tour which included six beautifully decorated homes, Christmas greenery and amaryllis bulb sales, custom home decorations, fashion shows, silent auctions, luncheons and plant sales. The club has offered classes in creating wreaths and swags, hosted a demonstration by a local expert on holiday flower arrangements and a demonstration by a White House Christmas decorator who created holiday ornaments to decorate White House Christmas trees.

Historic Garden Week

When the Franklin Garden Club first began participating in Historic Garden Week, the club hosted a tour every other year. In addition, club members served each year as hostesses at James River Plantations and Bacon’s Castle. After careful consideration, the club began an HGW partnership in 2015 with the Nansemond River Garden Club and the Elizabeth River Garden Club. Tour leadership now rotates among the three clubs, with one of the clubs taking the lead every three years while the other two clubs provide support. The lead club secures the homes, creates the brochure and other printed materials for the tour and provides the headquarters and venues for all events of the day. The other two clubs provide floral decorations and hostesses for one third of the homes on the tour. This arrangement has proved to be very satisfactory for all the clubs involved, particularly in the procurement of homes and facilities.

Garden Club of Virginia

The Franklin Garden Club members are active participants in GCV flower shows and have been awarded numerous ribbons for artistic design and horticulture, including two “Best in Show” artistic designs. Nancy Brewbaker received the Garden Club of Virginia Horticulture Award of Merit in 2006.

The 2008 and 2009 Rose Shows were at the Paul D. Camp Community College Workforce Center with plenty of space for displays, workrooms, hospitality areas and access to computers and phones. The shows were co-chaired by Jane Beale and Mary Nelson Thompson.

2008 Rose Show Photos

2009 Rose Show Photos

After closing the books on two rose shows, The Franklin Garden Club began plans to host the Garden Club of Virginia 2026 Board of Governors.

Each year the club gives a memorial contribution to the Garden Club of Virginia in honor of the member who has participated the most in the activities of the club during the prior year. The award was named for one of the club’s oldest and most active members, Evelyn Beale. Members record their activity points for attending meetings, participation in state flower shows, holding office, etc.

GCV Centennial 2020 and COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 posed a challenge for FGC, just as for others. Members could not meet in person and used email to transact business. Historic Garden Week was canceled. While many of the GCV 2020 centennial celebrations were postponed, member clubs contributed items to a GCV time capsule, located at the Kent-Valentine House. The Franklin Garden Club’s contribution was a history of the club’s gavel and block, carved from an ancient camellia destroyed by a devastating ice storm in the 1990s.

FGC Presidents 1996-2020

1996-1998	Diane Romano
1998-2000	Katherine Beale
2000-2002	Mary Nelson Thompson
2002-2004	Jane Beale
2004-2006	Dorothy Councill
2006-2008	Ginna Cutchin
2008-2010	Becky Gilette
2010-2012	Amy Browne
2012-2014	Gayle Urquhart
2014-2016	Peg Lockwood
2016-2018	Ginna Cutchins
2018-2020	Betsy Brantley