Harborfront Garden Club

March 22, 2022

The Junior Garden Club of Norfolk was founded on September 23, 1955. The club was invited to join the Garden Club of Virginia in 1992 and was renamed Harborfront Garden Club. Members celebrate the club’s founding each year at its annual May meeting wearing their finest gloves, hats and pearls.

Community Involvement

From the beginning, Harborfront Garden Club generously contributed funds to community projects — Harbor Park Stadium to plant trees flanking the southwest entrance; the Flower Guild of the Chrysler Museum of Art; Cape Henry Audubon Society for a wildflower garden in Weyanoke Bird and Wildflower Sanctuary; the Yellow Fever Epidemic Memorial Fund for special plantings; the Joy Fund to provide holiday gifts and assistance during the holidays for families in need; and the Day Care and Child Development Center for field trips for nature and science programs.

Continuing that tradition today, the club has:

• provided funds to support a large-scale wetlands restoration project at the Hermitage Museum & Gardens and has sponsored a lecture series at the museum
• provided funds and landscaping assistance to renovate and terrace the courtyard garden at d’Art Center and continues to provide annual summer plantings and garden maintenance
• provided funds for landscaping at the Colonial Avenue Boys & Girls Club, created garden activities for inner-city children and continues annual support for garden maintenance
• provided funds for a butterfly garden at the Virginia Zoo; supported a new rain garden, turtle pond restoration, bridge restoration and bog plantings
• funded lighting for the Moses Myers House garden restoration project
• contributed to the education center, the Children’s Garden, the Reflection Garden, the Lantern Asia exhibit and hosted Kathleen Gagan from Peony’s Envy at Norfolk Botanical Garden
• contributed to the Elizabeth River Project
• joined Norfolk’s Adopt-A-Street program, cleaning up Jamestown Crescent and North Colley Avenue.
• participated in TREX Recycling Program with Norfolk City Public Schools

Harborfront Garden Club received the 2010 Garden Club of Virginia Common Wealth Award for its butterfly and sensory garden project at St. Mary’s Home. An excerpt from the club’s award application follows:

“St. Mary’s Home in Norfolk has a garden designed to enrich the lives of children residing in this unique facility — Virginia’s only pediatric long-term residential care facility exclusively for children, newborn to 21, with severe mental and physical disabilities. This state-of-the-art facility for 92 residents, one of a few nationwide designed exclusively for providing care in a homelike residential environment, opened in 2005.

“Two large courtyards with floor-to-ceiling windows enable over 6,000 residents, family, visitors and staff to interact with nature or enjoy gardens from inside. In 2008, Harborfront Garden Club began working with staff and Girl Scout Troop 5067 on a new butterfly and sensory garden in the courtyard near the main entrance. We planted plants from our own gardens, donated plants and $500 in plants we won in a national website contest. We funded the installation of a fishpond — especially popular with the children. Now more plants are needed, as well as irrigation, paved walkways to accommodate the wheelchair-bound children and low-voltage lighting to view the garden at night.

“The physical and emotional demands on the children, families and dedicated staff are significant. Full access to the garden will allow children to experience nature’s wonders while providing respite for all who visit, work and reside at this outstanding facility serving all of Virginia.”

Jill Gray Memorial Garden at Union Mission

Harborfront Garden Club began work on the Jill Gray Memorial Garden at Union Mission in 2017 and broke ground for the project in 2018. Three years later, the club applied for (and received) the 2021 GCV Common Wealth Award. An excerpt from that application follows:

“Women and families are the fastest growing homeless demographic in the nation. The Union Mission’s Women and Children’s Shelter of Hampton Roads provides a beacon of hope for these women and their children, offering food, clothing, shelter, education, rehabilitation, and job and life-skills training. The shelter, housed in a renovated office building in an industrial park that is part of the Elizabeth River Watershed, wanted an outdoor sanctuary to provide spiritual and emotional renewal, particularly for single women who feel, and historically have been ignored.

“In partnership with the Union Mission, Harborfront Garden Club created a garden with paved seating areas, native plants and trees, flowers for adorning the dining area and herbs for use in the kitchen. Club members have donated gardening tools, books and plants from their own gardens. This space helps create a sense of community and normalcy for residents, providing therapy, physical activity and tranquility.

“Funds provided by the Common Wealth Award will provide the resources to install an irrigation system, ensuring that Jill’s Garden will offer, for years to come, a place of beauty and peace for all who reside, work and visit this outstanding facility serving homeless women and their children in Hampton Roads.”

2000 Garden Club of Virginia Annual Meeting

2010 and 2011 Garden Club of Virginia Rose Shows

Fundraisers for community projects and GCV events have included progressive dinners, Christmas auctions, speaker events and the publication and sale of a cookbook, Gardeners in the Kitchen. Prior to COVID-19, club members ran the food concessions at the Unique Boutique where a portion of the proceeds were donated to Lee’s Friends (helping people live with cancer).

Members learned to hold Zoom meetings in 2020 during the pandemic and included the occasional Zoom happy hour. By year’s end, meetings were held outside in members’ gardens and at Plum Point Park.

HGC Presidents 1995-2021

1995-1997	Marietta Gwathmey
1997-1999	Kathy Robison
1999-2001	Dottie Ballard
2001-2003	Robin Reeves
2003-2005	Patricia Rawls
2005-2007	Casey Rice
2007-2009	Elise Pitts
2009-2011	Widget Williams
2011-2013	Betsy Murphy
2013-2015	Gigi Miller
2015-2017	Lee Snyder
2017-2019	Debbie Bonnewell
2019-2021	Greta Gustavson