The Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton

March 21, 2022

tuckahoegardenclub.com

Brief History

On May 16, 1928, Martha Whitehead Michaux invited a few close friends and neighbors to join her for lunch at the Country Club of Virginia to discuss the possibility of forming a garden club. Word spread among friends, and on June 28, the Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton was organized. The club became a member of the Garden Club of Virginia in 1933, and a member of the Garden Club of America in 1952.

Horticulture

Horticulture lies at the heart of the Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton activities. The club has presented numerous horticulture programs and propagation workshops over the years, often emphasizing historic plants. Members have made annual pilgrimages to nurseries, gardens and parks to broaden their knowledge and explore new, rare and unusual plants, and have generously shared their knowledge through entries in the Garden Club of Virginia’s daffodil, lily, rose and symposia shows. Since 1995, members have brought home over 34 individual major GCV Horticulture Awards; two American Daffodil Society awards; Lily Chairman’s Cup for the InterClub Test Collection; the Mears Trophy (thrice); Mary Jean Printz Award; Sweepstakes (twice); the Pollinator Award; the Dahl Award; and the Linnaeus Award. In 2016, members Martha Moore and Sue Thompson become GCA horticulture judges and the GCV Horticulture Award of Merit has been presented to Sue Thompson 1999, Tricia Sauer 2000, Martha Moore 2002, Julia Cox 2005, Nancy Gresham 2006, Eleanor Towers 2007 and Nancy Cann Purcell 2012.

Conservation

Conservation is a mainstay of TGCW. Club member Hylah Boyd founded Scenic Virginia in 1998, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about the economic and cultural benefits of highway beautification, and is the only conservation organization dedicated solely to the preservation, protection and enhancement of the beauty of our Commonwealth with a particular focus on the preservation of significant vistas and scenic lands. Hylah was honored with 1999 with the de Lacy Gray Memorial Medal for Conservation.

Flower Arranging

The TGCW is home to talented and creative flower arrangers. Much of the arrangers’ inspiration comes from Virginia’s beautiful spring and fall seasons, with budding branches, bursting bulbs, and abundant flowering shrubs and perennials, ladened with fruit and berries throughout the year. For the past several decades, TGCW has had active GCV and GCA artistic judges who make GCV flower shows possible — writing schedules, passing entries, clerking, judging and planning awards ceremonies.

The club received the Garden Club of Virginia 2011 InterClub Artistic Award and, since 1995, has won 22 individual major GCV floral design awards daffodil, lily and rose shows. In 2013, club member Peyton Wells created the first virtual flower show to which all of the GCV member clubs were invited. The show featured five divisions — Floral Design, Horticulture, Photography, Botanical Arts and Conservation — and was judged by GCV and GCA members. With club support it was a huge success. In 2019, members co-chaired, produced and judgeed the GCA’s first multi-divisional virtual annual meeting flower show. Virtual flower shows were helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Community Involvement

• Funding and volunteer work at Richmond’s Library Park, 1998 GCV Common Wealth Award recipient
• Construction, planting and dedication of the Microclimate Wall at the Science Museum of Virginia (2000)
• Extreme Stream Makeover to help improve and restore the James River in Richmond’s near west end (2007)
• Planting native plants at Bandy Field, a neighborhood urban park, 2004 GCV Common Wealth Award recipient. The club stayed involved and supported the Bandy Field Association into recent years when Bandy Field was put into a conservation easement to protect against further development.
• Support for educational programs at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden
• Support for an educator at Peter Paul Development Center
• Sponsoring students to Nature Camp (2007-2016)
• Support for landscaping for an inner-city school playground
• Donations and support for a “Grow Lab” at St. Andrews School (2012-2016)
• Participation in a riparian buffer project along Tuckahoe Creek for the James River Association (2001)
• Participation in all phases of Richmond’s four-club Capital Trees projects since 2010
• Participation in Partner 4 Plants, a community project with the James River Garden Club and GCA to eradicate invasives from the trails of Chapel Island, on the edge of the James River Low Line.

Tuckahoe Plantation, Thomas Jefferson’s boyhood home, plays an important role in the lives of TGCW members. Three current club members — Mrs. W. Taliaferro Thompson III (Carey), her daughter, Mrs. Fernando B. Viego (Carey) and Mrs. Addison B. Thompson (Sue) — and their families have been stewards of the property. Members are immersed in its rich culture. They have learned the history of its landscape and plantings and have enjoyed watching the gardens evolve with its plant selections that reflect the 18th century. The property is host to club meetings and celebrations, propagation and flower arranging workshops. Members are honored to serve as hostesses during Garden Club of Virgnia’s Historic Garden Week.

Garden Club of Virginia

The Garden Club of Virginia has been a guiding force for TGCW for nine decades with club members serving on the board and state-level committees. Three members, Mrs. Arthur B. Collins (1952-1954), Mrs. Thomas W. Murrell, Jr.(1978-1980) and Mrs. John Thomas West, IV (2008-2010), have served as President of the Garden Club of Virginia.

The club enthusiastically participates and has enjoyed the benefits of GCV events — Historic Garden Week, Horticulture Field Day, Legislative Day, Conservation Forum and GCV Symposia. In recent years club members have served on the GCV Flower Show Committee, Horticulture Committee, Conservation Committee, Membership Committee and Journal Committee. TGCW enjoys the benefits of its proximity to GCV’s Richmond headquarters, the Kent Valentine House, where it frequently holds membership meetings. Along with nearby GCV clubs in the area, TGCW shares responsibility for keeping the house filled with fresh flower arrangements.

TGCW partners with three remaining Richmond GCV clubs to assume alternating responsibilities during Historic Garden Week in Virginia — state chairman, area chairman, flower arrangers, hostesses, copy writers, marketing chairmen, treasurers and members of the house procurement and transportation committees. From the beginning the club has supported restoration projects funded by Historic Garden Week in the Richmond area and throughout the commonwealth.

GCV Awards

Over the years, four members of the club have received the Massie Medal for Distinguished Achievement, the oldest and most prestigious award given by the Garden Club of Virginia. Sue Thompson received the medal in 2013 for her effectiveness in promoting the betterment of the club, demonstrating excellence in horticulture, restoration, preservation and conservation of the natural resources of our Commonwealth.

2008 Annual Meeting Photos

A New Decade

The COVID-19 pandemic briefly put a stop to in-person meetings in the spring of 2019. Not to be thwarted, members continued to hold meetings and fundraising sales in open-air venues. Zooming allowed members to stay in touch and to conduct club business. It also allowed for hands-on floral design and botanical arts workshops in the colder months of the year. The internet became key in virtual club flower shows, and for floral design, horticulture and photography. Digital communications became more important, and the club’s website was updated with more comprehensive content and a fresh, user-friendly format. The monthly newsletter allowed for club business to be shared with all members. Members continued to stay in touch by emailing pictures of their COVID-19 gardens, abundant with the extra attention, and new plants and shrubs that they were installing on their properties, with uplifting quotes and stories of the plants in their lives.

As the club enters a new decade, it is planning creative ways to accommodate members with the ever-growing pressures of modern living, hoping to continue offering opportunities for all members to be educated, and to pass their knowledge of plants and the love of gardening on the others. Members are moving ahead with an urgent mission to keep things as green as possible and to reduce carbon footprints. Traditions will remain true and passions will deepen. To quote Gertrude Jekyll, “The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies.”

In preparation for its centennial in 2028, the club has begun researching its documents housed at the Library of Virginia — culling through and transcribing minutes, committee reports, reading newspaper articles, scanning photographs and other accumulated club history. As research continues, the documents are telling a story — the Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton has always been home to plant lovers, conservationists and gardeners who love making things beautiful.

TGCW Presidents 1996-2020

1996-1998	Joanie Robins
1998-2000	Ann Mason
2000-2002	Sue Thompson
2002-2004	Valerie Coleman
2004-2006	Tricia Sauer
2006-2008	Cabell West
2008-2010	Susan Landin
2010-2012	Martha Moore
2012-2014	Kathy Watson
2014-2016	Preston Gomer
2016-2018	Peyton Wells
2018-2020	Betty Jenkins