Who We Are
The Weeders was founded May 6,1907, by five young women who wanted to belong to a garden club of their own–not the one of their mothers. Their purpose was “to form a club for the study of any subject connected with Gardens.” Future members were to be admitted, “on condition that they owned gardens in which they were active workers.” In 1913, now grown to 20 members, The Weeders accepted the invitation from the Garden Club of Philadelphia to join eleven other clubs to form The Garden Club of America.
Early Weeders were expected to present papers on garden subjects at club meetings, and 100 such papers had been presented by 1914, with titles ranging from seeds, to soils, and from garden costume (really) to “how to get the best of weeds.”
Weeders came out of their backyards often. In 1917 they trained and led a unit of the Land Army Farmerettes, and in the 1940’s they raised victory gardens. Later, The Weeders provided years of work in the Philadelphia Neighborhood Garden Project, and they were also prominent in establishing the Philadelphia Committee of the GCA, (PCGCA) now a model for inner-city GCA projects.
The young Weeders of 1907 laid a path for our subsequent activities. Like them, we are still learning and are active workers in our own and public gardens (such as the entry garden at Cliveden); we strive to protect native flowers; we do community planting (such as the Strafford Train Station); we fund conservation scholarships and projects; and we attempt to follow our motto, taken from a poem by Longfellow and adopted by us in 1915: “Learn to labor and to wait.”
Workshops
Regular workshop topics include propagation, flower arranging, pruning and trough making. Such workshops offer the opportunity for learning and sharing, as well as for getting to know other members. These workshops build the needed skills and confidence for Weeders to enter club-only as well as outside flower shows.
Activities
Weeders frequently exhibit in the Philadelphia International Flower Show, with entries ranging from individual plants or arrangements to larger exhibits, which require a team effort. This provides another avenue for getting to know club members.
Gardeners who have been at it for any length of time eventually have too many plants. Many Weeders participate in spring and fall plant sales; some occasionally invite members to “come dig.”
Meetings
The Club holds a regular monthly meeting, typically on the second Tuesday, except in July and August. A speaker is usually featured, with broad-ranging topics generally related to horticulture, flower arranging and environmental issues.
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Our group has considerable depth of knowledge in horticultural and design. We enjoy sharing our plants and knowledge with each other and welcome new members who contribute both diversity of background and areas of expertise.
The Weeders is a tax-exempt organization,
Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
About Garden Clubs
The Philadelphia area is home to myriad garden clubs, and it is safe to say that each has its own personality.
The Weeders is known to be an an easy-going group with quite a diverse membership and very deep horticultural roots.
We pride ourselves on taking a low-key approach with respect to demands on our members time. Over the years, most of us have had periods of intense involvement in Weeders activities as well as times of pulling back for a while. While we don’t hold to strict requirements, the rewards of being in a garden club are commensurate with the level of one’s participation.
Some clubs have a provisional membership period, during which the prospective member and the club members get to better know one another. Full membership comes after a period of months or years. The Weeders do not take that approach, so we ask that the proposer and the proposed have a clear idea of what membership in The Weeders entails.
We feel strongly that The Weeders have much to offer new members and that new members, with their rich backgrounds and experiences, have much to offer in return!
Affiliations
Garden Club of America (GCA)
Corporate Office
14 East 60th St, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10022
Phone: 212.753.8287
Fax: 212.753.0134
Philadelphia Committee of the
Garden Club of America (PCGCA)
The Philadelphia Committee was formed in 1964 to combine the resources and talents of the ten area clubs in order to accomplish major civic projects more easily.
Projects are financed by annual contributions to the Fertilizer Fund, club dues, and the sale of publications and postcards. A joint meeting of the ten participating garden clubs, with an outstanding program, is held annually for all club members and their guests.
PCGCA funds were used to build the traffic triangle gardens flanking Logan Circle and to restore the Swann Fountain, which is the central feature of Logan Circle on the Parkway between Philadelphia’s City Hall and the Art Museum. Other funds have been used for projects at the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, the Physic Garden, and the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital.
By the early days of the twentieth century, women had come together across the country to form neighborhood or community-based garden clubs. In 1912, Mrs. J. Willis Martin, of the Garden Club of Philadelphia, proposed to create a national organization to bind some of these clubs together in hopes of bolstering the level of horticultural knowledge throughout the country. In April 1913, Mrs. Martin called to order a joint meeting of three such clubs—The Gardeners, The Garden Club of Philadelphia and The Weeders—and The Garden Club of America was born. There were twelve Founding Clubs scattered through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Michigan and Illinois.
The Garden Club of America strives to protect our natural resources and to educate people about the value of their natural heritage. It supports a scholarship for a student in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome. It also established the Interchange Fellowship, under which a student from England takes horticultural courses at an American university, and vice versa. It contributed to the establishment of the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. and helped preserve—through a purchase—a tract of Redwood Forest in California. Its Founders Fund grants, awarded since 1936 and now totalling about $30,000 annually, go toward community projects proposed by member clubs, with the winners being chosen by vote at the GCA Annual Meeting.
Today, the GCA is comprised of nearly two hundred clubs from throughout the continental U.S. and Hawaii. Its reason for being has remained constant, however: “The object of The Garden Club of America shall be to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening, to share the advantages of association by means of educational meetings, conferences, correspondence and publications and to restore, improve and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic improvement.
Up-to-date Zone information and current publications can be accessed at the GCA website: gcamerica.org. If you need help accessing the Members-Only section, contact Lorraine Wallace.