Contributed
The Garden Club will kick off Program Year 36 at 2 p.m. on Sept. 11 with a fun and informative presentation by Ann Haut entitled “Not Tonight Deer!”
Growing deer pressure is a fact of gardening life in Seven Lakes. Haut will discuss the autonomy and feeding habits of deer, strategies of protecting your garden and offer a show and tell on use and application of products.
The Garden Club held its first meeting on Oct. 18, 1990. About 60 people gathered to hear a presentation by Mr. Zeigler of Southern Pines on bulbs in the Fall. And so it began: 35 years of learning and fellowship.
The first board had 10 members with three members from each community and one from the Merchant’s Association. The early years were formative with the launch of the garden tour and
plant exchange events in 1992.
The member roster of 1992 contained 200 members. Much of the early efforts of the Garden Club were to improve the communities through gardens. A Sandhills Community College Horticultural Student, Sabrina Fry, was awarded a certificate by the Garden Club for creating a coordinated design for the entrances of our three neighborhoods.
Other early accomplishments include taking first place in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade with the theme “Come Join Us.”
Active in promoting gardens, the Garden Club provided compost — just $1 for three
five-gallon buckets. They reportedly had three 15-ton loads delivered and sold.
They also engaged in promoting planting with the sale of butterfly bushes, selling a total of 631. The income received from these sales went into the purchase of plants and shrubs that were planted at the entrances of the communities and in the Seven Lakes Village.
The Garden Club was very much a working club in those early years, supplementing the efforts of the communities to create a beautiful place in the Sandhills here in Seven Lakes.
Today’s Seven Lakes Garden Club is driven by a mission of providing education and fellowship opportunities for our members. The Seven Lakes Sandhills ecosystem is unique and it takes knowledge, perseverance and persistence to succeed.
The Seven Lakes Garden Club generally meets on the second Tuesday of each month at the Chapel in the Pines, 582 Seven Lakes Drive. New members are always welcome. The membership fee is $15 and is a household membership.
