The Beaufort Garden Club

August 2024 Issue
By Mary Hope Roseneau
Photos Submitted by The Beaufort Garden Club

The Beaufort Garden Club has been around for a long time—since 1934, to be exact. A group of civic-minded ladies amid the Great Depression decided they wanted to do something beautiful for their little town of Beaufort, South Carolina.

The original group all lived on The Point in the venerable homes that were built before the Civil War. But these ladies didn’t just sip tea and eat cheese straws, they went out and got their fingernails dirty! They started planting flowers and shrubs around town, and even planted the line of Sabal palmetto palms, South Carolina’s state tree, on Highway 21 to welcome folks from Gardens Corner to Beaufort. Many of those palms are still there today, having survived numerous hurricanes.

Their mission, presented by Mrs. William Scheper, Jr., is in their scrapbook on display in the Beaufort Room at the Beaufort County Library: “The things that make men alike are finer and better than the things that keep them apart.” —Canon Barnett

Fast forward 90 years: There is still a VERY active club, still called The Beaufort Garden Club, but now members live all over the community. Now, in 2024, the club’s mission is “environmental education and beautification”. This highly accomplished group has among its members several master gardeners, master naturalists, Beaufort Tree Committee members, and Rent-a-Master Gardeners. The current president, Sheila Drouin, is a professional landscape designer who has been a member of the club for 10 years.

Sheila emphasizes that the friendships made in the club are one of the reasons people love it so. The club is deliberately kept small, 29 members as the 90-year-old guidelines states, and that is so everyone can get to know everyone. And these 29 ladies do plenty of work. A sample of their projects include holding an annual flower show, building bluebird houses, and maintaining flowers and a duck nesting box at the Mossy Oaks Duck Pond. The group also provides floral arrangements for the Fall Tour of Homes for the Historic Beaufort Foundation, provides gardening therapy at nursing homes, and decorates Meals on Wheels trays with Christmas decorations.

Bea Gregory is Club Treasurer, and added that she, too, has made meaningful, lifelong friendships with everyone. She also has enjoyed opportunities to learn and develop new talents through club membership. She cites their biggest project as the annual Garden-a-Day event, held the first week of June, attracting more than 400 people per day. This event is touted as “a free gift to the community of private gardens.” The gardens are varied, from simple, easy plantings, to elaborate, professionally designed ones. It’s a very popular event, but takes a lot of work in advance, as well as many daily duties provided by the club members.

Linda Peters, the club’s 2nd Vice President, made it clear that this group is a working club, not just tea and socializing. There are community service projects all year long. One of her favorites is the “Smile for Santa” event at Christmastime. The club sets up a booth at the Port Royal Farmer’s Market, and Santa is there for photos. Families have made this a popular tradition and come back year after year. She added how the members are all friends who have love of nature in common and enjoy being together while making the community a more beautiful place.

First Vice President Catherine Stewart shared how the monthly meetings are always interesting. The members “aren’t shy and don’t mind expressing their opinions.” The commitment to engage in the many activities the club sponsors is not just a financial one; members come and do the physical work involved in preparing the gardens, digging, planting, fertilizing and spraying the flowers. Catherine enjoys the physical fitness aspect of gardening. She also told us why 29 it the magic number for membership: One of the founding ladies had 29 chairs, limiting the group size she would be able to host at meetings. Everyone needed a chair!

 

The Club’s latest project is the “Witness Tree Peace Park”, in conjunction with the Pat Conroy Center, Bartlett Tree Company and Brad Hill, Landscape Architect. Marly Rusoff, a founding board member of the Pat Conroy Center, approached Mr. Hill with the idea. Completed in 2023, it is located on a small piece of land in the parking area adjacent to the Center. The 300-year-old Live Oak is of historical significance due to a picture of the Connecticut 29th Infantry, a black Union volunteer army photographed standing under it. Additional benches will be added to the “pocket park” to create an outdoor classroom, to teach children about the inspirational photograph of the tree, the span of years it has been there, and other aspects of local history. And the view of the Bay is breath-taking from the ancient Witness Tree.

Don’t tell anyone… but the Beaufort Garden Club deliberately keeps their membership small for the close friendships of members but accepts requests from anyone wishing to join. The website has a contact information form to fill out and requires a prospective member to have a current member to sponsor them. Sometimes new members wait for years for an opening in the club; it is that popular and well-thought of in the community!

 

Join The Club:

For more information: www.beaufortgardenclub.com

Take a Walk on the Wild Side: An outstanding link on the garden club website for beautiful nearby nature destinations to visit: www.beaufortgardenclub.com/nature-walking-trails

Another proud project: The Wreaths Across America project at Christmastime engages members to place wreaths on the graves at the Beaufort U.S. National Cemetery, as well as tending to the Blue Star Memorial Highway markers in the area.