On Going Club Projects


Civic Beautification

Seasonal plantings are provided and maintained throughout Acton. These include: the Acton Town Hall Oval and planters; the troughs in both Acton Center and West Acton; the barrels along Mass. Ave. in West Acton; the barrels at the Acton Memorial Library; at the fire stations; and the Citizen’s Library; as well as the barrels and ground plantings at the public safety building.
There are four plantings a year; the first being the pansies in the Spring, followed by the summer plantings in early June, with these plants chosen for sunny or shady locations. The fall plantings often include chrysanthemums and kale, with the kale staying in place for the final arrangements of winter greenery, which concludes our year. Many of the locations also have Alberta Spruce intermixed with the flowers for added interest and height.

Acton Arboretum Herb Garden

The Acton Arboretum Herb Garden, maintained for the Town of Acton by the Acton Garden Club as one of our community service activities, is sited in an old stone foundation and features herbs that might have been grown in a mid-nineteenth century kitchen garden.
In this garden, designed by Club member Sue Whitcomb and planted in 1989, herbs are grouped according to their mid-nineteenth century usage for household, medicinal and culinary purposes, as well as for teas and fragrance. The garden provides a beautiful and educational focal point in the main area of the Arboretum. 
For Historical Information Click on the picture

Meeting House Hill Gardens
Wildflower Garden and Daffodil Run

Meeting House Hill, the geographical center of Acton at Nagog Hill Road and Main Street, was the site of the Town’s first meeting house, the establishment of which was one of the conditions of the Act of Incorporation of the Town of Acton from Concord in 1735. Since the 1960’s the park has been open to the public. As part of the club’s 75 anniversary celebration, the board of the Acton Garden Club voted to give to the Town of Acton, water lines at the Wildflower Garden and Daffodil Run. These water lines allow the committees to efficiently care for new plant material and maintain a practical summer watering schedule for all plantings.

Wildflower Garden
Located along Nagog Hill Road in the historic site of Meeting House Hill, the Wildflower Garden has become the Club’s ‘garden in the woods.’ Over the last several years, committee members received design guidance from Sue Whitcomb, and have transformed a random collection of plant material into garden areas that are home to over 100 varieties of wildflowers and an impressive collection of trees and shrubs. Generous donations of both rare and native plants from the personal gardens of Sue Whitcomb and Fred Knippel have created visual interest throughout the entire garden, and the Garden Club expresses its genuine appreciation to both.
This year the renovation of the garden has continued with club members relocating many plants to create lovely drifts of color. The removal of weeds and invasive species is also important in developing the garden’s potential. Sue Whitcomb’s map was updated and a laminated copy placed in the storage box for visitors to use. And this year the garden’s newest additions include a rare bush, Enkianthus perulatus, donated by Sue which should mature into a six foot specimen with hanging white flowers. A number of rhododendrons from Fred’s garden will be planted to create a lovely backdrop for a sitting area. Stones will be arriving from Nara Park during the summer to complete this space.
At the northern edge of the garden, members maintain a nursery area for plants that can be grown and potted the following year for the spring plant sale. Members dug 125 plants for this year’s sale! The nursery area was expanded to include a new propagation bed for Fred Knippel’s generous donation of unique daylilies. The Wildflower Garden is a true hidden gem to be enjoyed by all.


Daffodil Run
Located on the embankment along Main Street near Nagog Hill Road, Daffodil Run is the most visible garden of Meeting House Hill. This historically sited garden displays massive plantings of daffodils, forsythia, daylilies and flowering shrubs in the upper garden area. It is a spectacular showcase of gorgeous spring and early summer blooms. Committee members are assisted by the Town tree warden and the conservation officer for lawn and tree maintenance and are provided with deliveries of topsoil and mulch as needed.
High school seniors also volunteer on ABRHS Community Service Day to rake, fertilize, and mulch the garden at the beginning of the season. New plant material continues to be added to the garden in keeping with its original design.


 
For Historical Information Click on the picture
Garden Therapy
Emerson Hospital
From September through June, the Acton Garden Club offers a weekly garden therapy program to adults hospitalized at Emerson with mental health conditions. Under the supervision of an occupational therapist, the Garden Club members assist patients in creating floral arrangements with flowers and supplies provided by the Club. All the patients seem to really enjoy making their arrangements, are delighted with their creations and are very appreciative of this activity.
Many patients take their arrangements back to their rooms to enjoy themselves. Others say they are going to give their arrangements to their mothers or another family member. It is very rewarding to be a part of the satisfaction and happiness the patients experience as they create their floral expressions.

Annual Student Scholarships
The Acton Garden Club awards one $1,000 scholarship annually. The winner is an Acton resident from either Acton-Boxborough Regional High School or Minuteman Regional High School of Applied Arts and Sciences who intends to pursue a career in environmental sciences, i.e. conservation, botany, forestry, horticulture, or related disciplines.
The 2010 recipient is Danny Chiao. During his high school years, Danny has demonstrated his concern for our environment by being involved in many activities that involved hands on and educational efforts in the environmental sciences. He has even gone to our elementary schools to give talks on how alternative fuels can benefit our environment.

Acton Garden Club Teacher's Grant
The Acton Garden Club has established, initially with memorial gifts from friends and family, a grant program in memory of two longtime members, Janet Bubier and Elinor Miller. This grant opportunity, in the amount of up to $500, is open to educators in the Acton Public and Acton-Boxborough Regional Schools. It provides funds for environmentally related programs or projects to develop new curricula or to enrich existing ones. The grant is provided annually, subject to the approval of the Finance Committee and the Board of the Acton Garden Club. The Board determines the procedure for application and award. Two grants were awarded in 2010.
One grant recipient was Gates Elementary School for the proposal of fifth-grade teachers Monty Grob and Becky Acheson, and third-grade teacher Sheryl Kokkinos for an ‘American Heritage Garden’ project. The project emphasizes the importance of the garden in colonial life. Students will grow and plant herbs, flowers, and vegetables valued by English ancestors as new arrivals in America and also those prized by many Chinese and East Indian students and their families who’ve joined the Gates community in recent years. The grant supports the purchase of seed, planting supplies, and materials to develop the garden.
The other grant went to CT Douglas Elementary School for second-grade teacher Anne Littlefield’s request for additional support of the on-going Douglas School Community Garden Project. The grant will support the purchase of gardening tools for the children and soaker hoses to work with the rain barrel collection system already in place.

Junior Gardeners
The Junior Gardeners’ program is open to the children and grandchildren of Acton Garden Club members. This group has been dedicated to promoting educational projects that strive to teach children a love of gardening, an appreciation of nature’s beauty, and the value and protection of our natural resources. The group environment provides a forum in which to teach children responsibility toward civic beautification and methods of cultivation and utilization of plants to enhance our quality of life. Due to the diminishing enrollment, the Junior Gardeners program is currently inactive, but we hope to renew this program in the near future.

Annual Plant Sale
Our Annual Plant Sale and Raffle is held in May. Preparations begin early in the year. This is a major fund-raiser for the Acton Garden Club and has 16 committees that coordinate all the different aspects of the sale, not to mention all the individuals who dig and pot up the plants needed for our inventory of over 2100 perennials. The weeks before the sale are the most intensive with the digging, potting, sorting, and pricing of the plants. Signs and posters are placed around town. This all culminates in a festive display of perennials, colorful annuals and tent canopies on the Acton Common.
The Plant Sale is our major fund-raiser for the year with total Club support. The proceeds go to maintain several public gardens in Acton, provide for community service projects, scholarships and grants, and fund civic beautification for the town.
Raffles
The Club holds 2 raffles a year. The first is a result of the greens workshop in December where members donate items made to be raffled. (See Library Holiday Mini-Fair article above.)
The second raffle coincides with the annual plant sale. Local merchants are solicited for prizes and raffle tickets are sold to members at the annual meeting. The raffle table is set up at the plant sale and tickets are sold during the sale. At the end of the sale winners are announced.

Gardening with Young People
The Gardening with Young People program is designed to meet four times per year with different groups of young people from the Acton-Boxborough community who are invited to participate in a hands-on education project involving one of the following interests: horticulture, floral design, conservation, civic beautification, and garden therapy. The Gardening with Young People program provides assistance and funding, if necessary. In the past, the committee has worked with Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brownies, schools, and the Acton Memorial Library children’s department.
The program was reactivated in April 2009. The first project was gardening by the boulder marking the entrance to the William O’Connell Education Park with a group of teenagers who attended ABRHS and are in the Best Buddies Program.

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