The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Last week Chinook's Jumping Junipers, a local garden club that is part of the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs, hosted 40+ members of four other area garden clubs that make up District 7, the Hi-Line District. Each spring one of the five clubs hosts the spring meeting-a combination of conducting district business, learning opportunities from each other and invited gardening professionals, good food and visiting with old friends and making new ones. The event was held at Wallner Hall.

The Montana Federation's President is Linda Sadler from Missoula. She said, "We have eight districts with 3-4 garden clubs in each. The Hi-Line District is the largest, geographically, with clubs in Havre, Saco, Nashua, Malta and Chinook. I attend all the district meetings in the spring. This is one of my favorite because the people are so great and they have such wonderful programs about gardening." From Chinook Sadler was headed to spring meetings in Conrad, Big Timber and then Townsend. Montana's Federation has 24 functioning garden clubs in the eight districts.

As the ladies arrived (all attendees were women. Someone said, "We used to have a male member in the district but he died.") Among the attendees there were a lot of enthusiastic greetings and catching up on family and club news. It was a beautiful sunny, pleasant spring day and more than one attendee commented "we finally get the perfect day to work in our gardens and we are inside all day." That didn't seem to take away from their excitement to talk and learn more about gardening.

There were door prizes and items being sold as fundraisers. One table was covered with small potted plants. Diana Martin, a Chinook member, explained, "These plants were mostly donated by members of the Chinook club, with some brought by other clubs. We sell these and the proceeds go to the hosting club." Some of the plants must have been hard to find as they were quickly sold.

Marni Thompson, Resource Planner with the National Resource Conservation Service, was setting up a display related to soil health. She said, "I'll be presenting a program called "Soil Health and Gardening."" She added, "I do this program at many different types of meetings and for varied groups. Sometimes I do a similar program for grain farmers. Whatever the format, it's about the necessity for healthy soil to produce healthy plants." There were other educational resources available about gardening.

An international movement

Visiting with the garden club members got me to thinking about when my family lived in Georgia. I recall there was a very active garden club in the small town where we lived. I called Bonnie Nash, the Business Manager for the Garden Club of Georgia, Inc. (the umbrella organization in the state for all the local clubs). She told me that Georgia has one of the largest state garden club organizations with 335 local clubs.

The National Garden Clubs (NGC) organization has state garden clubs, like the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs, in all 50 U.S. states plus 330 international affiliated groups and 5000 garden clubs around the world. Those clubs have a total 175,000 members. Nash, with Georgia's state program, said, "These numbers are large but over the years the number of clubs has declined and membership has waned as well. It's likely a part of the trend we see that there is less interest in belonging to community and volunteer organizations."

More than spring meetings

A club member described some of the many projects that garden clubs along the Hi-Line are doing. Here in Chinook, the Jumping Junipers plant and maintain the barrels of flowers along Indiana Street each summer. The club also selects and promotes the "Yard of the Week" program during the summer-a recognition of an outstanding yard or garden with photos in the newspaper and a sign in the yard. The club judges the flower entries during the Blaine County Fair and offers special educational programs related to plants and gardening during the year. The Jumping Junipers garden club meets every third Thursday. If you are interested in membership or attending a meeting, call Carol DePriest, 357-3870. All are welcome.

The "Journal" thanks the Jumping Juniper members for their efforts in beautifying our area and wishes them a successful growing season this year.