Chapel Hill Garden Club beauti?es Franklin Street

Franklin Street has been looking a little bit more beautiful recently thanks to the Chapel Hill Garden Club.

Since 2011, the club has maintained two flower beds on Franklin Street.

They have also maintained a bed on Raleigh Street since 2003.

Club Historian and Community Service Co-Chairwoman Vicki Scott said two members noticed that the flower beds on Franklin had fallen into disrepair and decided to take over the duty of planting and maintaining them.

“They saw that these two planters were in such bad shape and so sad-looking and they decided to make them all pretty,” she said.

Scott said that making Chapel Hill more beautiful has been a focus of the Garden Club since it was organized in 1931.

“It started out just for talented women who devoted themselves to gardening this area and beautifying parts of Chapel Hill,” Scott said.

Jinny Marino, the membership chairwoman, said the club allows members to explore their differing interests.

“I think it provides a creative outlet for people who are interested in conservation, landscape, birds, flower arranging, horticulture, ecology,” she said.

She said it also allows members to take part in community outreach programs, like organizing the Chapel Hill Spring Garden Tour and donating gardening tools to new Habitat for Humanity homeowners.

The Spring Garden Tour is the largest event organized by the club.

The tour is held every other year and benefits the North Carolina Botanical Garden and various educational projects like the Mary Scroggs Elementary School Garden.

The Spring Garden tour was last held in April of 2012 and has raised more than $100,000.

The club now boasts 126 members — five of whom have been members for more than 30 years, Merino said.

“It’s a nice group of women — and the three men!” Merino said. “Garden Club people by and large are very generous.”

In 1932, the club was federated with The Garden Club of North Carolina, which is a National Garden Club member.

Members meet once a month, and also have the opportunity to attend speeches and classes dedicated to gardening.

“Almost all of us say we joined this club because we wanted to learn more about gardening,” Scott said.

“The main focus is to use whatever we know to beautify the community.”

And at least on Franklin Street, it seems to be working.

Sophomore Caroline Perry, of Ridgewood, N.J., said she likes walking past the flower beds on Franklin.

“I think it’s really easy to forget the value that plants and greenery have in a city-like setting,” she said. “As someone from New Jersey, it’s nice to walk around and actually see plant life.”

Scott said it is reactions like Perry’s that make the Garden Club’s projects worth the effort.

“Sometimes it’s a lot of work involved,” she said. “But it’s good to be busy and to be able to give back things that you know.”

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.