Ladies of the Garden Club

“Me? Join a garden club?” I asked my boss in amazement. “Why in the world would I do that?”

I was a career-oriented woman in my early thirties. I had no time for a garden. And unless it was a business networking group, I had no interest in clubs.


“As employees of the community health department, our mission is to make the city a healthier place to live,” Mrs. Hubbard informed me. I had no idea how joining a garden club would accomplish that. And I had no idea that Mrs. Hubbard’s mother was the club president. All I knew was, the boss said “Go”- so I went.

My first meeting was on a Wednesday morning. Looking for the address, I was captivated by the beautiful gardens in this historic Oklahoma City neighborhood. Mature trees formed a canopy blocking the sun’s glare, while vibrant purple irises, red and yellow tulips and a sea of white pansies illuminated the yard at Dorothy’s home. What a contrast to my new house in the suburbs, where the front flower bed was filled with nothing but pine bark.

Though I was a few minutes late for the meeting, only three others had arrived. The dining room table was set for a full breakfast of quiche, fruit, sausage balls, and poppy seed and banana-nut muffins. Members slowly trickled in. I was on my third cup of coffee, yet the meeting had not begun. I was a little edgy from the caffeine rush and the thought of all I needed to do at work. Then I learned that the meeting ended at noon and the ladies usually went out to lunch together afterward. I greeted that news with a smile and clenched teeth, and tried to keep from drumming my fingers impatiently.

The members, all past retirement age, introduced themselves. I was the only young person there. But as the meeting began, I found myself relaxing, captivated by the program on native plant species. I was so engrossed in imagining my own bare lawn bursting with plants, that I was caught off guard when President Bonnie announced, “We’d like to hold the meeting at your house next month, Stephanie - if you don’t mind.”

At the office later that day, I complained to a coworker. “The last thing I want to do is host a dozen women my grandmother’s age,” I groaned. “The meeting took all morning. And then they wanted me to go out to lunch! I’d been with them two hours already!” But I was stuck.

A month later, on a Wednesday morning, I dashed around my little kitchen. I dumped frozen mini-quiches from a sack and arranged them on a cookie sheet. I whacked two cans of quick-bake cinnamon rolls on the edge of the counter and slapped the doughy blobs on another pan.

This meeting will not be like the last, I thought grimly, looking at my store-bought refreshments. They probably wanted young people in the club just to do all the work!

The doorbell rang.

“I’m a little early, but I thought you could use some help getting ready for your first meeting,” announced Dorothy as she entered. “I know you’re a busy career gal, so I prepared a casserole and a fruit plate.”

Entering the kitchen, she offered to make coffee as I tried to hide evidence of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

“Oh, good! Those cinnamon rolls are my favorites,” she confided.

The doorbell rang again. Dorothy suggested she greet members so I could concentrate on being the hostess.

Soon, more than a dozen ladies were assembled. The meeting ran smoothly, and everyone seemed to enjoy the refreshments—- even the ones from the frozen-food section.

“Now, since you’ve been our hostess today, we have a gift for you,” said Bonnie. “Open your front door.”

When I did, my jaw dropped in surprise. A dozen sacks filled with homegrown plants, potted shrubs and a flat of pansies welcomed me.

“It’s your initiation,” said Bonnie, laughing heartily. “We brought you something from our own gardens with a note on where to plant it and how to care for it.”

“I brought the pansies,” whispered Dorothy. “I noticed you admired them at our meeting last month.”

Tears blurred my eyes as I thanked them. “I was embarrassed for you all to come out here. My yard is so bare.”

“Oh my, no!” exclaimed Bonnie. “It’s just a blank canvas waiting for an artist’s brush.”

Most everyone stayed to help me wash dishes and rearrange chairs.

Two days later, I got a call from Bonnie. “I’ve separated some coreopsis to plant around your fence,” she said. “Say, if you haven’t put the plants from Wednesday in the ground, I’ll come Saturday morning and help if you want me to. You have been watering them daily, right?”

“Of course,” I lied.

That evening I went home and tended the wilting plants, hoping they would revive overnight before Bonnie’s arrival.

At seven in the morning, shovels in hand, three members of the Carefree Rose Garden Club arrived. They taught me how to arrange my landscape, and we dug a new twenty-foot flower bed around my front yard. The ladies brought more irises, amaryllis, tulips, hyacinths, coreopsis, pansies, peonies, redbud trees, wisteria, daisies and crepe myrtle bushes. We finished before noon, exhausted.

“It’s beautiful,” I whooped, as we brushed clumps of dirt and leaves off one another. “I could never have done it without you.”

“That’s garden club,” said Bonnie.

We all staggered over to wash up at the garden hose. Then Dorothy asked me to get a picnic basket and ice chest from her car.

“I thought we’d be too tired to fix lunch, so I made us sandwiches before I came,” she said.

Sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with my newfound elderly friends, I realized I had never been muddier in my adult life. And, I giggled to myself, I couldn’t remember having this much fun.

Me? Join a garden club? Where do I sign up?