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Garden Club Upgrades Library Landscape

By Ruth Cantillon

    Several months in the planning, a week of gathering supplies and plants from Green Isle Gardens in Groveland and Bz’s Happy Plants of Umatilla (both nurseries generously discounted our purchases), a couple of days of my husband John with his trailer and others with their cars hauling loads of plants to our site, and members and friends of the Umatilla Garden Club were ready to transform a neatly mulched but somewhat sterile landscape to a lush, colorful environment that will host birds, butterflies, bees and other pollinators as it grows.
    This is what it means to live in a small town. From kids to seniors, more than 30 Umatilla Garden Club members and friends gathered on Saturday, October 11 to make this dream a reality. These folks turned out to plant a garden filled with Florida native plants and blooming perennials, right outside the Umatilla Library. Many hands truly made light work- for two hours, sounds of shovels hitting dirt, the shh-shh of rakes in the mulch, sharp snipping of pruners, water gurgling from sprinkling cans, laughter and joking conversations filled the air as the group dug into planting dozens of shrubs, trees and flowers. Afterwards, job well done, we mopped our brows, washed our hands, and enjoyed the homemade picnic lunches that were the club’s gift to our volunteers.
    As president of the Umatilla Garden Club this year, it was my privilege to design the space, with lots of input on final placement within each zone from the experienced gardeners and certified master gardeners among our numbers. Club funds along with private donations from our membership, both in cash and in kind, helped us secure all the plants on our list for this first phase of our garden. Two succeeding phases are planned for late winter and spring of next year, when more perennial flowers along with additions to the pre-existing small rose garden will be planted. Signage and other elements will be added in the months to come; a butterfly release will be scheduled next spring.
    We appreciate the City of Umatilla, who upgraded the existing irrigation system, made sure we had mulch in abundance, and will continue to maintain the surrounding grounds. It was a pleasure working with Paul and Kenny, who were both extremely cooperative in making sure the garden area was prepped and ready for our Saturday planting.
    The project also had support from the Umatilla Library, and the Umatilla Friends of the Library. Head librarian Amy Stultz and her staff have collaborated with us on ideas for utilizing the garden in future children’s programs. The library provides monthly meeting space for the garden club. They support our community families at large with free educational gardening programs in conjunction with UF/IFAS master gardeners; additionally, they keep a seed library stocked so that patrons can have access to growing their own food and flowers. They are an incredible resource for our little town.
    Gardens like this one require ongoing love and maintenance. Long-time garden club member Judy Curtis will be coordinating volunteers interested in helping with monthly light pruning, weeding and other tasks necessary for keeping the plantings beautiful. You can find out more about this and upcoming programs and new projects on the Umatilla Garden Club community Facebook page. If you are interested in making a donation or have any questions you can message through Facebook or email me directly at domesticblissjrc@gmail.com.
    To live in a community that grows together, one that values cultivating and stewarding our precious green spaces,  that comes together across the generations, with children asking questions, eagerly helping while adults from young to elders share their knowledge, all laboring and getting hands dirty together, all knowing the satisfaction of making a lasting legacy for those who come after us…this is a blessing. To all who helped on Saturday and to those who will continue to help in the future, on behalf of the Umatilla Garden Club, we offer our gratitude and thanks.