Our History

In 1952, a small group of women (Sally Van Sciver, Lou Morgan, Margie Davison, Meg Driscoll and Joan Taylor) who were all interested in gardening, gathered at our old friend and instigator's house, Sally Van Sciver. She lived on a little street in Roxborough called Hendrin St. Everyone on that street were young newlyweds, young mothers and all wanted in. So we started and that was the origin. Our first meetings were in the Wolf's old barn at Germantown Avenue and Bells Mill Rd., cold and uncomfortable, but it was big enough. 

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One of our first speakers was Mrs. Miller, Bright Judson's mother. She taught us flower arranging. Even terms had changed. we had never heard of flower arranging, only "bouquets". In the beginning, we had friends from other garden clubs, like Huntingdon Valley. They helped us set the framework for a garden club. As the years past, we had several mother-daughter combinations, i.e. Helen Peake and Barbara Frazier [later daughter Sandy Frazier Connelly and her daughter, Whi​tney Connelly], Margie Davidson and Peg Freeman. 

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Another early speaker was a landscape designer from Chestnut Hill - Fred Peck. He was interested in our success and helped us with plot plans. He said we would all move from small rentals like Hendrin Street to either big old stone Chestnut Hill houses with bushes to the third floor, or new houses [and he was right!] You should take out the old, couldn't save it by cutting back; start over, the new needed a plan for foundation pla ting first. The following year, focus on perimeter planting. Each speaker had lessons for us and we had club notebooks which filled quickly. We walked around holding clippers with Betty Lippincott, a member of another garden club and she taught us to prune. 

 

As we gained confidence, we accepted invitation to have small flower shows with real judges. Small clubs like Random Garden Club were also just forming. We lost several members about then because we voted against becoming federated. That was the only route to judging, but we decided we would stay small, in the neighborhood, like Chestnut Hill Bloom. Pam remembers joining the club at age 30 and attending meetings in "lovely homes of much older members." Meetings had beautiful table settings, with linen and silver, not like our more casual meetings today. 

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Pam remembers that one of her very first experiences was a flower arranging workshop at the home of Mary Anne McDonald on Bells Mill Road. The speaker was Barbara Hanes, noted gardener and flower arranger from Huntingdon Valley. The task was a table setting (placemat and silver which we were to provide along with the appropriate centerpiece made from roadside plant material. A good friend of Pam's, Barbie became her mentor. She gave Pam and others the encouragement they needed to enter the Philadelphia Flower Show Small Niche Class. As CHGC is not Garden Club of America affiliated, we relied on the strength of our members. 

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Betty recalls, "We had some real 'go-getters'. [Two were] Nancy Roberts and Betty Fischer, who  together led us into new territory - the Philadelphia Flower Show. We had fun dreaming up the setting. We had two excellent flower arrangers - Mary Ann Mackin and Bright Judson. It was always hard to get a chairman or money to stage [the flower show entry]. After several fund raisers, and of course our dues, we managed, but it was also hard to pay speakers. We built [flower show exhibits] in the basement of All Saints Hospital, now called Chestnut Hill Rehab. Members got inspired to exhibit on their own, ie. Sunny Windowsill and Window Box etc." ​

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In the earlier years, the garden club entered the room and table class quite frequently. In those days, it was much easier to get into the class you wanted. Pam recalls that she and Bright Judson were of the few who entered the "big show", the PHS Flower Show, which was held in the old civic center downtown. We have a silver cup at the PHS Flower Show named for [member] Nancy Clausen for Victorian (Best). Later on the club required members to enter the Chestnut Hill Flower Show with arrangements in the store front windows. As Pam grew more confident, she tried to get the members to enter some competition by giving lectures on the small niche class, which she won awards for many times. Nancy recalls on year when they entered the garden class, "A Seaside Garden". Each member had a task, with the youngest being sent to a cemetery to collect mulch in large plastic bags, which was the foundation for the planting. They loved working together, and were thrilled to learn that "tear down" meant Party!

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Betty shared that the garden club moved into larger projects and charities like decorating a nursing home for Christmas and historic homes in Germantown - Stenton, Cliveden etc. We have decorated every park house - Mt. Pleasant, Lemon Hill, Cedar Grove. 

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Several of our members took outside courses with Mrs. Bush-Brown at Temple or Mrs. Barnes at the Barnes Museum. We also created "beauty spots" such as Top of the Hill dedicated to Mary Ann McDonald and a wild flower garden in memory of Margie Davidson at Schuylkill Valley Nature Center. 

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Pam recalls that at one point, we had one meeting each year which required each member to bring a theme-oriented arrangement and an outside judge came to critique our arrangements. This was very helpful. Nancy remembers that we had a compulsory Garden Club competition about three times a year. She remembers studying the "Sunset Book of Flower Arranging". One year, Bright Judson won with a glorious arrangement in a child's rubber boot! In more recent years, we added tips for flower arranging and exhibiting at the Flower Show to our CHGC booklets. For many years, Nancy remembers practicing flower arranging at the Rittenhouse Flower Market. They used flowers donated by a funeral home to produce many "made to order" arrangements in disguised tuna fish and orange juice cans. 

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Nancy shared, "We had parties... and the best one was a dinner party at the Cricket Club where only the husbands participated in a [arrangement] challenge class during cocktails and were later judged - much merriment!

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The older garden club members were an inspiration to the young ones. As a young woman who had just moved from Boston to Philadelphia, I knew few of the members. Among my favorites were Betty Browning, Nancy Robers, Huggie Burrall, Sally Van Sciver and Helen Peake. We always got babysitters when the kids were young and we never had evening meetings! Heaven forbid! As we matured we took our turns taking positions on the executive committee and as Chestnut Hill Garden Club presidents. What a journey! ~ Pam Leighton

 

All the digging, carrying rocks, spreading mulch got us dirty; we brought in our husbands to help and get us into the flower show long before the crowds. It's been a great trip and a big part of my life. ~Betty Browning

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It has been rewarding to see the club grow from a group of friends forming a club in order to participate in the Philadelphia Flower Show to a club that also studies horticulture, participates in community service and is activ in conservation. It has enriched my life in so many ways. ~Nancy Shepard