Temple Garden Club cultivates friendship through shared interests

By Janna Zepp | Photos by SKEEBO and courtesy of The Temple Garden Club

If your idea of a garden club involves neatly dressed ladies in fancy hats drinking tea, you’ve been watching too many movies and too much TV. Garden clubs feed the social aspect of making a garden not just grow but thrive, and introduces you to a group of passionate gardeners who unite to trade information, swap stories, and give each other a hand. Modern garden clubs bring together men and women of all ages who share a common love of flowers, shrubs and vegetable plants and the Temple Garden Club in Central Texas invites you to take a closer look at what they do for its members.

The origins of the club go back 93 years. Temple Garden Club was organized Sept. 7, 1930, by the City Federation of Woman’s Club’s President, Mrs. Walker Saulsbury. The club became affiliated with Texas Garden Clubs, Inc. on Nov. 30, 1930, with the motto: “Plan for beauty – Plant for performance.” Mrs. Dorothy B. Leake was the first president of Temple Garden Club serving from 1930 to 1932 as well as 1932 to 1933.

The original mission of the club included encouraging civic planting, aiding in the protections of native plants and birds, and sharing knowledge of and the love of gardening.

The Scott and McCelvey families donated a plot of land, located behind the City Federation clubhouse for a city park. The City of Temple donated water and the Works Project Administration supplied the labor. Soon, donated trees, shrubs and flowers displayed their beauty in the park. Jackson Park development was Temple Garden Club’s first project.

Interest soon turned toward highway beautification. Fifty pounds of bluebonnet seed, donated by Dr. A. C. Scott, Sr. were planted north and south of Highway 81 (now Interstate 35) and on Highway 36. We enjoy those same bluebonnets each spring.

During the early days of beautification, the State of Texas Highway Department did not have a landscape engineer. Temple Garden Club members and members of other garden clubs lobbied in Austin for the department to hire Gil Gilcreast as Texas’ first landscape engineer. For many years, Gilcreast worked with many Texas garden clubs, including Temple’s, toward the beautification of Texas Highways.

In 1991, Temple went from the “Bluebonnet Capital of Texas” to the “Wildflower Capital of Texas” under the guidance of the Temple Garden Club. Now, the Temple Garden Club is a member of District V of Texas Garden Clubs, Inc., National Garden Clubs, and the Cultural Activity Center in Temple.

The club has always been vigorously active, only briefly pausing during the years of some recent global setbacks.

“Our club, just like many others, was affected by COVID and not as much was done during the early days of the pandemic, but our 93-year history shows much as been done throughout the years,” says Charlotte Elrod, who has been president of the Temple Garden Club many times as well as a District V Texas Garden Clubs, Inc. officer many times since she joined the club in 1995.

“The members recognize Arbor Day each year with trees planted to honor our members. We do this every year. This year the tree planting was in Miller Park this year on March 2 with two Vitex trees, one for Nancy McBride and the other one for Karen Nalley,” Elrod says. She also mentions that the garden club supports more than gardening and city beautification.

“We donate money each December to support the Salvation Army,” she says.

TGC member, PJ Hill says, “The Temple Garden Club is a great club to join. The members are very friendly. They often serve a nice brunch and share good information.”

Learn more about the Temple Garden Club on their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/greenthumb68.