To the editor: After flooding, Green Mountain Gardeners lead in landscape restoration

Remembering July 2023, the area of the state where some of the worst Vermont flood devastation occurred, the Green Mountain Gardeners  members lead in community landscape restoration.

“The Green Mountain Gardeners is a group of community members who foster horticulture, beautification, and conservation of all natural resources in their mountain communities,” saya club President Linda Saarnijoki.

At a recent monthly community education meeting, speaker Peter Isakson of Londonderry spoke about straw bale gardening, only one of the many community program offerings on topics such as sustainable gardening, pruning, growing micro-greens and care for flowering plants.

“The garden club’s community outreach efforts include support of Flood Brook Student Activities Cooperative, wreath-making, boxwood tree workshops, decorations for the hold bound,” said Martha Dale, committee club member and vice president of the Federated Garden Clubs of Vermont.

The Gardeners beautification efforts of brightening the lives of local residents and visitors include spring clean-up in Londonderry, maintenance of Weston’s Farrar-Mansur Museum, flower plantings at the town hall in Landgrove and planting trees and bulbs in the mountain towns.

Thanks to the Green Mountain Gardeners and the Federated Garden Clubs of Vermont, Doris Van Mullen, president of the FGCV, says that a flood relief donation has been made to the Friends of Main Street Flowers Project, a community fund in Londonderry to restore the village planters. These planters, beautifully filled with gorgeous flowers each year, were washed away in the July flood.

Londonderry is the largest of the four Green Mountain Gardeners towns, the location of the hardware and grocery stores, the site of the most severe devastation and the place garden members travel through several times a week. “Contributing to the beauty of the town as well as aiding in flood relief fits our mission and the Federated Garden Clubs of Vermont,” says Saarnijoki.