The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Making the world GROW round
Garden Club helps Dexter bloom
By Sean Dalton, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: June 12, 2008
Those impressed with the emerald sheen of Dexter's foliage should thank a group of dedicated garden enthusiasts living in and around the village.
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These green thumbs are active community members and participants in the Dexter Garden Club - one part gardening knowledge commune, one part volunteer educational organization and one part philanthropic force.
The club does much in the way of beautifying the green spaces in Dexter and making sure the community has access to the knowledge and tools to do so.
The club was established in November 1992. Sandy Hansen, a founding member of the Dexter Garden Club, was originally involved with The Federated Garden Clubs of Michigan, which changed to Michigan Garden Clubs Inc. in June 2005.
She had been giving classes for the MGC when she and about 10 fellow gardeners realized that they all had in common the distinction of being Dexter residents.
According to Hansen, it only seemed logical to form a club that was more focused on and in tune with people living in and around the village.
"I had talked with people who were members of the (MGC) and a number of them lived in the area here, so we put out an invitation for a meeting at the high school library on Nov. 18, 1992," she said.
The MGC originally grew out of the Ann Arbor Garden Club membership, who felt that a state federation with membership in a national organization could further the cause of conserving and promoting beauty in the area.
With some guidance from an MGC spokesperson, the group of residents decided they had the knowledge and the will to start Dexter's very own club and uphold those ideals much more effectively on a local basis.
"The (MGC) has a service club structure with state, national and local involvement, and we pretty much decided that we were peo
ple who mostly just liked to have dirty hands and crawl around in our gardens," Hansen said.
"We felt that they had a lot of extra stuff that didn't really relate to us. We just wanted (the club) to be one fellowship and to just keep things in our community."
The response was enough to establish the club.
"We had a very gratifying level of interest," Hansen said of the initial group of 15 original club members.
Over the past 16 years, the club has experienced ebbs and flows of membership and activity.
"Our growth was erratic ... there were a few times where we said we're really gasping for air," Hansen recalled.
But every passing spring would replenish the membership's vigor and draw new bodies to its roster.
In recent years membership has been on a steadily rising curve, according to Hansen.
"The Garden Club has really been a wonderful vehicle for people in the community in the older neighborhoods, the new neighborhoods and outside the village getting to know each other," she said.
Achieving beauty
A garden club is a lot of things and is all-inclusive to the community.
Most people don't realize it, but garden clubs aren't just for women, either.
"We started this out as a club for women and men - whoever was interested," Hansen said.
Attendance by men has been sparse and even today there is only one man, Ken Howard, among nearly 40 garden enthusiasts and green thumbs in Dexter's club.
"There are some lovely gardens among the membership and it varies, because some are very old gardens and some are in the newer subdivisions and they're creating from scratch," Hansen said.
Some folks don't exactly know what a garden club does, aside from the obvious connotation of the name.
"We have many guest speakers in our programs, from botanical gardens to speakers from the plant industry to specialists and farmers," Hansen said of the wealth of information that is available to those interested in the very broad topic of gardening.
Members also support contributions to the Dexter District Library's periodicals and new acquisitions in horticultural reference books.
"There are dozens and dozens of specific areas of focus," Hansen said.
"Gardening in the shade is one of my favorites. We hear about native plant gardening. There is much to learn about (invasive plant species).
"Our speakers are people whose interest is vocational."
The club also undertakes many projects that benefit the community at large, bringing their skills from study and practice in their own gardens to small green spaces around the community.
The club was responsible in part for the pleasing appearance of the Dexter Area Library and the historical museum. Members also help maintain the plantings at Monument Park and other places around the area.
One member in particular is even contracted by the village to maintain the greenery on municipal property.
"I really don't know how many garden beds I work with, but there are a lot of them," said Deb Helzerman, the village's contracted landscape architect and avid Garden Club member.
"They're around the bakery, the clock tower, the farmer's market and generally all over town; and they range from 20 by 40 feet long to going all around a building."
Helzerman brings much from her architectural background and horticultural knowledge, established during time spent as a hobbyist and bolstered by her Garden Club involvement.
She previously worked with the Dexter Downtown Development Authority's chairman, although now she works with Village Manager Donna Dettling and submits a proposal to the village office on a yearly basis.
She was hired in 1998 and has been involved in the club for the past four years.
Not unlike her club compatriots, she merely goes out when the weather is nice and works the soil, sowing seeds of beauty and fragrance that most passersby probably take for granted. Her work particularly picks up with extra care when an event like Dexter Daze approaches.
It's also a good opportunity to really focus on using skills gained and honed at club presentations and meetings, since such activities stop for three months during the summer.
"It's more we take a little break because during the summer people have so many things going," Helzerman said.
It's also a good opportunity for her to meet folks out and about in the village while she works her gardening magic.
"I have a lot of fun because everyone is always stopping and talking about flowers," she said.
"People ask why I replace the bulbs every year and why I'm digging them up and spacing them (Answer: because they get too big and they don't produce the same quality buds and flower unless they're spaced out)."
†What doesn't get moved to other locations, such as the Washtenaw County Sheriff's substation or places like the farmer's market, Broad Street frontage or the new Cottage Inn, gets donated to the Garden Club and sold at their various plant sales.
"We're always doing something around town," Helzerman said, adding that installing a butterfly garden at Monument Park is one of her upcoming projects.
In full bloom
This year's Dexter Garden Club annual plant sale was a resounding success. The average take of the inexpensive plant sale is $450, but that figure was doubled this year.
It was held on May 17 and was twice as successful as the sale's previous best year.
Each year the membership sets up shop at the Monument Park gazebo to sell perennials and a selection of donated plants from members' gardens.
Members also disseminate free educational material to give new gardeners that extra edge, and visitors can ask the members questions or talk to a Master Gardener.
The proceeds are used to support local horticultural needs of the community and to sponsor club speakers.
Whatever plants that weren't sold this year went to the Bates Elementary School garden project.
"It was a smashing success," said garden club member and sale organizer Joan Lansdell.
She also sponsored the Junior Master Gardener program this year, providing four $40 sponsorships for 9- to 11-year-old children.
"Our members dig up and pot their own plants and contribute from their own gardens, all of which are different," Lansdell said. "There's always something new each year."
Some members attribute the growing interest in green to a growing number of seniors taking new pride in their property and others to blooming hobbyists.
There are many reasons to get interest in gardening, according to Helzerman, who has 72 tomato plants in her garden, along with various other vegetables, and, of course, flowers.
"I probably save $10 each month on average growing, pickling and canning my own vegetables," she said.
"It's also nice to know what insecticides and pesticides are being used on what we're eating."
Aside from that, it's just nice to have a shared interest with members of the community.
Mary Robinson has lived in the village for 18 years and commutes to Plymouth for work. She says the garden club has helped her establish a life here in Dexter.
"It was my way of becoming a member of the community ... I know my neighbors where I'm living now, but I didn't really know people in town," she said.
"But now that I've joined the garden club, I have a whole slew of friends."
Robinson says her favorite recent club activity was a baby shower that the club held for Helzerman last month.
The club also comes together to help members who are ill or otherwise facing a great hardship to manage their garden so they can continue to enjoy its fruits, both literal and figurative.
"This is just a wonderful group of people who pitch in and help out."
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