Gallatin Empire Garden Club

President: Annie Mollock
Vice President: Susan Woods
Secretary: Cindy Carlton / Treasurer: Jackie Preedom
Membership contacts: Susan Woods (585-7533) or Phyllis White (586-0400)
Annual membership dues are $15 and entitles members to receive Montana Gardens, the publication of the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs, Inc.

Our club is dedicated to helping others learn about gardening and to appreciate the natural resources around us. Meetings are held at Noon on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at the Bozeman Senior Center located at the corner of Tracy and Tamarack Streets (across from the Gallatin County Fair Grounds). Each meeting features a speaker or demonstration on some aspect of gardening, conservation, landscaping or floral design.

We are a group of fun-loving, energetic gardeners. The public is welcome to attend any meeting and membership is open year-round so stop by and get acquainted. If you have any questions about our meetings or programs, please call one of the membership members listed above.

Upcoming Meetings and Calendar

Tuesday, January 20 at Noon "Old Lexington Gardens" by Norm DeNeal. Historic and horticultural video of the historic Butte garden designed in 1890. Bring a sack lunch and a friend!

GARDEN GNOMES SCHEDULE

Junior Gardeners Sponsored by GEGC
Please join us at the Boys & Girls Club
call Judy Ritter, 763-4057, for information on dates and times

Below is a recipe the Garden Gnomes enjoyed at a recent meeting on bird habitat. Enjoy!

Our long-time member, Margaret Yaw, served as Montana's "2003 Garden Club Member of the Year" and is a member of the National Garden Club mentoring and scholarship committees, state advisory council, and is a flower show judge emeritus. Margaret was recently honored with the "Golden Circle Award" from the National Garden Clubs, Inc. Jackie Preedom, Susan Andrews, Vicky Barbieri and Linda Lindgren are accredited flower show judges. Kerin McCarver is an accredited landscape consultant. Susan Andrews serves as state native plant chairman. Phyllis White serves as the state web site chair, is the state's second vice-president, and serves on the financial committee. Our members are hard at work in their gardens, for the club and to carry out the mission of the state Federation.

Judy Ritter was awarded the Club's Circle of Green Thumb Award at the 2007 state convention in Great Falls. The club also won an award from the National Garden Club for their work at the Gallatin Rest Home Sensory Garden. The garden was named "2007 Best Horticultural Therapy Project" in the United States.

The 34 club members contribute time to several projects for the community thoughout the year --

Floral designs are made for Bozeman Deaconess Hospital Hospice patients on a regular basis.

The club provides landscape assistance, plant materials and maintenance in areas of Kirk Park, Bozeman Library, Gallatin Rest Home, Boys and Girls Club and the Bozeman Senior Center. Members have just helped to install a garden for horticulture therapy complete with sensory gardens, benches, raised plant beds and a water feature at the local Gallatin Rest Home for the nursing home patients (pictured above). This garden project won an award from the National Garden Clubs for best horticultural therapy project in the United States.

In late November the members meet to decorate large holiday wreaths and swags which are donated to non-profit organizations in the community including the libraries, Senior Centers, Battered Women's Shelter home and local government buildings. Members and their wreath creations are pictured further down the page.

In July the club organizes and presents the horticulture exhibits and a Flower Show at the Gallatin County Fair. This large endeavor brings together gardening enthusiasts of all ages willing to show the best garden specimens in the Gallatin Valley.

Below are pictures of new fundraising items for sale by our members. All proceeds support the programs described above. Please scroll further down the page to see other projects we support as well as the junior gardeners.

Items for Fundraiser

Members of the Gallatin Empire Garden Club are offering items for sale to other club members and the public to raise money to fund their new projects. The mailing seals shown to the right were sold for many years by the Bozeman garden club. They've recently been re-issued and would make a great holiday card sticker for anyone living in Montana as they feature the state flower, the bitterroot (also the logo of this state Federation). The cost is $2.50 for a packet of 25 seals (plus 41 cents for mailing). The background of the seal is silver.

Please email Susan Andrews to place an order. The Gallatin Empire Garden Club members thank you for your support.

Flower Arranging Supplies - everything you need for personal arrangements or for the big flower show. Each order placed through this site contributes to Gallatin Empire Garden Club projects. Click on the image to the left.

Below, members prepared floral table designs for the 2007 Senior Center Volunteer Appreciation Dinners.