Greens And More At Garden

Club’s Annual Holiday Sale

The Garden Club of Newtown will hold its annual Greens Sale on Saturday, December 2, from 9 am to 3 pm, at Newtown Meeting House, 31 Main Street in Newtown (at the flagpole).

Members will be selling hand-crafted items such as grapevine and evergreen wreaths, swags, topiaries, kissing balls and small potted Alberta spruce trees that can be used as table decorations now and replanted later. New this year will be Colonial-style fruit door decorations, special designs for mailboxes, and live poinsettias in pots and baskets.

This year’s special guest during the sale will be Sydney Eddison, a Newtown resident and author, lecturer and garden expert. Ms Eddison will autograph copies of The Self-Taught Gardener, her 1997 release, from 10 am to noon.

Ms Eddison’s gardens, which are opened to the public for two local charity events annually, have been featured on television and in magazines. She is a frequent writer for Fine Gardening, Horticulture, and many other publications, the author of five books on various gardening subjects, and a popular guest lecturer from Maine to Ohio.

Of The Self-Taught Gardener, Country Living Gardener wrote “…her invigorating book approaches garden making as most gardeners do — bit by bit, question by question, drawing upon years of experience. …Sydney removes the mystery — but not the magic — of gardening.”

John Elsey, the director of horticulture at Wayside Gardens, called Ms Eddison’s writing “sound, practically-based knowledge.” To her writing, Ms Eddison has always brought the joy, enthusiasm and experience of a lifelong gardener.

Also being featured at the garden club’s holiday event this year will be a raffle for a large papier maché Santa made by club co-president Kay Cochrane. The figure is on view at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street in Newtown, until Friday, December 1.

A long-time member of the garden club, Ms Cochrane has previously created papier maché figures of animals, angels and smaller Santa figures for club members and club events. She is a talented painter and has won many awards.

Raffle tickets are $1 each, or six for $5. The tickets can also be purchased at the library through December 1; they will then be sold during the sale on December 2 until just before 2. First Selectman Herb Rosenthal will draw the winning ticket that afternoon.