Garden Club Presents Its Best Sale To Date

By Shannon Hicks

The Garden Club of Newtown welcomed the holiday season last weekend by presenting what turned out to be its most successful greens sale to date.

“There were people waiting in line for us when we opened the doors at 9,” garden club publicity chairman Ginnie Carey happily reported this week. The sale ran from 9 am to 3 pm on December 2 at Newtown Meeting House.

Dozens of wreaths greeted the sale’s earliest visitors. The wreaths were grapevine and evergreen varieties, and each had been hand-decorated by garden club members and were then displayed on the end of pews and on the benches of the meeting house.

Also awaiting sale visitors were Colonial door hangings, a new offering this year. Priced at a very affordable $50 each, the hangings were all but gone by the end of the sale. (One lucky winner at the following day’s Festival of Trees, a raffle event that is part of an annual town-wide holiday celebration, also went home with one of the club’s door hangings, which had been donated to the festival.)

Garland and poinsettia were also available this year, as were small trees perfect for table-top decoration, swags, kissing balls, and topiary.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal stopped by the Meeting House on Saturday. Mr Rosenthal had been invited to pull the winning raffle ticket for a handmade papier maché Santa figure created by Newtown resident and club member Kay Cochrane. Sean Duran was the winner of the holiday decoration.

Gardener and popular author Sydney Eddison was another guest of the garden club. The Newtown resident was at the Meeting House, signing copies of The Self-Taught Gardener. Mrs Eddison not only signed all 50 copies of the book the garden club had available Saturday morning, but also promised to sign additional copies for orders the club accepted once its inventory was gone.

Mrs Eddison was gracious for the two hours she was at the sale, greeting every one of her readers and friends with a bright smile. A few people were able to spend some time talking with the master gardener, who freely offered advice and suggestions for those who approached her with their concerns.

One of the reasons Mrs Eddison’s books are so popular is that her writing style is so friendly and approachable. She breaks difficult tasks down into easy-to-understand steps, and makes gardening the pleasure it should be. The same can be said for the lady’s personality: She is vivacious, approachable, and incredibly friendly. It was no surprise that her books were gone before her scheduled appearance was to have ended Saturday morning.

A few hours into the sale, the garden club’s inventory was also nearly depleted. A few poinsettias here and there, a scattered wreath, and only a few of the door hangings were left for late-comers. The early birds got the proverbial worms.

“We raised more money than ever before,” Ginnie Carey said this week. The final count Saturday afternoon was at least $3,000, she said, and that was not including the money the club will receive from the book sales (the publisher will receive a percentage of the profits; the garden club will then collect the balance). “This was our best sale to date. We are very, very pleased.”