The History of the Garden Club of Nashville

On April 30,1928, a group of twenty-four civic minded gardeners gathered at the Franklin Road home of Mrs. Jesse Overton to form the Garden Club of Nashville. Mrs. Overton was elected President with Mrs. E. A. Lindsey as Vice President and Mrs. Frank Berry as Treasurer. Although wrinkle-free was still in the future, the minutes of the meeting reveal surprisingly contemporary concerns: the importance of soils being analyzed, choices of fertilizers, the challenge of blackspot on roses and the ease and joy of an iris garden in middle Tennessee. In the first years a primary focus was choosing members who would contribute leadership or horticultural expertise. The Garden Club of Nashville became a member of the Garden Club of America in 1932.


GCN, a member of the Tennessee Federation of Garden Clubs and the Horticultural Society of Middle Tennessee, has 65 active members and 27 affiliate members. The Garden Club meets from September through May on the second Thursday of the month. The meetings are in the afternoon in member’s homes, with an average of three hosts per meeting. Lectures, business meetings or workshops are followed by high tea.
From the beginning the club’s efforts and interests centered on horticulture, conservation, city beautification and community involvement. Of the scores of projects undertaken in the past seventy-five years, a few have left a lasting impact on our community. 

In 1929 the Sam Davis Home in nearby Smyrna was selected as a major project, and the club set about landscaping the grounds and planting the flowerbeds. The project continued until 1958 when the local community took over the responsibility.

In 1955 the membership voted to restore the gardens at Traveler’s Rest, historic home of John Overton. The garden blossoms as a result of annual funds, contributions of plants and tireless weeding by GCN members. The maintenance of The Traveler’s Rest Gardens has been turned over to the Tennessee Chapter of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America.
1960 brought the birth of the Botanical Gardens and Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, the Garden Club of Nashville gave full support to this exciting new addition to Nashville and Tennessee. In 1971, the Garden Club of Nashville and the Exchange Club of Nashville assisted the Cheekwood staff to produce Nashville’s first Lawn and Garden Fair. The Fair included two hundred rental booths, display gardens, and a series of lectures and educational demonstrations for the twenty thousand garden enthusiasts who attended. The majority of the proceeds enriched Cheekwood.

 In 1976, as a commemorative for America’s Bicentennial, the club planted two and a half acres of magnolia trees at Cheekwood. This collection consisted of thirty-three species, varieties and hybrids.

For over twenty years, the Garden Club raised funds from the sale of wooden garden benches to enhance horticultural projects within the community. Some of these include, the entrance landscape for the Cumberland Children’s Museum, (now The Adventure Science Center), a small library at the Warner Park Nature Center, the stone walls at Bison Meadow in Forrest Hills, something at libe and reconstruction of the original kitchen garden fence at the Belle Meade Plantation.

 

In 1968, under the leadership of Mrs. David Y. Proctor, Jr., (formerly Mrs. William C. Weaver, Jr.) and the Garden Club of Nashville, “Wildings,” the wildflower garden of the late Mrs. Harry Howe, one of the club founders, was moved to Cheekwood. The membership’s chief ongoing project is the upkeep and growth of this garden. The garden staff and Garden Club members propagate seeds and grow native wildflowers from the garden. Each spring, in a large tent on the lawn at Cheekwood, the Garden Club holds a three day Wildflower Fair, a public sale of wildflowers, raising in excess of $40,000 annually to help maintain the Howe Garden.


NASHVILLE AND THE GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA 

From the beginning, one of the Nashville Garden Club’s goals was to become a member of the Garden Club of America. The Garden Club of America’s purpose is to stimulate a knowledge and love of gardening; to share the advantages of association by means of open meetings, conferences, correspondence and publications and to restore, improve and protect the quality of the environment through programs and action in the field of conservation, civic improvement and education.

In 1949, the Garden Club of Nashville together with the Garden Clubs of Asheville, Knoxville and Chattanooga hosted the Garden Club of America’s annual meeting.

In 1968, the Garden Club of Nashville hosted the Southeastern Zone Meeting, which included the first official Zone Flower Show.

The Club served as hosts for the 71st annual meeting of the Garden Club of America at the Opryland Hotel in 1984.

The Club served as host for the Zone IX Meeting and Flower Show at the Vanderbilt Plaza in 1990.

The Nashville Garden Club will host the Zone IX Meeting in May of 2004.