2009-2010 Committee
Jennie Ferretti, Chairman
Jane Beattie, Betty Belden, Kim Foster
Jenny Ferretti, Ginny George, Lynn Goldsmith
Jessica Graney, Tori Hardy, Betsy Johnson
Marion Jones, Priscilla Lawson, Mary Anne Michael
Antoinette Morrison, Kathy Muehlman, Ann Orders
Nina Peyton, Susan Shumate, Sara Hoblitzell, Ann Sibernagel
Buffy Wallace, Kit Wellford
MEETING SCHEDULE
See Members Only page for details
Decision to End the Plant Exchange after 2006
The Plant Exchange will be held for the last time at the 2006 Annual Meeting. At that time, the GCA will proudly celebrate 33 years of successfully growing, showing and sharing more than 19,000 plants.
The GCA Ad Hoc Committee to Study Annual Meetings asked the Horticulture Committee to consider its role in helping the Garden Club of America simplify and streamline annual meetings and this was the impetus for the discussions that resulted in this unanimous decision.
We initially started looking at how to change the PX in terms of space and cost but in the end, it was the reality of the necessity to adapt to this ever -changing environment and world of ours that held the answers.
Sudden Oak Death, invasive plants, and other known and unknown environmental concerns played a vital role in our assessment. The federal government has placed restrictions on the shipment of all plants from nurseries in California, Washington and Oregon. These states supply one-third of the country’s nursery plants. The advice of Dr. David Rizzo of the University of California and a leading authority on SOD, was that private individuals should absolutely not ship plants out of state. He said the government could at least control the nurseries but not the hobbyists. SOD has now been found in 22 states and there are at least 32 species of plants ranging from Rhododendrons to roses to ferns that are susceptible to SOD. The larger message from the Garden Club of America of endorsing the exchange of plants across the country was an important consideration about the future of the PX.
We will continue to have a significant educational presence at future annual meetings, with an emphasis on propagation. The committee has many exciting and positive suggestions for this and there is a very strong sentiment that live plant material in some form should be one of the components.
The committee will create a propagation class with a theme and guidelines that will change every two years. This class will be written in detail and may be directly incorporated into any GCA flower show schedule from the club level to a Major Flower Show. The zone reps will give propagation workshops based on this theme. Any flower show committee that wishes to have an exchange of these plants could create its own guidelines and do so and this will be encouraged for zone meetings. It will be recommended that those clubs that do not already have a propagation award will consider creating one. The Horticulture Committee will be ready and willing to help in all of these efforts.
The concern and care that went into arriving at the determination to end the PX was heartfelt and it was done with a great sense of responsibility, regret and loss. The entire committee recognized the importance of the PX and its role in promoting and encouraging propagation at the club level and it was not readily dismissed. Dreams are difficult to give up and it was a sad day.
The committee faces great challenges in determining appropriate alternatives to the PX that will continue to instill in GCA members, the joy and satisfaction that come from propagation as an exercise in gardening pleasure. This was the original intent of the PX but it became distorted with all the distractions of travel restrictions, diseases and pathogens and invasive plants and the necessity of Alternative exhibits
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With a positive attitude, a cohesive spirit, and time, this will happen. In that vein, I want to share former GCA President, Ann Frierson’s thoughts about this decision. “ This could quite possibly be the battery to re-energize the entire organization about focusing on what brought us together in the first place.”
Katie Heins
Chairman, GCA Horticulture Committee (2003-05)
Stony Brook GC, Zone IV
