With the coming of spring, the Thorold Garden Club is getting back into the swing of things. And not a moment too soon, as the Canadian Garden Council has declared 2022 the ‘Year of the Garden'.
“There’s going to be all sorts of things that will be in the media during this year and that’s only going to boost clubs like ours,” says the club’s president Leslie Daniels, in an interview with ThoroldToday. “Hopefully we’ll get some younger members. There should be a lot of focus on gardening over the summer.”
The pandemic hasn’t been easy for the gardening club, which is celebrating its 93rd anniversary.
“We have spent lots of time over the last two years trying to keep our members engaged while not being able to meet,” says Daniels. “Usually we have a monthly meeting with a speaker, it’s a social gathering as well. That has been off-limits. We now do Zoom presentations every month and we’re getting quite the following for that.”
Daniels thinks the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have made more people pick up gardening.
“Because of COVID more people got interested in looking for a hobby that they could do on their own, that they got some satisfaction from,” she says. “What we find in Thorold is that it is schools, it is teachers, it is people in the community that just want to be involved in something. It is a good hobby because you can spend time outside and it’s healthy.”
With the recent mild temperatures, some might be jumping at the bits to start working in their gardens, but Daniels says it’s important to hold off a little while longer.
“Pollinators are typically still sleeping until you have a week of 50 degree [Fahrenheit] weather,” Daniels says. “If you start cleaning up now, the pollinators that are living in the hollowed out stems of past plants, you’ll kill them. What they say is to wait until there’s been a series of five to seven days of 50 degrees [Fahrenheit] weather. Then you can start gardening without disturbing the pollinators you need to make our gardens beautiful.”
Daniels thinks of her garden as her sanctuary.
“I enjoy the aesthetics of sitting in the garden and looking at nature,” she says. “It’s beautiful, it’s gorgeous, you find something different every time you look. It makes you feel better when you’re upset as well. I think it’s got a lot of health benefits, just being outside with nature, enjoying yourself and not being stressed out with what is going on in the world.”
Because it is the ‘Year of the Garden,’ Daniels says there are a lot of exciting projects in the pipeline for the Thorold Garden Club.
“There’s a push towards getting people out and having them participate,” she says. “We’re going to run a city-wide contest with the City. I see this [club] working more with our municipality and with other actors in the community than we’ve ever done. I think that it’s sort of a special club, something you can talk to people about. If they have a garden, they love to show it to you. It’s a great social engagement tool.”
