Pruning Lecture by Elizabeth Doyle, Founder of Yankee Clippers

Minutes of Evergreen Garden Club Meeting

March 18, 2025

Attending: Jean Barquin, Carol Cramer, Winkie Crigler, Jane DeCell, Doris Dixon, Catherine Farrell, Fossy Fenwick, Betsy Forster, Mary Frances Koltes, Diana Luka-Hopson, Sarah Maner, Sally Marshall, Dolly McKenna, Janet Nassim, Lynne Pickard, Anne Reid, Donna Roberts, Pam Selden, Laurene Sherlock, Sharon Stoliaroff, Susie Taylor, Ellen Thrasher, Susan Vanderver, Sarah Vilms, Rosa Wallach, Xenia Wilkinson.

The program was a presentation by Elizabeth Doyle, the founder of Yankee Clippers. When preparing to prune a shrub or tree consider the sightlines from street, driveway, other points in the garden, and from inside the house. Pruning addresses the plant’s structure, so begin with removing volunteers, crossing branches, and weak growth. Always be mindful of balance and symmetry. Cut at different heights and into the shrub to introduce light and air. And avoid shearing around the outside of the plant. When you make a cut, you are teaching the plant where to make new growth. Use ratchet pruners, as the gears do all the work. And remember: Pruning is temporary, removal is forever. As a side note, you can “hatrack” a holly (remove the top). Who knew? Not me!

Following the pruning talk, President Winkie Crigler welcomed members and thanked Dolly McKenna for hosting the meeting and Catherine Farrell and Jane DeCell for providing refreshments.

Xenia Wilkinson moved that the membership vote to approve the minutes of the February meeting, and Carol Cramer seconded. The minutes were unanimously approved.

Treasurer’s report (Susie Taylor). The Club currently has just over $12,000 in the bank. This includes membership dues, income from workshops and gifts, and expenses through March 17. Anticipated expenses for the duration of our year are $500 for program costs and $320 for National Garden Club membership dues. There is also a possibility of incurring expenses associated with the May luncheon. Finally, we will be distributing $4,000 in philanthropic contributions before June. Depending on luncheon expenses, the Club is on track to exceed its approved budget with a year-end bank balance of nearly $7,000.

We need hospitality providers for our April meeting. Winkie reminded members that Active members should be volunteering for a club task every two or three years. Hospitality is an easy way to pitch in.

Membership (Xenia Wilkinson): We have three potential candidates for membership –

·       Christy Thorley, proposed by Doris Dixon.

·       Susan Bluhm, proposed by Kay Glenday

·       Frances Usher, Proposed by Colet Mitchell

We will vote by email, with the results to be announced at our April meeting.

Winkie explained that there is an issue to discuss with respect to membership. Our bylaws provide that an Active member may only propose two members each year (or propose one member and second another).  We have ended up with two of our members each proposing one person and seconding two other people. Frances Usher (Doris’ friend who attended our repotting workshop at Hillwood and expressed interest in the garden club at that event) was the last person to be nominated. She was proposed by members who had already proposed and/or seconded two others. It seems to Winkie that we have a choice – Frances’ sponsors have indicated that they are fine with waiting to consider Frances in the fall when our new year starts, or if the membership prefers, we could vote to override our Bylaws this once and go ahead and take Frances as a member this spring.

Dolly McKenna moved and Sara Maner seconded a motion to override the Evergreen bylaws this one time and accept the three nominations. The measure passed unanimously with very little discussion.

Nominating Committee (Sally Marshall with Fossy Fenwick and Pam Selden): 

Sally Marshall presented the slate of offices for next year. They are:

Ellen Thrasher    President

Donna Roberts   1st VP

Ann Reid             2nd VP

Julia Bellinger       Corresponding Secretary

Janet Nassim        Recording Secretary

Winkie Crigler      Treasurer

Sally Marshall       Assistant Treasurer

We will vote by email, and the results will be announced at our April meeting.

Philanthropy Committee – The members of our Philanthropy Committee, Jane Dana, Mary Jane Glass and Ellen Thrasher, are hard at work putting together a list of proposals for our philanthropy this year.  If you have an organization or a project that you would like to recommend, please reach out to one of them. They will announce a list of proposed philanthropy projects at our April meeting and we will vote on them in May.

Managing our philanthropy between now and 2028 – Evergreen was founded in the spring of 1953. So 2028 will be our 75th anniversary – it’s a big one!  We have talked about the making a special philanthropy gift for 2028, but we haven’t done anything yet. The Executive Board is meeting just after this meeting to discuss an amount and make a recommendation to the membership by next month’s meeting.  We basically have four years (spring of 2025 through 2028) to come up with the funds so we need to start reducing our annual philanthropy gifts this year. As a reminder, in the spring of 2023, we gave out a total of $7,000, including a $2,000 gift to Joseph’s House in honor of our 70th anniversary. Winkie thinks that we might want to give a single organization an amount that is somewhere between $5,000 and $7,500 in honor of our 75th. Do the members have any strong feelings about this for the Executive Board to consider as we discuss?? Several members indicated that they liked the idea of a $7,500 gift in honor of our 75th.

Tregaron Workday: By way of background for our newer members, we have a relationship with Tregaron Conservancy (https://tregaron.org/), and volunteer there (weeding, cleaning, a little planting) twice a year. Everyone is invited to participate. Our spring Tregaron workday will be on April 29th (rain date May 6th). Please send Colet Mitchell an email if you would like to participate -- coletmitchell@icloud.com. The following people have signed up so far: Mary Jane Glass, Sara Maner, Colet Mitchell, Susie Taylor, and Winkie Crigler (no for rain date)

May Meeting and Luncheon. Winkie reminded everyone that our May 20 meeting will be a luncheon at Donna Roberts’ home on Gibson Island (about an hour’s drive from DC).  We will set a price for the luncheon and help people figure out carpools when the time is closer.

NCAGC Announcements of interest (And reminder that all Evergreen members are invited to participate in District I events):

·       Friday, March 21, District I meeting at the National Arboretum. After a brief business meeting and induction of new officers, Christopher von Koln, the Curator of the Friendship Garden, will give a presentation on the garden.  Weather permitting, a tour of the garden will follow. For those of you not familiar with the Friendship Garden (that would include me!), the Friendship Garden surrounds Arbor House at the Arboretum’s R Street entrance. Once a caretaker’s residence, Arbor House is now home to the Friends of the National Arboretum and the National Bonsai Foundation. The garden captures the spirit of a wild meadow, with wide swaths of grasses, perennials, and ferns. Designed to be low maintenance and environmentally friendly, the Friendship Garden celebrates a naturalistic garden aesthetic. The front portion of the Friendship Garden opened in 1987. Support from the National Garden Clubs, Inc. allowed for the development of the rear garden in 1991 by Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden. The pair pioneered the New American Garden movement, characterized by expansive and dynamic waves of colorful perennials and ornamental grasses. In 2019, landscape architect Claudia West led a complete plant community-based redesign of the front garden, which builds upon the foundations that Oehme and van Sweden laid nearly thirty years before.

·       Saturday June 21, instead of a presidents' brunch or tea, District I will host club presidents and members for a docent-guided tour of the gardens of Hillwood Estate.

Our next meeting is Tuesday, April 15, 2025, at 10:00 am. Susan Vanderver will host us and Betsy Forster and Sharon Stoliaroff will provide hospitality.  Our program will be a presentation by Edamarie Mattei and Kris Colby, principals with Backyard Bounty, a native-plant-focused landscape company.

With no further business the meeting was adjourned at 12:06.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Jane Glass

Recording Secretary

Note: Since your reporter was unable to attend the meeting, she is extremely grateful to Donna Roberts, Catherine Farrell, and Winkie Crigler for providing detailed notes so that I could produce the minutes. You gardeners are the best!