Centennial Celebration 2024-2025
October 2024- June 2025
Rooted in History. Planting in the Present. Branching into the Future.
The goal of the Centennial Committee is to create a year-long celebration with programs and events which reflects the Garden Club of New Haven’s core mission for the past 100 years. This is a joyous period for the club, a time for proud reflection on our achievement-filled past and happy anticipation of all we can do in the future. This is also an opportunity to recognize and salute our many civic partners in the New Haven community.
GCNH Day in Our City
May 10, 2025
Celebrating our close ties with the New Haven Green and our city, working in conjunction with the Proprietors of the Green. A Flower Show at the New Haven Library, children’s workshops, seed give-away, plain air painters, showing of our film about the New Haven Green at the New Haven Museum, tour of the Grove St. Cemetery, dedication of a bench & time capsule at Phelps Triangle, planting at Audubon Mini Park and more
The Cherry Shaw Swords and Virginia Thorne Shaw Annual Lecture
Public Green Space: An Urban Imperative
November 13, 2024 at 5:00pm
A panel on the importance of public green spaces with a focus on looking towards the future. Confirmed speakers: Sophie van Haselberg of the New York Restoration Project, Lynn Kelly, executive director of the New York Restoration Project, Sarah Charlop Powers, Executive Director of the Natural Areas Conservancy and Eric Sanderson, landscape ecologist and Vice President for Urban Conservation Strategy at the NYBG. Moderated by Colleen Murphy-Dunning, Program Director of the Hixon Center for Urban Sustainability, Urban Resources Initiative. Will Ginsberg, Community Foundation, opened the panel.
Centennial Planting project
Common Ground High School, Urban Farm & Environmental Education Center
358 Springside Avenue, New Haven, CT 06515
Planting took place at the top of the hill, at the end of the bridge that connects the upper and lower campus.
Shrubs planted:
3 Winterberry Hollies — Ilex verticillata “Sunsplash”
3 Mountain Laurels – Kalmia latifolia “Sarah”
GCNH ambassadors: Maggie Gottschalk and Carol Ross
The Garden Club of New Haven and Common Ground School (which was started in the late 1980s) are bound together by their missions to support a knowledge of gardening and the preservation of natural resources through collaboration and connection with the community.
In 2006, Garden club members volunteered to plant trees and shrubs on the Common Ground campus. While there, they had an opportunity to visit classrooms and see, first-hand, the success of rigorous academics combined with exemplary environmental practices. They came away with great respect for the students, the faculty, and the programs, and they continued their interaction in subsequent years.
Common Ground recognized these efforts, thanked the Garden Club and presented them with their environmental award at the 2010 Feast from the Fields festival.
The Garden Club has always been very proud of this school, recognizing them as a model of the very best. They formally supported the renewal of their state charter in 2010 and brought Common Ground’s efforts to the attention of the Garden Club of America. This national organization bestowed their major annual environmental award to Common Ground at a ceremony during their Zone II meeting in 2011
On Monday, September 29, Garden Club ambassadors met with some staff and students of Common Ground, including members of their Green Job Corps, to plant shrubs along the hill in an area known as their ‘sacred space’. As Joel Tolman said, “we’ve been talking about ways to continue to restore this habitat on our campus and I’m excited for this opportunity to garden together and be part of your 100th anniversary celebration.”