Our History
A Garden Club Committed to Civic Work
The history of the Cambridge Plant & Garden Club’s civic work goes back more than 100 years. From an early interest in playgrounds at the city’s settlement houses and children’s gardens, the club turned in the 1930s to planting trees and shrubs at the Cambridge Common. In the 1960s, members’ attention focused neglected landscapes at Fresh Pond Reservation as well as to garden restorations at two historic houses. Spurred by these projects, in 1979, two club members founded the Cambridge Committee on Public Planting to promote tree planting in the city’s parks, at schools, and along streets; forty-five years later, club members continue to be engaged in the committee’s leadership.
With the increasing recognition of climate change, CP&GC has redoubled its advocacy for trees. A city’s tree canopy contributes not only shade and beauty, but can have an immediate impact on reducing heat island effects in a densely populated city like Cambridge. The club’s commitment is reflected in the fact that two CP&GC members served on the committee that produced the Cambridge Urban Forest Master Plan (published in 2019). Advocacy for trees, along with open space, is now at the heart of the club’s work.
Over the years, the CP&GC has funded tree planting and other improvements at public sites throughout Cambridge – Fresh Pond Reservation, Lowell Park, Longfellow Park, Magazine Beach, Blair Pond, Raymond Park, Garden Street Glen, Winthrop Park, Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge Common, Gold Star Mothers Park, Hell’s Half Acre (Greenough Boulevard), Craigie Street Park, various schools, and mostly recently Memorial Drive, where the club has made a major gift toward the replanting of the parkway’s allée of London Plane trees. At the same, the club has worked to enhance the plantings at a number of nonprofit organizations. Recently, the club has redoubled attention on small neighborhood parks, and also focused new attention of the city’s community gardens and the planting of pollinator gardens.
CP&GC’s civic work is supported by the nonprofit fundraising and the hands-on commitment of members.
“What’s in a Name?” or “Is This the First Garden Club?”
There is often controversy surrounding the honor of being first established – whether in the realm of schools, colleges, hospitals, or special-interest clubs. Garden clubs are no exception. The first women’s garden club was a Cambridge club – the Garden Street Garden Club, founded in 1879. After the Plant Club was founded in 1889, the Garden Street Garden Club gave way to the youngger club. The third oldest women’s club was the Ladies’ Garden Club of Athens, Georgia, which held its first meeting in 1892. Around 1930, a controversy arose between the Cantabrigians and the Athenians concerning which of the two clubs was an older and truer garden club.
The dispute is laid out “What’s in a Name?’ or ‘Is This the First Garden Club?’” – written by CP&GC historian Annette LaMond and originally published by the Cambridge Historical Society (now History Cambridge). The paper includes a number of images drawn from the archives of the CP&GC. Read a PDF of the article here.
The Roots of CP&GC: The Plant Club
Talent and passion for plants joined together several Cambridge women in January 1889. They became the Floricultural Society, but at its second meeting this new club was renamed the Plant Club. Early conservationists, members supported the fledgling “Society for the Protection of Native Plants” now named the Native Plant Trust, the first conservation organization for plants in the United States.
The rich academic community in which the Plant Club was founded created the template still followed by today’s members: educational presentations by scientists, historians, designers, conservationists and members alike that became the central feature of their meetings. Informal committee meetings enhanced the intellectual pursuits of members—sharing their own horticultural knowledge. Recipes for fertilizers and soil enrichment, pest treatments, garden walks and visits, and propagation best practices were among the expertise shared by members.
Interest in the Plant Club grew as its civic work expanded, however membership was quite limited. A sister club was founded in 1938 — the Cambridge Garden Club. Members of the new club, including several Plant Club women, were soon thrown into their first conservation project – helping in the cleanup and restoration after the Great Hurricane of 1938. The shared interests of both clubs led to many joint meetings, programs and outreach projects. Children’s gardening was a particular focus. A campaign in the late 1950s to save 36 acres of marshland along the Charles River from the four-lane Greenough Boulevard failed, but lessons learned set the stage for future successes.
Early in the 1960s, the two clubs embarked on a large conservation project at Fresh Pond Reservation – the City’s largest open space. In partnership with the City, the clubs reclaimed and replanted Blacks Nook, a site that had come to be used for dumping. The experience galvanized members—as organizers, workers, and fundraisers—and the two clubs joined together create the Cambridge Plant & Garden Club. The newly combined organization applied for membership in national group The Garden Club of America, becoming a member in 1968.
CP&GC turned its attention to the restoration of other green spaces in the city though Fresh Pond work continued. CP&GC launched a restoration of the Longfellow House garden and grounds and also focused its energy on the garden at the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House History Cambridge. A project that had begun as a Garden Club effort in 1961 continues today. Other planting projects have taken CP&GC to public schools, parks, and many green spaces and non-profits across the city.
The Plant Club’s founders would perhaps be astounded by the way their club has expanded, but they would have hoped for no less. CP&GC is proud that its archives reside at the Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in the United States.
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