The Garden Club of Gloucester and Mathews

Mission and Purpose

The Garden Club of Gloucester and Mathews was founded in 1928 and is a member club of The Garden Club of Virginia (GCV).  We are an exclusively charitable and educational organization that works to aid or promote the following within our communities:  

• Gardening

• The protection of our native trees, wildflowers, and birds

• Encouragement of the conservation of our natural resources

• Promotion of civic planting

• Encouragement of roadside beautification and

• The restoration and preservation of historic gardens in Virginia.

From September to June, we hold monthly meetings where we learn and share ideas with like-minded individuals.  At our meetings, we discuss the business of the club, and exhibit horticulture, artistic arrangements, and photography.  We also have monthly program speakers who present an array of topics related to our interests.

Historic Garden Week

Our yearly signature event is the club's participation in Historic Garden Week in Virginia, organized by the Garden Club of Virginia.  This beloved statewide event, also known as “America's Largest Open House”, draws over 26,000 visitors to Virginia's communities each spring to tour inspired private landscapes, public gardens, and historic sites across the state.  In addition, more than 1,000 world-class floral arrangements created by GCV members enhance tour properties.  Our club typically has three to four private homes and gardens open on tour each year.

The proceeds from Historic Garden Week are used to fund the restoration and preservation of Virginia's historic public gardens and graduate-level research fellowships at private historic gardens and landscapes. Virginia is graced with important historic properties and the preservation of these public landscapes and gardens became a focus for the Garden Club of Virginia in the late 1920s.  Beginning with the restoration of the gardens at Kenmore, George Washington's sister's property in Fredericksburg, the GCV has now completed 129 restorations at over 50 different public spaces, leaving an enduring footprint across the commonwealth. One of the projects at Kenmore was to build a brick wall to enclose the grounds. The old brick wall surrounding Ware Church in Gloucester was taken as a model.

If you are interested in volunteering to be a hostess or otherwise participate in Historic Garden Week in Gloucester and Mathews, please contact this year's chairman at gloucester@vagardenweek.org.

For more general information about Historic Garden Week tours or to purchase tickets, please visit Historic Garden Week. 

Local Beautification

We take great pride in working to increase the natural beauty of our communities. 

Our very first effort in the late 1920s was improving the landscaping at Ware Episcopal Church's Rectory, one of two important Colonial-era churches in Gloucester. 

Then, in the 1930s, we took on the large task of improving the area around the Colonial Courthouse in downtown Gloucester which had been seriously neglected.  There was an unsightly dirt road that ran through the middle of the buildings with no green space or walkways. The club raised the funds and worked with the county to design and build the Colonial-style circular wall that now exists.  We obtained expert bricklaying advice from Colonial Williamsburg, and the WPA provided the labor.  With the bricks that were left, we created walkways and then planted greenery.

From there, our beautification efforts have spanned a wide variety of undertakings over the past 100 years.  The following is a small sampling of those efforts. 

• Creating, donating funds for, or maintaining gardens, parks, and horticulture for public enjoyment or education:

  • • Benches, trees and plantings at Machicomoco's interpretative area in honor of our upcoming 100th anniversary.

    • New plantings and gardens at local institutions like the Woman's Club (Long Hill Ordinary), Rosewell, Sanders Nursing Home, the Gloucester Mathews Humane Society, Woodville School, the Gloucester Museum of History (Botetourt Building), the Gloucester Public Library, and various local schools among many.

    • Large on-street displays like the planter boxes at the corner of Route 14 and Main Street that we maintained for over 40 years.

    • Outdoor classrooms like The Teaching Marsh at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS).

    • Public gardens that need rehabilitation like Woodville Park.

    • Trees for many parks and public spaces such as the new Tucker Store Pocket Park in downtown Gloucester

    • Statues like the large metal daffodils that grace the two entrances to Main Street in Gloucester.

    • Fountains such as the fountain for both humans and dogs in the Tucker Store Pocket Park.

    • Educational efforts like the ecology trail at the Gloucester High School.

    • Holiday beautification for Gloucester's Main Street and Sanders Nursing Home and Assisted Living that includes fresh Colonial-style wreaths, greenery, roping and other decorations.

• Improving the beauty and safety of our roads and community:

• • • Planted thousands of daffodils along various roads over decades.

    • Removed more than 2,000 unsightly junk cars in the county by spearheading a vigorous drive in conjunction with other county organizations.

    • Installed hundreds of trees in the road medians such as crepe myrtles.

    • Worked with the community to establish the first private dump and garbage service in Gloucester to remove trash heaps along the roads.

    • Helped establish the first tax-supported city dump which was soon joined by another in the Southern part of the county.

    • Worked with the community to establish the first permanent recycling center.

    • Bought the first trash bins for Main Street.

    • Paid for the first phone for the Gloucester Fire Warden.

Funding a Student for Nature Camp

Since 1942, Nature Camp has sought to train a corps of interested, knowledgeable youth, from 5th through 12th grade, to conserve and protect the environment and to become wise stewards of the earth’s natural resources.  Located in the Washington Jefferson National Forest, the camp offers academic study that emphasizes hands-on, field-based, experiential learning in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings as well as hours of daily recreational activities. 

Since the early 1950s, we have funded the attendance of one or two local students each summer at Nature Camp. Students are chosen through the local middle schools.

Gloucester's Daffodil Tradition

In honor of our county's daffodil heritage, the club hosted and sponsored the Gloucester Daffodil Show for over 60 years, from 1938 to 2014.  The show was a sanctioned Daffodil Society of America show and for many years, one of the largest daffodil shows in the country.  In 2015, the show was transferred over to the county to run and became part of the Daffodil Festival.

Since then, the club has continued to be involved with the Daffodil Festival.  Every year we hold a children's flower arranging event during the Daffodil Festival at Arts on Main.  Children come, choose flowers they like, and are helped by seasoned arrangers to make a beautiful arrangement which they can take home.  It has become hugely popular.

We also sponsor an opportunity for adults to engage with both art and flowers during the Daffodil Festival.  Participants choose a piece of art at Arts on Main and then interpret it through a floral arrangement which is exhibited next to the art.  These arrangements are not judged and creativity reigns.  Anyone in the community is welcome to participate, and the arrangements are available to view throughout the weekend.

For more information about either of these events, please contact Arts on Main at 804-824-9464 or info@artsonmain.org.