Garden fundraiser in the Hollister area supports school,
community projects
The presence of the South Valley Fleurs garden club can be seen
throughout San Benito and southern Santa Clara counties in the
community gardens that the members maintain.
On a recent Monday morning, a few members from San Benito County
gathered at the Fire Safe Garden at Fire Station No. 2, on Union
Road, to do some work in the garden.
The garden was started in 2005 as a way to instruct residents on
the types of plants that do well in drought conditions and are fire
resistant.
Garden fundraiser in the Hollister area supports school, community projects
The presence of the South Valley Fleurs garden club can be seen throughout San Benito and southern Santa Clara counties in the community gardens that the members maintain.
On a recent Monday morning, a few members from San Benito County gathered at the Fire Safe Garden at Fire Station No. 2, on Union Road, to do some work in the garden.
The garden was started in 2005 as a way to instruct residents on the types of plants that do well in drought conditions and are fire resistant.
“We just come in, weed and fertilize,” said Sally Biersdorff, a longtime member of the garden club.
The club is hosting an upcoming plant sale on April 16, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., in the Booksmart Parking lot, at East Second and Depot streets, in Morgan Hill. It will include plants for sale such as heirloom tomatoes and flowers, all hand-planted by members of the club. It is the biggest fundraiser of the year for them.
The club has close to 70 members, and the group has community gardens set up in each region. They maintain a butterfly garden at Nordstrom Park in Morgan Hill and a community garden at the senior center in Gilroy. They also organize volunteers to replant flowers in the planter boxes in downtown Morgan Hill four times a year.
“We are just getting all our inventory ready and labeling everything, and making sure that our plants are in tip-top shape,” said Ginny Rhodas, the membership chairperson and plant sale chairperson.
The plant sale supports the Edu-grow fund, which helps with school gardens.
“We’ve given well over $1,000 to three schools,” Biersdorff said. “We are trying to get money for Southside School (in Hollister). We are looking for schools that already have a garden, and enough parents and teachers to maintain it.”
The money also supports any supplies needed to maintain the community garden and some administrative costs for the club.
“It funds all of our community projects that we do throughout the year,” Rhodas said.
Biersdorff said residents who come to the sale can expect high-quality plants ready to be transplanted into the garden.
“We grow them all ourselves,” she said. “We found vegetables grow well if you start them from seeds. For the heirloom tomatoes, we give out flats, with seeds. We provide the soil and the members nurture them until they get large enough for plastic cups.”
The flowers and tomato plants available at the sale will go for $2 to $6 a piece, Rhodas said, with some smaller plants available for $1 and some more exotic plants going for a higher price.
“These are plants we’ve been nurturing through the winter,” Rhodas said.
She added that the timing in mid-April is usually good because of the weather.
“We try for a time of year when we hope we won’t have rain and we are usually pretty lucky,” she said. “It’s a good time to get tomato starts and perennials in the ground.”
Biersdorff said some of the plants for sale will be transplants from the Fire Safe Garden, which includes native plants that require little maintenance.
“We like to do labels with pictures,” Biersdorff said, of prepping the plants for sale. “We put our names on them so during the sale if a customer has a question, they know who to ask.”
Irene Mort, a founding member, started the group in 2001 after moving to Morgan Hill from Sunnyvale. She connected with Biersdorff and they decided to start a club that would be affiliated with the California Garden Club, which has 22,000 members statewide.
“When we started out, I think we had a dozen people,” Mort recalled. She said the group was encouraged to enter a floral arrangement at the San Francisco Flower Show. “We said okay, we will enter and we had no idea what we were doing, which might have been a good thing. We got an honorable mention prize and that was fun for us in our first year.”
The club started out meeting in the Gilroy Library, then moved to Garden Accents, a business off Masten Avenue. Now they have so many members, and it’s hard to find a place to meet.
Mort said she is most proud of the way the club has gotten involved in the community, with the various gardens they maintain.
“We’ve been very fortunate with our members that all the members participate,” she said. “When we say we need something done, they all volunteer and say, ‘Alright, we will do it.'”
She also likes the variety of speakers who have visited the club throughout the years as well as the field trips they take to different plant-related places. The club meets on the second Wednesday of every month to hear a guest speaker or take a trip.
“They are a very friendly group, which Sally and I thought was really important,” Mort said. “We have a very friendly atmosphere in our garden club, and that is why I think it’s growing.”
Julie Young is a member from San Benito and one of the volunteers who showed up to help at the Fire Safe Garden recently.
“I got a new tool,” she said, showing off a spade that has a cutting edge to get out tough roots. “It’s like having a new toy.”
She said she enjoys the club because of the guest speakers who come to all the meetings.
“I learn new things all the time,” she said, adding that she also likes to help with the garden. “It makes you feel like you are part of the community.”
The members all agreed that the focus lately has been on sustainable gardening and organic gardening. They often take the tips home to use in their own gardens.
South Valley Fleurs Plant Sale
The South Valley Fleurs Garden Club will host a plant sale April 16, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Booksmart parking lot, at East Second and Depot streets, in Morgan Hill. The sale will include sought after heirloom tomato plants and perennials. The garden club includes members from Hollister, San Juan Bautista, Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy, with about 65 members. The nonprofit group supports gardens for schools and maintains the Fire Safe Garden at the Union Road fire station.
