CARIBOU, Maine — Caribou’s 81-year-old Garden Club may be disbanding unless new members are found.
The Caribou Garden Club has been active since 1931, but dwindling membership has reduced the historic organization’s numbers down to five.
“Unless we have several interested people, we’re looking at closing [the club] because four people doesn’t make a club, and neither does five,” explained Caribou Garden Club Co-President Cindy Blanchette.
While membership of the garden club has been decreasing, Blanchette and fellow Co-President Mary Ellen Fields have observed that gardening is on the rise in Caribou and the surrounding communities.
“You can always take a piece of nothing and make it beautiful. I learned that from the garden club,” Blanchette said.
“I probably learned too much of that from the garden club,” she added with a laugh.
While some members of the garden club are a source of gardening knowledge themselves, most of the members have their own small, novice gardens where they enjoy learning to make things grow.
“I got into the garden club back in the day basically to learn,” Fields said. “I hardly knew anything about gardening and I loved flowers, so I joined the club to learn how to build my own garden.”
Now, Fields says that her gardens resemble more an “English Cottage” style of gardening — which means plants are tightly clustered and grouped. Of course, she didn’t know what an English Cottage Garden was when she first started. She learned more and more as she attended the monthly meetings and particularly from her first garden club mentor, the late Elizabeth Collins.
The monthly meetings are small gatherings, usually at a member’s house, where the group makes something for the garden, learns about a different style of gardening or even brushes up on the creatures that live in gardens.
“There are a lot of flowers that draw in bees, butterflies and hummingbirds, but if you don’t know those types of flowers, how do you draw in the those things that help enrich the nature?” Fields posed.
While the Internet is certainly a source of gardening knowledge, the garden club focuses on bringing together local know-how on different types and styles of all sorts of Aroostook County gardening.
“We like to learn new things from other people and the knowledge they have to offer,” Blanchette said.
Though beautification of dooryards and garden areas has been increasing, Blanchette and Fields believe that hectic lifestyles have contributing to the club’s decreased membership.
“People are very busy; they get caught up with work, extracurricular activities, their home lives and children’s activities — we’ve kind of lost our membership because people have gotten older who were members and new members have not, unfortunately, filled those slots to keep our membership where it needs to be to thrive,” Blanchette explained.
While hectic lifestyles are currently the norm, “commitment” to the Caribou Garden Club is a pretty relaxed concept.
Blanchette explained that individuals can decide for themselves how much time they want to put into the garden club.
“People work, so we understand that there are some monthly meetings they probably wouldn’t make based on their schedules, but if they would be looking at about an hour to an hour and a half a month,” she explained.
“We try to keep our meetings about an hour,” explained Fields, who also added that about half that time is usually spent socializing.
For the past six years, Blanchette and fellow co-leader Mary Ellen Field have been heading the small club that historically has created some unique aesthetic sites in Caribou, like the original garden wall next to the Universalist Church and the Blue Star Mother’s Garden at the museum; due to low membership, the garden club hasn’t been able to keep up either location.
The annual tradition of the garden club has also been the seasonal judging of the best gardens in Caribou, both business and residential. Due to the growing discussion as to whether or not to dissolve the club, judgings haven’t been taking place this year.
Other communities have also had to end their garden clubs due to dwindling membership, but you don’t have to be a Caribou resident to join the Caribou Garden Club.
Blanchette said they’ve had members before from surrounding communities like Portage and Limestone.
Though the Caribou Garden Club still provides worthwhile experiences for its few members, this could very well be the last growing season of the 81-year-old organization.
For additional information about the Caribou Garden Club, Fields can be reached at 498-6779 and Blanchette can be reached at 498-2175.
