Green Thumb Garden Club adds holiday cheer to four corners, Gateway Playhouse
SOMERS POINT — The Green Thumb Garden Club of Somers Point has spruced up several spots to help the city celebrate the winter holidays.
Members decorated the eight flower containers at the four corners of Shore Road and MacArthur Boulevard, as well as those outside the Gateway Playhouse on Bay Avenue.
Noting the help of beautification chairwoman Pam DeMarco and her team, group spokeswoman Rosemary Evans said members take pride in helping beautify the city.
“We love our town and want our important passageways to greet residents and visitors with fresh greens and accent decor reflecting this wintry holiday season,” she said.
The group, which is entering its 70th year in 2022, also donated two live green wreaths to help beautify City Hall.
“One of the purposes beyond education about greens and flowers is beautification within the city,” Evans said.
Membership used to be by invitation only and restricted to city residents, but Evans said the group is open to the surrounding communities and has members from Ocean City, Longport and Margate.
She called it a “low-key club” that features a monthly speaker as well as “beautification projects that let us get our hands dirty.”
Perennial projects include planting and maintaining a butterfly garden at John F. Kennedy Memorial Park, where there are plants dedicated to feeding monarch butterflies on their migration, and small gardens next to the Somers Point branch of the Atlantic County Library.
The group’s biggest project is the kitchen gardens behind Somers Mansion, where there are 10 plots with vegetables, perennials and some annuals such as marigolds meant to inspire memories of what such as garden was like in Richard Somers’ days.
Evans said the group holds an annual fundraiser, switching back and forth between a garden tour and a garden contest. This year will be the tour, so the club is “going to make a special effort to make that a centerpiece for the Down to Earth Garden Tour coming in July 2022.”
Those interested in joining the club may call President Heidi Hibbs at (609) 703-9170 or email rosemaryevans@verizon.net.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff