A gardening club is a great way to bring together a group of people who share a common interest. However, a club cannot function with just people sitting around being interested in gardening. You need activities to keep the spark alive. Consider events that will bring the group closer together, or ones that will integrate your club with your community.
Horticulture Exchange
Contact your local high school, community college or university to discuss a horticulture exchange. During this exchange, you can go into the classroom or the students can meet you at your facility. Invite a professional gardener or speaker from a nursery to come talk about careers in horticulture and what steps must be taken work in the industry. After the talk, you can even plant some seeds with the students in a garden or share tips for their budding plants.
Reach Out to the Community
If you have a park or public area in your community that could benefit from the planting of a few new flowers, call your local parks and recreation center and discuss planting a garden on a volunteer basis. To involve even more people in the community, partner with a local elementary school, group for disabled teens or adults or a senior senior to do the project. Give the students, teens or adults tips about how to plant their seeds before you begin.
Books
If everyone in your club keeps their best tricks to themselves, there is really no use for a club. Have everyone write down their best gardening tip at an event. If a member is particularly good at scrap booking, have her make books for each members containing the tips. Or you can simply type up the tips and have them bound at a local copy store. To go a step further, you can ask each person in the club to write down their favorite recipe with homegrown fruits and vegetables and include this in the book.
Plant Sale
Host a plant sale and invite those in your community to attend. You can your club members to bring in their most prized flowers, fruits and vegetables to sell. During your plant sale, invite a local horticulture expert or someone from a nursery to speak. This will increase your interactions with the community and may even increase your membership as well.
