The Garden Club of Talbot County takes a Modest Bow: A Chat with Caroline Benson & Virginia Sappington

For many driving a car in Easton, there is wide agreement that the five corners intersection at Idlewild Park is a tad stressful, at least by Mid-Shore standards. Along with these five corners comes five lanes of traffic that must learn to be patient in taking their turn navigating across it.

And yet, it least from the Spy’s experience, Five Corners is one those places in town where you’re grateful you’ve had to stop. Be it watching young people playing basketball, a young family heading for the playground, or neighbors catching up, you settle into taking it all in during the involuntary three-minute timeout.

At the heart of this matrix stands the Fountain Garden with its calming water flow in the midst of tulips and other seasonal flowers. And each day it serves as perhaps the best example of real traffic calming.

But what most of beneficiaries of this splendid site don’t know is that this is one of several projects of the Garden Club of Talbot County that improve our community’s quality of life. From eliminating over 2,000 billboard signs on Route 50, to a children gardens, or the stewardship of the Talbot Historical Society’s garden, the Garden Club has been the under-the-radar hero of these special places.

All of this comes to mind when on Monday the Club will turn over to the Talbot County Free Library, ten volume records of what it has been able to do since it was founded in 1917.

Last month, the Spy interviewed Garden Club members Pat Lewers and Martha Horner about this extraordinarily multi-year project, and we continue with long-term members Caroline Benson and Virginia Sappington about their own love of gardening, some of the standout projects of the Club, and the special bond that gardeners have with each other.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. or information for the Talbot County Garden Club’s legendary house tour in May  please go here. All proceeds to benefit Garden Club projects. 

The Talbot County Garden Club will be having an archive presentation at The Talbot County Free Library’s Frederick Douglass Room on Monday, March 28 at 10:30 a.m.