Link to GCA Connect

On June 18 six members of the Loveland Garden Club flew in to Chicago Midway Airport to attend the Lake Forest Garden Club House and Garden Walk.   The members were Chris Webster, Mary Pat Paul, Engra Andersen, Melissa O’Neill, Sharon Larmore and me, Marilyn Martin.  

Our first destination was the Chicago Botanical Garden – a really large botanical landscape – located southeast of Urban Chicago.  Due to traffic complications, our driver, Mary Pat Paul, delivered us safely late in the afternoon.  We  were able to take advantage of member’s Omaha Botanical Gardens memberships, which offer reciprocal admission.  We traveled by tram throughout the vast garden and toured the Butterfly garden, as it was late in the day. 

We left the Botanical Garden to check in to our hotel – The Residence Inn—in Lake Foremast.  That evening, we dined at the reknown Deerpath Inn – A magnificent Tudor architectural treasure featuring multiple restaurants and very charming gardens.  Our dinner in the Scottish pub was delicious. 

The next morning, April 19, we met for breakfast at our hotel, and following checkout, headed -for the Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest, where our tour of houses and gardens was prefaced by a delicious lunch in an extraordinarily beautiful dining room.  Photos were not allowed either in the Club or on the tour, however, I learned of this rule after I took a few photos in the Club dining room.  After a quick look at the vendor marketplace – where the Lake Forest Gaarden Club assembled an amazing collection of exquisite worldly goods – purses, silk scarves, clothing, jewelry, and ceramics.   

Next we boarded buses to tour four exquisite homes and gardens:  one was a former Cudahy mansion, restored by the Adrienne Smith family.  He is the architect of the tallest building in the world in Dubai.  We visited a Japanese house and garden; a beautiful traditional family farmhouse with partieere gardens, and a gorgeous French Country Pool House with Trellis gardens.  All of this was during a steady rain ( and we didn’t bring umbrellas.)

After our final house tour, Mary Pat Paul skillfully drove us  to Midway Airport to catch our 7PM flight home.   

We all agreed that we would “do this again” as the experience was wonderful for getting to know our members better, and the experience fell under the adage, “you don’t know what you don’t know” in terms of seeing beautiful gardens, homes, interiors and experiencing lovely events in gorgeous environments. 

April is Native Plant Month!  The Loveland Garden Club, along with the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum, were recognized on Tuesday April 1 by Governor Pillen with a proclamation that is part of a national effort by the Garden Club of America to increase awareness of the important role native plants play in our ecosystems.

The Garden Club of America and its local chapter, the Loveland Garden Club, support federal, state and local efforts which:  promote awareness and conservation of native species, specifically those listed as rare, endangered or threatened.

Encourage landowners to increase native habitat through replacement of lawn areas with native plant ecosystems.

Support measures to prevent and limit ecosystem damage.

Encourage public land-use policies that incorporate native plants, control invasive plants, discourage the use of toxic pesticides, leading to the preservation and restoration of healthy ecosystems.

LGD provisionals created a floral display for the St. Cecelia’s 40th annual Cathedral Flower Festival Jan. 25-26, 2025. Sponsored by the Cathedral Arts Project, “Let There Be Light!” was the theme. Lillian J. led the group and also created a display or her own.

Members gathered December 10th for the annual Holiday Brunch at the delightfully decorated home of Marilyn M. The food was scrumptious, the company delightful, and a good time was had by all!

Exciting News!! LGC Garden History and Design Chair, Dawn D. announced that the club’s submission to the Garden Club of America Collection was accessioned to the Smithsonian Archives of American Gardens. This was a years’ long endeavor that included many club members and is the first Omaha garden documented for the archives since 2011. It will be found at Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives of American Gardens website (SOVA) early next year.

Author and poet Camille Dungy was the speaker for the LGC Lecture Series at Lauritzen Gardens November 7, 2024. LGC members had the privilege of meeting her for dinner before her presentation. Camille discussed her book, Soil, the Story of a Black Mother’s Garden.

“The green of growing things calms me. Plants stabilize me,” Camille Dungy writes in Soil, this brilliant and beautiful memoir of her deepening relationship with the earth, a relationship, a deepening, that necessarily demands she consider questions of family, history, race, nation, and power. The deepening demands we witness what erodes or frays or severs the stabilizing roots between us. Whatever seduces us into believing we are not in fact connected. To each other, to the earth. The soil though, just like Soil, teaches us we are connected. And fundamentally so. Let us try to listen. Let us put our hands in.” 
-Ross Gay

Members met to discuss the book earlier in the month.

An engaging evening with renowned author, photographer, and conservationist Michael Forsberg. was held October 15, 2024 at Lauritzen Gardens. He shared insights on his latest project, a long-awaited study on whooping cranes.