Billerica Garden Club

The Billerica Garden Club is the town's garden club, a society of amateur gardeners that has planted and decorated Billerica's public places since the 1930s and in town meeting has spoken for trees, the Common and the look of the town. It is first recorded in 1936; the date of its founding has not been found in the town records. A separate East Billerica Garden Club was active around 1970.

The 1930s and 1940s

In 1936 Professor A. M. Davis, the specialist in ornamental horticulture at the Massachusetts State College, held a series of three meetings on "the Outdoor Living Room" for members of the Billerica Garden Club, arranged through the county Extension Service, and in 1938 he gave the club a series of talks on botany. In 1937 the selectmen, who "consistently disapproved all applications for advertising signs and billboards," went into the question "thoroughly" with representatives of the Garden Club and the Planning Board. The club supplied the floral decorations for the graduation exercises of the Howe High School in 1938, and in 1943 the Extension Service gave a talk on gardening at one of its meetings.

The Common, trees and band concerts

After the war the club took on the public grounds of the Centre. It decorated the Bennett Public Library for Christmas in 1955 and again in 1963, "with their lovely wreaths and arrangements." In the warrant for the town meeting of 1961 it put in articles for a series of summer band concerts on the Billerica Center Common and for repairing the old band stand there; the meeting voted $300 for the concerts, under the selectmen, and took no action on the band stand. The club's band concert article came before the town meeting every year through 1968, and the town voted $600 in 1962 and 1963, $900 in 1964 and 1965, $966 in 1966 and 1967 and $1,000 in 1968. In 1961 the Tree Department, fighting the Dutch elm disease, planted 110 trees and shrubs about the town, work that "could not have been accomplished without the physical and financial aid of both the Garden Club and the Merrimack-Essex Electric Company," and the club planted trees and shrubs at the Vining School.

From 1964 the club asked each year for money to buy shade trees and shrubbery for the Tree Department. In 1965 the town meeting, after an amendment for $1,000 lost on a rising vote, voted $500 "with the provision that this be under the express control of the Garden Club," and it voted $500 again in 1966 and in 1967, "under the guidance of the Garden Club." For the meeting of 1968 the club also asked for money to recondition the Common and to repair and landscape the First Meeting House Memorial there. In 1972, when the town had no money for shade trees, the Tree Department helped the club plant two flowering trees on the Common, and in the fall of 1984 the Park Division and the club renovated the north island in front of the Common, planting hundreds of bulbs.

Later years

In the 1980s the Garden Club and the Lions Club paid for the landscaping and upkeep of the grounds of the public library, and in 1987 and the following years the club gave the Billerica Garden Club Scholarship, in memory of Mary Arnold, to a graduating senior of Billerica Memorial High School. On May 9, 2002 the annual spring town meeting, on a citizens' petition for which a member of the club spoke, voted unanimously to adopt the Hemerocallis, or daylily, as the Town Flower. By 2016 the club ran a weekly farmers' market on the front lawn of the Council on Aging's senior center, which that year credited "our partnership with the Billerica Garden Club and their Farmer's Market" for the reseeding of the lawn; the market ran from June through September.

The East Billerica Garden Club, a separate society, held a conservation essay contest for fifth and sixth graders, judged by the Conservation Commission, in 1970, and in 1973 its members helped look after the lawn and shrubs of the Bennett Public Library.

References

1. Town Report 1936, Extension Service: Prof. A. M. Davis, three meetings on the Outdoor Living Room for members of the Billerica Garden Club
2. Town Report 1937, selectmen: billboard applications disapproved; matter studied with representatives of the Garden Club and Planning Board
3. Town Report 1938, Extension Service: Prof. Arnold M. Davis, series of talks on Botany for the Billerica Garden Club
4. Town Report 1938, Howe High School graduation: floral decorations by courtesy of the Garden Club
5. Town Report 1943, Extension Service: talks at Pinehurst Grange and at the Billerica Garden Club on gardening
6. Town Report 1955, Bennett Public Library: thanks to the Billerica Garden Club for Christmas decorations
7. Town Report 1960, warrant for 1961: band concerts on the Billerica Center Common and band stand repair, submitted by Billerica Garden Club
8. Town Report 1961: Art. 51, $300 for band concerts on the Common under the Board of Selectmen; Art. 52, no action
9. Town Report 1961, Tree Department: 110 trees and shrubs planted with the aid of the Garden Club and Merrimack-Essex Electric Company
10. Town Report 1961, Vining School: building improved by the Billerica Garden Club's planting of trees and shrubs
11. Town Report 1963, library: the Billerica Garden Club brightened the library at Christmas
12. Town Report 1965: Art. 77, $500 for shade trees under the express control of the Garden Club; $1,000 amendment lost; Art. 78 band concerts $900
13. Town Report 1966: Art. 72, $500 for shade trees under express control of the Garden Club; Art. 73, $966 for band concerts
14. Town Report 1967: Art. 105, $500 for shade trees and shrubbery under the guidance of the Garden Club; Art. 106, band concerts
15. Town Report 1967, warrant for 1968: Garden Club articles for trees, band concerts, the Common and the First Meeting House Memorial
16. Town Report 1968: Art. 70, $1000 for band concerts on the Billerica Center Common
17. Town Report 1972, Tree Department: helped the Garden Club plant two flowering trees in the Common
18. Town Report 1984, Park Division: with the Billerica Garden Club, renovation of the north island in front of the Common
19. Town Report 1987, library: the Billerica Garden Club and Lions Club financing landscaping and care of the Library grounds
20. Warrior 1987: Billerica Garden Club Scholarship in memory of Mary Arnold
21. Town Report 2002: Annual Spring Town Meeting, May 9, 2002, Art. 30, Hemerocallis (daylily) adopted as the Town Flower
22. Town Report 2016, Council on Aging: partnership with the Billerica Garden Club and their Farmer's Market
23. Town Report 1970, Conservation Commission: conservation essay contest of the East Billerica Garden Club
24. Town Report 1973, library: thanks to the East Billerica Garden Club for help with the front lawn and shrubs