Those of you who know me have probably wondered when I was going to talk about the Blythewood Garden Club. Well, here goes.
When I came to Blythewood in 1977, the town was pretty small and calm. You might even say dull.
My first clue that this was a caring and active community was the Blythewood Garden Club. I saw an elderly lady with a watering can in a struggling flower bed in a hard, rocky median where the I-77 bridge is now. The Blythewood Garden Club had planted daffodils there and they had to be watered by hand.
Later I saw flower boxes in full bloom in front of the five or six stores in downtown Blythewood. These signs encouraged me greatly!
The first Garden Club in America was formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1891. Their goal was to restore the public spaces that had been destroyed by the Civil War. Early clubs continued to work for public beautification, conservation and establishing National parks. Somehow we got sidetracked into flower arrangements and tea parties, but we are solidly back to gardening, civic beautification and environmental issues.
Blythewood Garden Club was founded by 25 interested ladies in 1953. To give you the time frame, Dwight Eisenhower was President and Jimmy Byrnes was Governor of South Carolina. As a Federated Club we are connected to national and international Garden Clubs. That was big time for little Blythewood. We have been active for 73 years, with a number of second-generation members.
We have worked with children and done projects in nursing homes as well as numerous Garden Tours, plant sales, and flower shows.
We brought a boxcar to Blythewood to recycle newspapers before we had curbside recycling.
We maintain flower boxes at the post office and support the flowers that grow at the library. One activity that turned into fun was regular trash pick-up on Blythewood Road. The highlight was one Saturday morning we found a torn-in-half nude picture of a woman. It had apparently been thrown out a car window. We looked hard for the other half of the picture and had fun making up a story of what must have been a lover’s quarrel.
Afterwards, when we went to Waffle House for coffee, we were still talking and laughing so loudly about the nude woman story that the waitress had to ask us to be quiet. I don’t know of anybody else who has ever been called down at a Waffle House.
The Garden Club is known for our three editions of the “Blythewood Scrapbook,” which gives an informal history of Blythewood. The first two are out of print, but we have copies for sale for $10 at the Blythewood Pharmacy, Town Hall, and at the Blythewood Historical Society & Museum.
The main reason I am telling you about the Garden Club is to invite you to our Community Garden Event on March 19, at 7 p.m., at the Fairfield Electric Cooperative Community Room, 701 Blythewood Road. This is our seventh year to offer this free event to the community.
Master Gardener, Lynn Derrick, will speak on Growing Wider Varieties of Fruits and Vegetables in the Midlands. He will speak about the things he has learned from his years of gardening.
Sorry, I couldn’t think of a way to make this Garden Club plug humorous! Come to the meeting and maybe they will let me tell a joke! Call me for more information at 803 730-3855.
Jeanette Smith, 95, a Blythewood resident, has been active in the community’s civic affairs for over 50 years.