Julius Mason may no longer be a household name in Hanover, but the mail carrier who began working for the town post office in 1918 was a kind of Johnny Appleseed, planting flowers along his route to beautify the town in his own way.
The town owed such a debt to Mason that after his death in 1965 the Hanover Garden Club and the Hanover Conservation Council established a fund in his honor, the proceeds of which go to maintain the town’s 12 public gardens.
Such continuity is the watchword of the club, which commemorates its 80th anniversary this year. The club holds its annual plant sale Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon at the Hanover Water Treatment facility, behind Pine Knoll Cemetery off Route 10.
The objective of the garden club as it celebrates its birthday is to bring more attention to the work it does in town, and to encourage gardeners from towns in the Upper Valley to join. There are currently around 225 members, said Jane Hanford, publicist for the club.
“Eighty and growing,” Hanford quipped, making a joke of how some, but not all, of the club’s members are over 50, although the club has seen an increase in younger members.
“So many people don’t realize the garden club is for everyone,” said Sandra Johnson, who serves as its president. “As much as we try to publicize, people see the name Hanover and feel it’s not for them. But there’s something for everybody.”
Volunteers are an integral part of the plant sale, said Susan Edwards, a co-chair of the plant sale and a longtime member of the garden club who helps oversee preparation for the sale.
On a recent warm morning, Edwards was on site at the water treatment facility, where a small, fenced-off area is set aside for the sale. Some 10 volunteers helped to water and tidy up the plants in their pots and flower beds.
A makeshift greenhouse, really more of a solarium, at one end of the water treatment plant holds hundreds of geraniums and herbs and vegetable seedlings that are either too tender to winter over outside, or aren’t yet mature enough to handle a cold spell at night if planted in the ground.
Some of the plants for sale winter over in the club’s garden beds, while others are donated by volunteers. Edwards herself brought in about 140 plants from her garden to add to the sale.
The list of plants for sale is a litany of the usual suspects hardy to this area, including bleeding heart, Siberian iris, Solomon’s Seal, peony, rhubarb, astilbe, globe thistle and numerous other varieties.
The town supports the annual plant sale by bringing in tables and potting soil, said Larry Littman, a garden club member who looks after the plants in the greenhouse. Littman added that the sale usually grosses between $6,000 and $7,000. The money made at the sale is plowed back into the Julius Mason Fund. Any remaining plants are donated to such local organizations as the Upper Valley Hostel in town, and Lyme Garden Club, among others.
“We’re very fortunate to have the backing of the town. It’s been a long tradition,” said Johnson.
The town also hires a part-time gardener in the summer months to water and weed the town gardens, which are scattered around Hanover and include flower beds at the Richard W. Black Community Center, Town Hall, the Howe Library, the Hanover Coop and Webster Cottage, the 1780 building on North Main Street that reputedly housed Daniel Webster while he was a student at Dartmouth.
But townspeople may not be aware that volunteers from the garden club are the ones to plant all the town gardens.
Between 40 and 50 volunteers actually plant the flowers (town workers plant the shrubs), led by Susan Berry, a garden illustrator, landscaper and a certified University of Vermont master gardener who designs the layout of the town gardens. In honor of Julius Mason, Berry is planting the garden bed in front of the Nugget movie theater with flowers that would have been popular during his lifetime, such as zinnias, petunias, geranium and sage.
Once the plant sale is over, the garden club takes on other projects through the year, said Johnson. “It’s really a year-round garden club,” Hanford added.
On June 25, there will be a public tour of the town gardens. The club also organizes a holiday sale in December, and is involved in both conservation efforts and invasive species eradication in the area.
For some volunteers the attraction of the garden club, and the plant sale, lies in the obvious.
“I don’t have enough gardens at home so I need to have my hands in somebody else’s garden,” said Betsy Eaton, co-chair of the sale.
As Edwards surveyed the rows of potted plants, she had the look of someone whose work was not yet done, and was happy about it.
“Gardening is something that can consume you,” she said.
For information on the garden club and plant sale go to hanovergardenclub.org.
Nicola Smith can be reached at nsmith@vnews.com.