Hanover
For me, it’s annual plant sales, bountiful flower beds in parks and garden tours in the peak of summer.
This year, the Hanover Garden Club is out to expand the way people think of garden clubs with a series of programs around the theme “Looking to Learn.” The first program, “A Geographical Perspective of the Upper Valley,” which features historical geographer Garrett G.D. Nelson, a post-doctoral fellow at Dartmouth College, will be held Tuesday, at 1 p.m., at the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich. It is free and open to the public.
“He’s going to help us think about the geography,” said Lyn Swett Miller, co-chair of the garden club programming committee with Diane Guidone, “and see how we’re so connected.”
The program will challenge gardeners to consider topics such as the Upper Valley’s geography and geology in their gardening spaces, Swett Miller said. What does landscape and place mean? What is a region? “How can you think about those big ideas in the concept of your gardens and your landscape?” Swett Miller said.
An example comes from Swett Miller’s own 2-acre backyard, where many scrub pine trees popped up after the land had been used for farming. “
We look at our spaces and often think what we see is what is,” Swett Miller said.
“We can’t be limited by what we see.”
Swett Miller thought about what changes could be made to the property to contribute to the larger landscape, beyond her yard and beyond Hanover. She cut down the pine trees “to bring life back into the land.”
“I honor that by planting things that are appropriate for the birds and the butterflies and the various migratory animals that go through our land,” she said. This included planting crab apple trees.
“It provides wonderful food for our birds who stick around in the winter.”
People tend to think about their land as island by itself, when in fact it is part of a much larger natural story. “Really, we live in an integrated landscape,” Swett Miller said.
The Oct. 1 program, to be held at the Montshire, is titled “Helping Birds Along the Way: New Hampshire Bird Migration,” and features Hilary Chapman, education specialist with New Hampshire Audubon.
The theme of “Looking to Learn” also relates to the simple act of seeing.
“We really hit upon the fact that, in order to be an attentive gardener, the most important skill one needs to have is observation,” Guidone said. “We always feel like we’ve had great programs, but we felt we’d put a new twist to it this year.”
It’s a pivot that the organization hopes will bring in people beyond garden club regulars.
“We’re trying to open up the garden club to the whole community,” Swett Miller said. “It’s not just people who are avid gardeners.”
And it is much bigger than the town of Hanover.
“We’re a regional club and we serve a regional landscape,” Swett Miller said. “We want to serve our community.”
Editor’s note: For more information about the Hanover Garden Club, visit https://www.hanovergardenclub.org. Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
