All Somerville Garden Club meetings are free and open to the public. 7-9pm. Meetings are held the at the Tufts Administration Building, (TAB), 167 Holland Street, second floor, wheelchair accessible. Parking is available, and the building is a ten-minute walk from the Davis Square MBTA stop.

Please check with this website or our Facebook Page for last minute announcements about upcoming programs.

January 8 – ‘Annual Potluck Dinner’ – 7:00 -9:00 pm – SGC members and guests celebrated the 26th Anniversary of the Somerville Garden Club! They brought their own specially prepared appetizers, veggies, pastas, entrees, and desserts to share. There was also a digital photo presentation of images from Evelyn Persoff’s December 2019 presentation of ‘A Brief History of The SGC’s first Quarter-Century’. 

February 12 – Anna Fialkoff, Director of the Native Plant Trust for the New England Wildflower Society, gave a talk on ‘Shade Gardens Beyond Spring; Extending the Season’. She spoke about designs and plant palettes that focused on native plants regarding structure and seasonal themes, with special attention to fall gardens planted at the Garden in the Woods, Framingham, that could be grown in our own gardens. 

March 11 – HOUSEPLANTS 101 –
This meeting is postponed because of Covid-19 restrictions. It will be rescheduled for sometime later this year.

The program includes short demonstrations on the growing and care of some ‘easy to care for’ and some ‘not so easy to care for’ houseplants. There will be lots of time for questions. There will be a raffle with plenty of houseplants of many types and varieties.

April 8 –
This meeting is cancelled because of Covid-19 restrictions. It will be rescheduled for sometime later this year.

Reeves Cochran, of Volante Farms in Needham, MA, will speak on the ‘Lore and Science of Companion Planting’. Companion planting is all the rage, but can it be successful? Reeves will debunk the myths that surround companion gardening while he delves into the science of how specific plants can help each other perform better in the garden.

May 13 –

Amy Mertl, Assistant Professor at Lesley College, teaches Biology with Lab, Animal Behavior, and Ecology and Natural History. Her current research involves investigating the diversity, ecology and structure of ant and termite communities in New England forests. She will be speaking about the ant communities at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. This meeting occurred online – see recording below.

June 10 – Kristan Demary, and environmental scientist and community builder teaching at Mass Art, will give a presentation on Pollinator Protection, the Black & Pale Swallow-wort Pod Patrol, and Citizen Science. Citizen Science involves communities collecting data and learning about the flora and fauna in their own neighborhoods. How will this help ensure the survival of our native insects? What can be done to encourage pollinators to feed and successfully reproduce? .

July 8 – Gretel Anspach, Lifetime Master Gardener, and Trustee of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, is will talk to the group about ‘Urban Gardening in Small Spaces’. This informative program is for anyone who has downsized, lives in a condo or apartment, has limited gardening space or just wants to cut back on the work of having a garden but still loves fresh veggies, herbs and flowers.

August 12 – Wildflowers Spotted in Northern Ireland – Mary Person, a longtime SGC member with a lifelong fascination with plants and gardens, will give a presentation of highlights of a walking trip along the coast of Northern Ireland. The focus will be wildflowers she spotted along the way, but will include some other sights as well.  Mary Person was one of the founding members of the SGC in 1994. She began gardening in her family’s huge vegetable garden as a child, and has a lifelong fascination with plants and gardens.

September 9 – This meeting focuses on the ‘Garden Bounty’ grown by Somerville Garden Club members. Members will share samples of fresh or cooked produce from their own gardens, and talk about growing the produce and how it was prepared. 

October 14 – Russ Cohen, expert forager and author of ‘Wild Plants I Have Known…and Eaten’, will speak on ‘Edible Native Plant Species’ (that we can grow in our own gardens). 

November 11 – Writing in the Garden presented by Cathie DesJardins, 2017-2019 Poet Laureate of Arlington, MA. In a swirl through the garden’s seasons, Cathie Desjardins takes us on a virtual tour of her own garden through vivid photos and poems from her recent book, Buddha in the Garden. Side-trips include visits to some of the gardening world’s Grandes Dames.

December 9 – At this meeting, Karen Perkins, proprietor of Garden Vision Epimediums, will speak about the many and varied types of Epimediums now commercially available, including some of the exciting new evergreen species from China. Characteristics, growth habit, growing and propagation, pests and diseases, and combining Epimediums with other shade perennials in the garden will also be addressed.