Officers of the Oklahoma City Council of Garden Clubs are Karen Martin, secretary; Golda Haines, second vice president; Marilyn Lahr, president; Donnie Murray, first vice president; and Fran Whitton, treasurer. by jaconna Aguirre, The Oklahoman
Marilyn Lahr is president of the council, which oversees 20 garden clubs or related affiliates involving about 1,550 members. The garden clubs involved with the local group have an organizational structure that includes district, regional and national councils.
When Lahr lived in Ardmore, she said, a 93-year-old woman told her, "Gardening is the best thing in the world you can do.”
Lahr took that advice to heart. Not only is gardening an activity that brings her immense pleasure, she said she values how landscaping and good gardens can make a home or business more attractive and valuable.
"And you meet the best people in the world,” she said.
Fran Whitton, council treasurer, became interested in gardening when she bought a house in California.
"I was invited to a garden club meeting, and I was hooked,” she said. "As I started learning about plants, I took a botany class. One project required presenting 100 samples of California natives.”
Whitton was so zealous about the project, she identified 200. Today, she is a member of four garden clubs and holds offices in three.
Donnie Murray always loved flowers and joined the Late Bloomers Club when she moved to Oklahoma City.
"Fran tricked me into being the council's first vice president,” she said. "But we try to work as a unit. Programs are planned a year in advance to accommodate the printing needs for club members' yearbooks.”
Golda Haines, second vice president, admits she was "not an outdoor person at all.” Now, she is a Master Gardener.
"Friends loaded me down with plants, and now I'm a member of two clubs plus the council,” she said.
She said there is the stereotypical image of garden club women wearing big sun hats and having afternoon tea parties. She said she tries to dispel that image.
"We get in the dirt, often,” she said with a laugh.
Karen Martin, recording secretary, was influenced greatly by her grandmother, a lifelong gardener. In 1992, when Martin's husband was transferred to New Orleans, she joined a garden club as a way to make friends.
"I was so taken with the tropical plants and unusual perennials, I started doing landscaping in my own yard,” she said. She said she prefers shopping area nurseries rather than retail chains because she believes the stock receives better care.
Because gardening can become a consuming passion, it also can be expensive.
"Most garden club members share plants and seeds at regular meetings,” Lahr said. "The clubs also offer emotional support to new gardeners, who are often fearful of moving plants in their garden to areas where they might thrive better.”
Said Martin: "They're just plants. We move them around all the time.”
When garden club members are not perusing seed, flower and vegetable catalogs, planting or transplanting plants, or cultivating new species of species such as orchids or roses, they are volunteering to make Oklahoma City a more beautiful place.
