Our garden club was responsible for the floral arrangement this year at the Joint Meeting of the Weston Council of Garden Clubs at the First Parish Church, Weston.  Heidi Barsamian did a spectacular job!  The scale, beauty and sheer magnificence of the arrangement "wowed" everyone.   We had a good number of members attending from our club.


Great job, Heidi!

From Julie Callghan

Our Bloom in Art event at the library was so lovely.  Thanks to everyone who participated, coordinated or joined the reception to appreciate the gorgeous art and the incredibly talented groups who did amazing interpretations.

Julie Mussafer and her gallery, Jules Place, did such a fantastic job of curating and installing the show.  Thank you, Julie!    To see pictures from the Town Crier paper coverage, please click on the News & Press tab or click here.

The Country Garden Club of Weston welcomes Dana Markmann, our newest addition.  Dana has jumped right in  and joined one of the teams in the Bloom-In-Art event at the Weston Library.   Dana has an abundance or energy, drive and an acumen for getting things done.  She lives in Weston with her husband, James, her three children, Catherine, Caroline and WIlliam, and their golden retriever. 

Welcome to the club Dana!

Please welcome our newest member, Martha Collins Gray.  We are so delighted that she joined the club. We asked her to share some interesting & amusing  facts as a fun way of introducing herself:

She graduated from Wellesley College and previously owned a hand-stitched doll company that shipped dolls all over the world.  "I designed the doll and all marketing materials. Les Petits was a sophisticated cloth doll that could be customized to match the little girl's skin color, hair color and choice of clothing and accessories. The child's name was embroidered on a heart-shaped necklace worn by the doll."  Her dolls had won the Parents Choice Gold Award, once for best toy of the year and had been featured in a dozen magazines.

Fun Facts:  Les Petit's  first customer was Sharon Ozbourne (Ozzie Osbourne's wife) who bought a dozen dolls as party favors for her daughter, Kelly's 7th birthday.  Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis bought a doll for her 5 year old grandaughter, Rose, and Courtney Cox bought dolls for her "friends" on her hit TV show.  The dolls were named Monica, Rachel and Phoebe.

Please welcome returning club member, Donna Goulart.   Donna lives on Rolling Lane with her husband Bob and three sons, James, Drew and John.   She is looking forward to creating beautiful gardens on her Rolling Lane property. She has become regular at our meetings.  If you happen to see her, please say hello!

Welcome back, Donna!

*Please note that Martha & Donna's member information is posted in the Member Directory.

We had a wonderful turnout for the our first of the year Garden Club meeting.   Marmee Taylor created a beautiful, artistic floral arrangement using art as a source of inspiration. A special thank you to Mary Jean Keany for graciously hosting the event in her lovely home.   Julie Mussafer, Justine Morris and Janice Jester put together a delectable spread making everything so special.  Helen Stock was the arranger.  She put together a gorgeous floral arrangement that just seemed perfect for the occasion.  Thank you Helen! ( Floral pictured below)

"Holiday Magic" - Floral designer, Paula Runkle did a fabulous presentation of 5 floral arrangements for the holidays and shared some brilliant holiday decorating ideas as well.  All the arrangements were raffled off. 

The CGC meeting was hosted at the beautiful home of Anne Peacher.  A delicious spread was put together by garden club members Leslye Fligor, Lisa Larkin and Mary Ann Mattoon accompanied by a wonderful floral arrangement by Claudia Quinn.   A big, hearty thank you to all of you!  As you can see in the above picture, the meeting was well attended and captured the interests of many.

"Music in Bloom" - Our first club meeting was a real treat to the senses as we watched award winning floral designer, Priscilla Styer, magically assemble five floral arrangements each themed to music played by accompaniment on the piano.  If you would like to see more, we have posted pictures from "Music in Bloom" in Flickr.

A special thanks to Meg Pierce for hosting this wonderful event in her beautiful home.  Also, a hearty thanks to Dolores Martin, Cathy Dinardo and Elizabeth Kim of hospitality for providing a delicious spread.


*NEW*  300 Year Celebration - Call for Recipes  

Sheila Burkus, who serves on the Friends of the Weston Pubic Library Cookbook Committee, has a special request to Garden Club members.  The Friends are putting out a cookbook in celebration of the 300th anniversary - "The Flavor of Weston".  Their mission is not only to have yummy recipes, but also weave in stories about the town and its residents.  They are accepting recipes right now and hope that you will share some recipe that has meaning to your families.  

They would love to have your recipe and hope to add you to the place in history.  The Historical Society keeps cookbooks created in town from over the years - including the few the Country Garden Club of Weston has published over the years.  It is quite fascinating.  So dig into your archives and send it to the committee. Below is a copy of the entry form. This form can be filled out online and emailed to carefree245@gmail.com or you can fill it out in hard copy and drop it off in one of the drop boxes located around town (Library, Town Hall, COA).

Dear Fellow Country Garden Club Members,

I am honored to be in the position to serve as your president for the next year.  We have an exciting year of programming ahead, with our first meeting on September 13th at Meg Pierce's home.  The winning Boston Flower Show designer, Priscilla Styer, will be accompanied on the piano as she demonstrates her floral design.  It promises to be a treat to the senses and the spirit!

All of you should have received your new yearbooks in the mail last month.  The Membership Directory, the events calendar and several other pages have been updated on our website.  Feel free to browse!  Please note that the Member Directory webpage is password protected.  If you need assistance accessing that page, please click here.

Thank you and I look forward to seeing you at our next club meeting!

Julie Callaghan
President, Country Garden Club of Weston