Monday, March 25, 2024
One hundred or so members of the Georgetown Garden Club gathered March 14 at one of Georgetown’s most revered garden estates, Evermay, for the first in a variety of events this year to celebrate its 100th anniversary.
“For this first event, we invited a leading voice in sustainable gardening and landscape design — Edwina von Gal of the Perfect Earth Project — to speak to us about ways to create a sustainable ecological infrastructure that promotes beautiful and inviting individual private gardens and public spaces,” Club President Liz Evans told The Georgetowner. “At the same time they contribute to a healthier, chemical-free habitat for all.”
Von Gal founded the Perfect Earth Project in 2013 to promote nature-based, toxic-free land care that recognizes the interdependence of humans, plants and animals.
In a lively presentation, the energetic landscape designer spoke in Evermay’s elegant sunroom at 1623 28th St. NW, how to make a garden thrive using nature-based practices.
For instance, she urged, “Tree-based volcanos in early spring be banished. They are the bane of suburban existence. These mulch cones aren’t just unattractive, they’re lethal. They essentially suffocate the tree by covering the root flare and starving the roots of oxygen. They can also rot the trunk.”
Instead, she advised leaving the root flare exposed and filling the ground beneath the tree canopy with a carpet of native ground covers like violets, bluets and ferns — a home of biodiversity.
“Breakup with the gas-powered leaf blower and mower, for good,” von Gal urged. “Think about trying an electric robot mower instead.”
She also suggested Georgetown gardeners adopt an attitude of “Let it be. Don’t freak out over nibbled leaves. Natural predators will take care of pests, especially if your yard is a diverse ecosystem.”
Members nodded in agreement when she pointed out that caterpillars and insects that eat become themselves food for birds. But rodents were a different thing, some members grumbled. Rather than poisoning rats, for instance, von Gal suggested leaving them to natural predators such as hawks.
The GGC was organized in 1940 by two women who recognized the need for a club within the community. First meetings were round-table discussions in members’ backyards, according to the club’s history. The organization quickly grew. To date, members have donated and planted hundreds of especially crape myrtle trees in Georgetown, plus wild flowers and Flanders poppies on roadsides.
The club engages in numerous planting and some maintenance projects, ceremonies and flower sales on special occasions.
Other events are being planned for the anniversary year, “including a big surprise,” Evans told The Georgetowner. But she wouldn’t give us an early scoop.
Dr. Sachiko Kuno of S&R Evermay, Edwina von Gal with Garden Club members. Photo by Peggy Sands.