Perkasie Garden Club to celebrate 30th anniversary in 2022

The Perkasie Garden Club has been a part of the community for 30 years.
Elsie Bartram founded the garden club in 1992 after joining the board of the newly activated Parks and Recreation Department.
Paul Leonard, the borough manager at the time, wanted to make improvements to the common land in the borough that had been neglected. One of his first projects was to clean up the corner at 5th Street and Park Avenue. At one time the corner had stone pillars and a stone wall as a graceful entrance to Menlo Park.
The pillars and stone wall had been taken down and replaced by a chain link fence. The two World War II Howitzer cannons were behind the unattractive chain link fence. That corner became a hangout and was littered with cigarette butts and debris.
Leonard hired a private landscaping company to clean up the area and plant new shrubbery and flowers to create the Veterans’ Memorial Garden. Parks and Recreation had difficulty maintaining the garden due to other pressing duties, so in the spring of 1992, Leonard asked board member and avid gardener Bartram to take on the garden project and to start a garden club to assist her.
Thus was born the Perkasie Garden Club.
Two other board members and a dozen original club members assisted her with planting and maintaining this garden as well as other gardens throughout Perkasie. Bartram’s family is a direct descendant of one of the world’s greatest botanists, John Bartram; so she was a natural for the task.
In 1993, a Bucks Beautiful matching grant allowed the club to purchase shrubs for the Veterans’ Memorial Garden and there has been continual expansion ever since. The Veterans’ Memorial Garden has won two awards for “Garden of Distinction”: one in 2009 from Delaware Valley’s Bucks Beautiful and again in 2018 from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The Perkasie Garden Club has enlisted help with larger projects, such as the stone edging by a local Eagle Scout and the new fencing installed by Perkasie Borough. The new sign was donated by Chris Nicolosi and his company, Impact Signs.
The garden is designed, planted and maintained by volunteers from the club. The current committee designed the garden around a red, white and blue theme.

In the mid-90s, a member of the club proposed the idea of establishing planters in the borough with the commitment of the garden club to plant and maintain them. The planters are currently planted and maintained by 20 or more members of the garden club every year.
An early activity of the Garden Club was a plant swap, which the garden club continues in mid-May. Perkasie residents bring extra perennials or shrubs they have potted and exchange them for a different plant for their gardens.
As the garden club grew and attracted more members, new projects were taken on. One of the most popular activities has been the garden tours that showcase the gardens of homeowners in our communities. In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the June 25 garden tour features various gardens of our club members.
A newer activity of the club is a tea. Decorating the hall and tables and making delicious foods gives members another venue for our creativity. The proceeds from the tea fund the club’s scholarships, which are given to local students majoring in horticulture or environmental science. Springtime in Paris is the theme of the April 30 tea.
Many community leaders and businesses have given financial support or their services to help the club maintain and improve our projects over the past three decades. The club thanks those businesses, Perkasie Borough Council and administration, and Perkasie American Legion Post 280 for their continuous support of the club’s efforts to beautify Perkasie.
The Perkasie Garden Club holds club meetings on the second Wednesday from January through May at the Perkasie Regional Authority.
To join, visit perkasiegardenclub.weebly.com.

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