The New Bern Garden Club has reached the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1926, with former club president and seven-year member Brenda Harris reflecting on its brief history of the organization in celebration.
The Garden Club traces its roots to 1926, when a garden group was organized as part of the New Bern Woman’s Club with the goal of reviving and sustaining New Bern’s historic beauty and riverfront grace for years to come.
A new garden group began in 1932 as the Garden Division of the New Bern Woman’s Club and affiliated with the Garden Clubs of North Carolina in 1933. The club is now a nonprofit organization and is among the longtime garden clubs in North Carolina.
“The club’s original motto is ‘To conserve, to revere and to beautify our community,’ ” Harris said. “We have since been working closely with the New Bern Historical Society to do just that.”
Historically, the club has focused on community restoration, building renovation and the overall preservation of the city’s rich history of growth and resilience.
Two well-known locations in New Bern that have received the Garden Club’s attention in the past, Harris said, were Bear Plaza and Union Point Park.
According to the New Bern Historical Society, the city of New Bern purchased the current site of Bear Plaza in 1981 and created the park from what used to be a department store with the help of Swiss Bear, a nonprofit that promotes downtown development. After the site was completed, the New Bern Garden Club came in and planted flowers that can still be seen in the park today.
Union Point Park, Harris said, was used as a city dump in the early 1920s. In 1931, the New Bern Woman’s Club initiated a major project to convert the Union Point dump into a park and construct a clubhouse.
The club went to the Board of Aldermen for permission and, using relief-employed labor, the park and a community clubhouse were completed and dedicated in April 1933, thanks to the efforts of the Woman’s Club.
According to Harris, in 1948, the club inherited the historic Judge William Gaston Law Office before it could be demolished and agreed to renovate the building.
Gaston was born in New Bern in 1778 and later became the author of the official state song of North Carolina, “The Old North State.” He was also appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1833, a position he held until his death in Raleigh in 1844.
The club would later move the restored office building in 2016 to the grounds of the New Bern Historical Society’s headquarters, the 1790 Attmore-Oliver House, where it resides to this day. The New Bern Historical Society says the Garden Club retains ownership of the building and continues to maintain it. The building has since been placed back on the society’s historic preservation tour.
The club was named the Garden Club of the Year in 1988 and 1989 by the Garden Club of North Carolina, and the club hosted the 1996 state garden club meeting. A 1997 New Bern Historical Society history confirms the 1996 state convention was held in New Bern.
During the years Harris was president, she said the club created a sustainability coloring book calendar for children designed by members of the club that was gifted to elementary schools in the area to help educate children about recycling and conservation in a creative way.
The club later sold the leftover coloring books at the New Bern Farmers Market, among other locations, and netted around $2,000 in fundraising for the club as a result.
The club also received a 2022-23 Plant America Community Project grant from National Garden Clubs to construct a sustainable butterfly garden filled with native plants next to the Gaston office building as part of its 2022-25 restoration project, which has since drawn numerous native pollinators, such as swallowtail and monarch butterflies, back to the area.
Lowe’s of New Bern donated numerous redwood trellises, arbors and lattices to the club to help complete the garden, which is still under development.
The club’s next big event, its centennial dinner, will take place Sept. 15 at 2301 Neuse Blvd. in New Bern and is sponsored by the Harold H. Bate Foundation, the club’s platinum sponsor.