Blue and Gold Star Memorials
The Blue Star Program honors all men and women that serve in the United States Armed Services. This program began with the planting of 8,000 Dogwood trees by the New Jersey Council of Garden Clubs in 1944 as a living memorial to veterans of World War II. In 1945, the National Council of State Garden Clubs (now NGC, Inc.) adopted this program and began a Blue Star Highway system that covers thousands of miles across the Continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. Blue Star Memorial Highway Markers were placed along the way. The Blue Star was adopted because it had become an icon in World War II and was seen on flags and banners in homes for sons and daughters away at war as well as in churches and businesses.
National Garden Week
Celebrate National Garden Week in Your Community!
National Garden Clubs, Inc. designated the first full week of June as National Garden Week. This is a great opportunity to join with garden clubs across the country to celebrate National Garden Week in your community in order to promote NGC objectives of beautification, education of environmental efforts and involvement of garden clubs in the community; to work with other groups to be part of the efforts, to encourage pride in the community and interest new members as well. Below are some ideas to get you started:
. Create a table display at any public facility like the local library. Place a beautiful flower arrangement using flowers from your garden, a fairy garden or a new variety of a small potted plant along with the National Garden Week Proclamation and poster. The library will provide gardening books for the display.
. Donate NGC books: The Saved Seeds and The Frightened Frog books to the library.
. Plan a program, activity or workshop to share your knowledge and the joy of gardening. Involve the school children and youth.
. Place the beautiful National Garden Week poster with your club’s name printed on it at the local greenhouses and sign outside the greenhouse along the busy road. This will encourage the general public to buy plants, flowers, herbs, vegetables, shrubs or trees to plant in their own garden.
. Tour a garden, a nature center or an arboretum where plants are grown and exhibited for scientific and educational purposes.
. Place the NGW poster on the bulletin boards located at any public facility. Post the NGW Proclamation and poster on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for others to share. Advertise, publish it in the newspaper or display it during the club’s plant sale.
Be Creative. You will make a world of difference in your community!
Aireen Vicars, National Garden Week Chair
Seeds of Friendship
Partners in Conservation (PIC) was founded in 1991 at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in
response to the genocide of the people of Rwanda. Many partnerships were formed to help
the people of Rwanda. The Garden Club of Ohio, Inc. is one. have been partners with the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium since 2007 in their
ultimate goal to save the rain forest where the mountain gorillas live by respectfully helping the animals and
the local population. If people don’t have to use forest resources to care for their families, then the forest will
stand and the animals will survive.
Nature Conservancy of Ohio
For more than 60 years, people like you have helped The Nature Conservancy protect nearly 65,000 acres of Ohio’s lakes, forests, winding rivers and rolling hills. We’re building on that legacy and bringing people together to help solve today’s biggest conservation challenges from climate change and habitat loss to protecting clean water. Together we’re stronger!
Penny Pines
NGC and the USDA Forest Service are proud to have formed a partnership sustaining our national and urban forests through this reforestation/forest education program.
Your Garden Club can participate in a meaningful and practical conservation project by contributing $68.00 to a Penny Pines plantation as part of the costs of replanting replacement trees indigenous to a particular damaged area. Whether by fire or by other natural catastrophe, pine trees and other trees are replaced. You may designate a specific state you wish to have benefit from this contribution.
Under a conservation agreement, the forest service will do the planting, using your donation together with federal funds, and will provide to the plantation the same protection from fires, insects, and disease given other forested areas. The plantations are a part of the regular national forest reforestation program planted on burned-over and brush-covered areas which are potentially productive timberlands. Planting sites are selected by the supervisor of each national forest. These plantations provide soil protection, watershed protection, soil stabilization, future harvestable timber, as well as beauty and shade for recreation.
States, regions, districts, clubs, and/or individuals may participate in this program by donating in multiples of $68. A $68 donation may be made in honor or in memory of ONE individual, organization, or theme.
Click on Links to:
Link to Blue-Gold Star invitee list 2023-2025
Link to Blue-Gold Star State Guidelines
Link to Ohio Blue Star Memorials
Link to NGC Information: Blue and Gold Star Memorials | National Garden Clubs, Inc.
Link to National Garden Week info: National Garden Week | National Garden Clubs, Inc.