New club is nurturing beauty throughout the community

by Greg Schmidt

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Audrey Hepburn once said, “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow” and at Newton Presbyterian Manor, we “believe” thanks to a new Garden Club which meets every Thursday at 3:30 p.m. The club’s goal is to utilize the gardening interests, knowledge and skills of Kalb Villa and Garden Apartment Residents to help beautify our community.

To get things started, Chaplain Greg and Ann Heidebrecht traveled in April to Hesston’s Stone Creek Nursery to pick out, and subsequently plant, more than 40 bright and beautiful plants in the eight planters on the new Assisted Living/Independent Living deck as well as the three bench planters in the courtyard. The following week they went to Newton’s Walmart where they found pre-potted combinations of flowers for the Kalb Villa patio (three hanging and two at ground level). The chaplain and his wife also donated a double shepherd’s hook, an Orange Baltimore Oriole feeder (which uses only Welch’s Grape Jelly) and a hanging cedar platform feeder filled with safflower seed in an effort to attract orioles, cardinals, blue jays and other songbirds—but NOT squirrels!

As they have time and opportunity, the Garden Club will next focus on the Kalb Villa Patio and will be relocating canna flowers (from the West side of the Beauty Shop) as well as transplanting Mexican primrose (a ground cover), ornamental grass, creeping phlox, hostas and irises from the Chaplain’s personal flower gardens. They are also working on plans to introduce an Iris and a Rose Garden in the Assisted Living/Independent Living Courtyard.

Be watching throughout the summer for hidden gnomes and delicate fairies in addition to bird baths, houses and feeders. If you are interested in joining this outdoor adventure, or donating plants (especially roses bushes) or money to purchase garden supplies or plants, contact Anne or Chaplain Greg.

And, as you walk or drive around our campus, be especially sure to check out the luscious, fast-growing vegetable and flower gardens being raised by several of our independent residents just northeast of the Broadway Apartments.

Life is a garden, dig it!