Beacon Hill Garden Club Explained

The Beacon Hill Garden Club (est. 1928) of Boston, Massachusetts, is a private civic group devoted to green spaces and urban beautification in the neighborhood of Beacon Hill and elsewhere in the city.^[1] Founders of the club include artist Gertrude Beals Bourne.^[2] As of 2011, it aims to encourage "the love of horticulture and urban gardening" and to support "environmental conservation and civic improvement."^[3]

Since 1929, the club has organized an annual behind-the-scenes tour of selected private gardens in Beacon Hill.^[4] "They say if you can garden on Beacon Hill, you can garden anywhere in Boston. With more shade than sun, with soil that is laced with brick dust (from the old paved laundry yards), with imperious tree roots that heave up brickwork, it's a challenge to make a hidden garden something worth showing the public."^[5]

See also

• Garden club
• Urban horticulture

Further reading

• Beacon Hill opens hidden gardens to public for day. Daily Boston Globe, May 19, 1931
• Beacon Hill Gardens Plan 'Open House.' Christian Science Monitor, Apr 28, 1953
• Clemens Kalischer. Hidden gardens of Beacon Hill : photographs. Boston : Beacon Hill Garden Club, 1959.
• Marshall, Alexandra; & al. Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill: Creating Green Spaces in Urban Places, Boston : Beacon Hill Garden Club, Incorporated, 5th edition, 2013.
• Linda Matchan. Rolling Out The Welcome Mat: At Historic Houses, Hidden Gardens. Boston Globe, May 15, 1980.
• Frances Minturn Howard et al. Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill. Boston: Beacon Hill Garden Club, 1972, 1987.
• Carol Stocker. Celebrating The Creativity Behind Gardens Of Boston. Boston Globe, May 1, 2003.
• Karen Cord Taylor. To Host Beacon Hill Garden Tour, Plant, Prune, And Cross Fingers. Boston Globe, May 19, 2005.

External links

• Flickr. Photos of annual garden tour, ca.2007
• Boston Athenaeum. Beacon Hill Garden Club minute book and scrapbooks, 1928-1959.

Notes and References

1. Friends of the Public Garden. Beacon Hill Garden Club to Donate $55,000 to the Friends . Nov. 17, 2010
2. D Roger Howlett; Patricia Hills. Gertrude Beals Bourne: artist in Brahmin Boston (1868-1962). Boston, Mass.: Copley Square Press; distributed by Northeastern University Press, 2004.
3. http://www.beaconhillgardenclub.org/purpose.html Beacon Hill Garden Club website
4. Margo Miller. Hidden gardens: A Beacon Hill tradition marks 70th anniversary. Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: May 16, 1999
5. Margo Miller. Beacon Hill gardens come out of hiding. Boston Globe, Apr 26, 1991.