GCW’s Exhibit at the Zone V Mini Meeting October 2019

At the recent Zone V Mini Meeting, each of the clubs in Zone V exhibited a display, highlighting an issue pertinent to the subject of the Conference.  As part of the meeting each club created an exhibit of their choosing. The exhibits reflect the mini meeting theme ‘A Nod to Natives, sustaining our birds, bees and trees’. This was an opportunity to assemble a display that might be used again by the club and was a chance to show the club’s creative strengths.

GCW’s Exhibit at the Zone V Mini Meeting

Dr. Richard Lightly, one of the Club Advisory Committee members, has taken on an extensive renovation of the fields and woods around Coniston/Kendal aimed at rejuvenating open spaces for birds/insect habitat with an emphasis on the eradication of invasive and planting of natives.   This exhibit highlighted that restoration project. It was a joint effort between the Conservation Committee and the Horticulture Committee. The intent of the exhibit was: Saving and Restoring the Coniston Woodland: Lessons learned from seven years of vine suppression, large invasive shrub removal and replanting a woodland with native trees.

Special thanks go to Dr. Richard Lighty for the documenting and researching the project, as well as Cecelia Habgood for all of the spectacular artwork.

Other Clubs in the Zone featured exhibits on other issues, such a pollinator habitat.

Ban on Single-Use Plastic Bags Signed into Law in Delaware

Gov. John Carney on Monday signed legislation that largely prohibits retailers in Delaware from providing single-use carryout plastic bags to customers, a measure intended to reduce the amount of plastic bags making their way to landfills, roadways and stormwater systems.

The ban applies to stores with more than 7,000 square feet of sales space, and chain stores with three or more locations having at least 3,000 square feet of sales space.  Restaurants are excluded from the bag ban, which also allows exceptions for bags used to wrap meat, fish, flowers or plants, or that contain unwrapped food items. The legislation is set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

Gov. John Carney signs a bill that largely prevents retailers from offering customers single-use plastic bags.

The goal is to encourage a shift to to reusable bags. Additionally, the legislation aims to clean up Delaware’s communities and watersheds, reduce storm water and trash management costs to taxpayers, and promote the health and safety of watersheds, wildlife and humans, and the ecosystem’s food chain.

Every year, the average American uses approximately 500 plastic carryout bags. Single use plastics are made from natural gas or petroleum, a fossil fuel with extensive environmental impacts in its extraction, production, and transportation.   

Along Delaware's coastlines, despite the current voluntary recycling law put in place in 2009, plastic carryout bags remain one of the most prevalent and pervasive types of litter found annually during the annual Coastal Cleanup which is only three hours each September.  Statistics maintained by Delaware’s Recycling Public Advisory Council indicate that the current law has not achieved its goal of shifting shoppers’ norms to reusable bags. In addition, plastic is the most prevalent item found in a 2018 study of Delaware’s roadside litter.

“Weed Wrangle”, A Partners for Plants Project is Highlighted in the New York Times!

“Weed Wrangle”, A Partners for Plants Project is Highlighted in the New York Times!

Weed Wrangle, a coordinated effort to eradicate invasive plants in public parks and natural areas is an initiative founded in 2015 by the Garden Club of Nashville with funding from the GCA’s Partners for Plants program was featured in the New York Times in March 2019. With the GCA’s support — and the help of community partners like the Tennessee Environmental Council and Tennessee’s state park system — it has grown like kudzu, spreading to 60 other cities in Tennessee and to 12 other states.