November 2025 Newsletter
Our Member Garden this month:
Elizabeth Salvi’s sublime gardens surround her spectacular property on MDI in Maine. The gardens features hundreds of plant species; floral, shrubbery, vegetable and herb gardens. In addition, she has added architecture features such serene pondscapes with granite benches strategically placed into the landscape and cascading gardens to the sea below. Elizabeth harvests many of the plants at the end of the season and keeps them in a nearby greenhouse to preserve until the next spring planting. The flora attaches the best kind of butterflies, bees and ladybugs enjoying all of the thrills of her gardens.
October Garden Club Meeting:
Our October Garden Club meeting was graced by three talented floral artists, Erika Rodriguez, Serena Crosina and Jeanne Hamilton. All three were given 45 minutes to design one to two arrangements with an array of focal flowers or main blooms, line flowers (tall and slender), filler flowers (small and airy) and greenery (foliage and branches). They each selected vessels/vases to begin their ‘challenge’, all the while the club members peppered each designer with questions as to their design technique.
Photo Courtesy Photo Courtesy from Laurie O’Neil and Susie Winstanely
Letter From Our President:
Happy November!
This month many club committees have been in full swing with our Town Gardens clean up and planning for our upcoming Auction, Field Trips, Grants, Past Pansy Project, Holiday Wreath Making, Family Trees, Cans for Caring Workshop, COA Holiday Workshop, GCC Holiday Workshop and the Holiday Luncheon. Thank you to all of you who have been hard at work to bring these events to our members!
The Grants Committee has received 12 applications from various town organizations and will bring these forth to our Holiday Luncheon for a vote. We will send the nominees out in our December newsletter.
The Family Trees exhibit at the Concord Museum opens on November 22nd through January 4th. Our book this year is The Great Pollinator Count by Susan Edwards Richmond. Thank you to the committee Erika Rodruguez, Faye Allen, Lili Morss, Madelene Wilson and Patricia Waters.
If you have a chance to go to the Winslow Homer Exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts you must also stop by the Rachel Ruysch exhibit. Her botanical paintings are a must see. The exhibit closes on December 7th.
https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/rachel-ruysch-artist-naturalist-and-pioneer
Please see several SUG opportunities below in this newsletter.
I look forward to seeing you at the upcoming Auction and wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Best,
Holly Salemy, President
With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of Mary Ann Hass, October 2025. She worked for Digital Equipment Corporation for sixteen years and among many other things, served on their corporate contributions committee for women’s education and advancement promoting women’s education in science and mathematics. She was the wife of William Haas for 49 years and was an avid bridge player and golfer. She was a member of our Concord Garden Club.
Upcoming Meeting Reminders:
Melinda Mitchell Shumway notes: Get ready for our Auction Wednesday, November 19th at 6:30 pm. We will be at Tricon Church, the silent auction and food and drinks will start at 6:30 and the live auction will start at 7:30. We will have many ways to settle your purchases, cash, check, Venmo, and Apple Pay for credit cards. For those of you who have donations that need to be transported, Jane Rupley is collecting them in her barn. Her address is 162 Westford Road. We have wonderful donations from our members and we look forward to seeing everyone who signed up (90 people) which will make this a very fun event!
Our Holiday luncheon will take place on December 10th from 11am-1:30pm at the home of Julia Farwell-Clay’s
675 Sudbury Road Here is the SUG for the event.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A094DA4AB2EA1FB6-60511528-gccholiday
The Hunnewell Field Trip was delightful!
By Nan Gustafson and Maryrose Sykes
On October 17, 2025, a group traveled to Wellesley, MA, for a tour of the Hunnewell Estate, a private residence set on approximately 40 acres, known for its landscape design, architecture and horticultural importance. Horatio Hollis Hunnewell, a railroad financier and horticulturist, began landscaping the estate in the 1840s and spent decades planning, designing and cultivating several distinct gardens and spaces across the property. He was particularly interested in rhododendrons and evergreens and introduced many ornamental plantings and formal garden styles to America. Today, the estate remains in the same family and has been continuously maintained and cared for by 6 generations of Hunnewells.
Our docent, Suzanne, a volunteer with Massachusetts Horticultural Society, did an excellent job guiding us through the property and educating us about the horticultural history of the estate. Our tour began in the utility section of the property, which encompasses approximately 1/3 acre of specialty greenhouses, housing over 1000 plant species. Some of the greenhouses include the Orangery (now the Camellia greenhouse), the fruit tree greenhouse, and the pit greenhouse (a sunken greenhouse). We continued towards the main house, along a former gravel pathway, through separate outdoor spaces and rooms, which were created to enjoy different plant material. Suzanne shared information about Horatio’s interest in promoting rhododendrons in America and shared stories of special gatherings and exhibitions he hosted to show his great rhododendron collection.
At the center of the property is the grand mansion, built in the early 1850s in the Italianate style, with sweeping lawns and fields and terraced gardens. The property boasts an extensive specimen tree collection, including rare conifers and European species. The family continues to maintain this collection, providing care to the mature specimens and installing young saplings, as needed. An impressive 90 foot, Weeping European Beech, is featured nearby. Planted in the 1870s, this beech is more of a family, with the “mother” being planted in the center and the “family” expanding out through layering over time. As we continued on our tour, we passed a ‘Fastigiata’ or upright English oak, an elm tree sapling, a golden larch, European beech, tulip trees, and lindens, to mention a few. Also featured is an asymmetrical White Oak, which is over 375 years old and one of the only specimens not planted by the Hunnewells. Additional highlights of the tour included the Rhododendron grovel tunnel, filled with many of the rhododendrons cultivated by Horatio, the Azalea room, and the Pinetum, a nine-acre collection of hundreds of conifers from all over the world, including a Dawn Redwood, a species thought to be almost extinct at one time in history. The last garden we visited was the Italian garden, established in the 1850s, which was designed to mimic those along Lake Como. This garden, overlooking Lake Waben, was the first topiary garden in the United States and features an impressive collection of geometrically clipped native Eastern white pines set on terraces leading down to the bank of the lake.
As we began our walk back to our vehicles, we paused to smell the cotton candy fragrance emitted by a nearby Katsura tree. It was a glorious fall day to explore and learn about this special and historic place. After the tour, most of the group gathered at the Cottage in Wellesley, where we enjoyed socializing and a delicious lunch.We were asked to refrain from posting any photographs on social media for privacy reasons, therefore we are only including a photo of our group.
From front row to back row, left to right: Lisa Resnick, Sarah Paino, Maryrose Sykes, Nan Gustafson, Monique Medici Halleck, Julie Perkins, Patricia Waters, Erika Rodriguez, Amal Moamar, Kate Warton, Jean Wood, Lisa MacDonnell, Pam Nelson, Kelley Bothe, Jane Ripley, Betsy Howerton, Katie Sluder, Andrea Meyers, Julia Farwell-Clay, and Kathy Venne
Next Field Trip Scheduled:
By Maryrose Sykes and Nan Gustafson
There is an upcoming field trip to visit the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center, located in Providence Rhode Island, on Friday, December 12th. Built in 2007, Roger Williams Park Botanical Center, representing about 12,00 square feet, is the largest indoor public display garden in New England, including two connected greenhouses (The Conservatory and Mediterranean Room) with plants, fountains, a fish pond and a small waterfall. There are over 150 different species and cultivars of plants, such as majestic 40′ tall palms, carnivorous plants, 10’ cacti and succulents. The botanical center also has outdoor gardens; one called the Winter Garden with attractive specimens of umbrella pines, a Lacebark pine, Metasequoia, River birches, hellebores, evergreen ferns and bamboo. We have scheduled a private one-hour guided tour for 12 people, providing a comprehensive overview of the plant collections in the greenhouses and gardens.