“Our mission is to beautify the environment and to make people enjoy being with flowers and the beauty here in the Tomball area,” President Teresa Bosworth Green said.
The background
The Tomball Garden Club, founded in 1956, started with a small number of members. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the size of the group experienced fluctuations, but now the group has 41 members dedicated to beautifying Tomball all while having fun, Green said.
“I, myself, feel so much more part of this community,” Green said. “It's like a certain kind of person gets attracted because everybody's got this heart of gold, this work ethic. When we work in the spring, and we start doing the weeding and the pulling in the root planting, every, every person here is just down, working hard. ... It's amazing to me.”
Lisa Gibson, a previous club president and member since 2013, said she joined during a time when she was facing personal issues. Gibson said the club gave her an outlet and a way to get out of her house while navigating the situation.
“When you plant something and you baby it, and it finally is growing and flowering or producing a vegetable, or fruit, whatever it is ... it just makes you feel so good, like you've accomplished something. ... It just clears my mind,” Green said.
A closer look
Recently, the city of Tomball has tasked the club to plant its annual plants and maintain the flower beds near City Hall and at Four Corners. The club also holds plant sales and other events as fundraisers with the goal of creating scholarships for students wanting to major in fields related to plants, agriculture, botany, biology and environment. Green said the scholarship will start small with one recipient at Tomball High School this spring.
The fun doesn’t stop there for the club, Green said. Once a month, a group field trip is planned where members can explore botanical gardens together, take a boat tour, go watch "The Nutcracker" together and more.
“We do a field trip once a month, all day, and we go to various places. We've been down the Houston Ship Channel. And we always go to lunch and then go to a nursery in the area,” Green said. “It's fun that we all get together to do field trips, so we have a great camaraderie going.”
Get involved
Tomball Garden Club meets the first Monday of every month in the morning and evenings to give everyone interested an opportunity to attend, and takes three months off during the summer. At the meetings, speakers will present to the groups about a range of topics from the newest garden gadgets to how to track butterflies, Green said. All ages are welcome, and the club is open to anyone in the surrounding areas.
“It's a heartwarming thing, because we feel like we want to make this city more beautiful, more attractive and ... we get people coming in from other places, and we want Tomball to be represented well,” Green said. “To see that you know us in this area are willing to put in the hours to help beautify the area and make people feel good.”
- First Baptist Church, 401 Oxford St., Tomball (morning meetings), Tomball Museum Center, 510 N. Pine St., Tomball (evening meetings)
- www.tomballgardenclub.com
