The Harbor Island Garden Club will host a
plant and art sale at Harbor Way Gardens in
Wrightsville Beach on Mother’s Day weekend.
Katy Cofer, left, and Georgia Sanders divide
liriope in Harbor Way Gardens in April 2011.
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WBM
“She was the secretary; she was the treasurer. It’s
a lot of fun to get her out here,” Gilbert says.
Gilbert went away to college, returning and joining
the club in 2004 after her mother became inactive.
“I did get from her my love of horticulture,” she
says.
Brenda Olsen, a 12-year member, says one of
her favorite things about the club is “that it is not
political.”
Club president Kathy Gresham hands over the
reins of power in May to new club president Ashley
Miller.
As president for the past two years, Gresham
shepherded the club through trying times. The
club meets monthly for nine months out of the
year. Determined to respond to the challenges
of a pandemic while “moving the group forward,”
Gresham’s innovative approach had members
meeting outside in the Harbor Way Gardens.
“I am so passionate about these women and this
garden,” Gresham says while standing in the Harbor
Way Gardens in April 2022.
As she looks around the garden, she notes the
installation of a new fountain as well as the eight
new live oaks planted on the garden’s perimeter.
“I am conscious that everything we plant in the
garden will thrive here on this beach,” Gresham
says.
The HIGC holds fundraising events each year.
Mother’s Day weekend includes a plein air Paint
Out organized by Star Sosa: artists paint all over
the beach then come together in the Harbor Way
Gardens to sell their art accompanied by a two-day
fundraising plant sale. They have a craft sale
booth at the NC Holiday Flotilla Festival in the Park
in November. Garden bricks and pavers (which can
be personalized) are also available for purchase.
At Christmastime the club hosts a fundraising
luncheon, which in 2021 raised $18,000 to spend
on projects to beautify the community. Harbor
Way Gardens was included in the last two Azalea
Festival’s Cape Fear Garden Club tour.
ALLISON POTTER WBM FILE PHOTO
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