For the first time in our club’s history, a daughter Susan
Stives joins us in honoring her mother Jean’s legacy as we prepare for our
upcoming Neshanic Standard Flower show “JOYFUL HARVEST” on September 11 and
12th 2026.
Susan’s presence reflects the deep roots her mother
planted in the Neshanic Garden Club and the lasting imprint of Jeans service.
Jean Stives has served in the positions of: President
twice, 1st VP, Recording Secretary and Trustee and has been a member of the
Neshanic Garden Club since 2003.
Susan is replacing her mother this year as one of our
novice designers in our flower show. Mother Jean will enter and compete, as she
has for many years, in several horticulture categories.
Mother- Daughter will enter their flowering plants and
vegetables from their 1-acre beautifully preserved backyard garden. With all
the joy and care that keeps their backyard beds thriving their pride and love
for their garden and each other is felt by our Neshanic Garden Club - thus the
name of our flower show “JOYFUL HARVEST”.
Other firsts at our September flower show include
three new Neshanic Club Members- Robert, Donald, and Gary, who will be
competing in a Novice Design Class after attending courses offered by Terri
Falcone and Diana Reinhardt.
Our club is very grateful to Diana and her husband,
Gene for orchestrating our NGC Standard Flower Show. This is Diana’s fifth time
being a Flower Show Chairman.
Another first for our club includes a special
invitation recently sent to all District 4 members (Neshanic Garden Club is
part of District 4 of Garden Club of New Jersey hierarchy) District 4 members
were encouraged to enter our Garden Show through registration by contacting
Diana Reinhardt email address:greinhardt9@gmail.com
They are able to compete in design and horticulture divisions.
Please come & see Neshanic Garden Club’s “JOYFUL
HARVEST”
Enhancements to the Blue Star Memorial Garden
We have completed our enhancements to the Blue Star Memorial garden in celebration of America's 250th birthday. This includes a beautiful painting by Hillsborough High School student Soumya Panduri on the rain barrels, completing the previous enhancements of red, white, and blue flowers selected specifically to benefit Nature (pollinators and birds) that the Blue Star Team planted in May. Attached you can see a photo of Soumya's painting and the garden.
Club Member Kathy Lime thoughtfully suggested to provide the opportunity to paint the rain barrels to a Hillsborough High School student, and served as the liaison to follow through and make it happen. Thank you, Kathy, and please express our Club's gratitude to Soumya and her Academic Advisor on this project.
We were able to complete the flower enhancements through a grant we earned through the National Garden Clubs. The true meaning of the grant application can be found in the words below, from an article I helped write for Montgomery Township - they also installed a similar patriotic ecogarden at Veterans Memorial Park, designed with the same unified messages and intentions:
"Among these virtuous celebrations is America’s heritage to preserve and protect the freedom and opportunities we all have to do good with our lives thanks to the dedication and sacrifices of our Veterans and Active-Duty Service Members. Ecology gardens provide a relatively low-cost, easy-to-implement way to make it practical and inspiring for all participants to act with the same admirable qualities of our Service Members- to stand up for that which cannot stand up for themselves (our pollinators) in the difficult situations human activity has put them in. To put this into perspective and urgency of needed action, our National treasure the Monarch butterfly has lost as much as 90% of their population in just the last few decades and the honeybees we rely on for so much of our food production have lost ~40-100% of individual colony populations every year over the same period. Many less-monitored pollinators are in similar or worse peril.
The selected red, white, and blue flowers provide food and shelter for many pollinators (butterflies, bees, and moths) to thrive and raise their children. They also attract and feed hummingbirds and songbirds, which can readily find shelter and nesting sites to raise their young in the surrounding trees."
