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About Us
Our Mission
Our mission is to educate members and the public about the fine art of gardening, floral design, landscape design, and horticulture. We endeavor to learn about, protect, and conserve the environment. We volunteer in our community to share our passion for the natural world.
Greetings from Our President
Welcome to the Garden Club of Greater Milwaukee’s website!
Our Garden Club is the successor to the Milwaukee Art Museum Garden Club and is proud to continue its 101-year legacy. With 170 members, we are the largest garden club in the state of Wisconsin.
We have a wealth of programming for our members.
. Educational lectures to look forward to: a UWM professor on modernist landscape architecture, a noted landscape photographer on his book “The Rockefeller Family Gardens: An American Legacy”, and a noted horticulturist on “Container Gardening: Drama for Every Season”.
. Planned field trips: visiting a Wisconsin rice paddy planted with hardy rice and a maple sugaring operation, and
. Workshops include: making a fall wreath using native materials and the Art of Ikebana.
In addition, we are continuing our proud tradition of community service with planned volunteer opportunities at Alice’s Garden, Habitat for Humanity, Lakeshore State Park, Open Days and other Garden Conservancy projects, Riley School and on our Scholarship Committee.
At the heart of all of our activities are our members who volunteer. Through volunteering, we help make our community stronger, deliver the best experience we can design, and build camaraderie. Without volunteers, there would be no Garden Club.
We hope you will consider joining us!
Debra Sadow Koenig, President
Our Story
The Garden Club of Greater Milwaukee, Inc. (GCGM) is the successor to the Milwaukee Art Museum Garden Club which was established in 1921. We remain the largest garden club in Wisconsin with 170 members.
GCGM offers extensive programming designed to educate and intrigue our members, inviting speakers in many areas including horticulture, landscape design, environmental issues, and photography. Some of these lectures are on Zoom, which allows GCGM to engage speakers with a national reputation such as best-selling author Amy Stewart and noted landscape photographer Larry Lederman. GCGM also has hands-on workshops and member trips to notable public gardens and wild places, as well as a once yearly tour of member gardens, “Welcome to My Garden”.
Current community service projects include providing volunteers and monetary support to Lakeshore State Park, Alice’s Garden, MPS’s Riley School and the yearly Habitat for Humanity Plant Share. We award two scholarships annually for students studying horticultural or environmental topics in Wisconsin colleges or universities.
In 2021, GCGM entered into a partnership with The Garden Conservancy to allow members of the public to visit extraordinary private gardens in the greater Milwaukee area as part of its nationally recognized Open Days program. At the heart of GCGM’s success is the hard work of our volunteer members, without whom there would be no Garden Club.