Deck Town Hall With Bows of Holly — and Grape Vines and Conifers

COMMUNITY NEWS

CARRBORO —The Carrboro Community Garden Club is not big on rules, member Marcia Mills says, but it loves tradition.

The low-key group meets monthly in members’ homes to share gardening tips and advice. And every Christmas for more than 40 years, they have donated grape vines, garden clippings and conifer greenery to decorate the wreaths at Town Hall. This year’s wreath-making took place Dec. 3.

Gardens of earthly delights

Mills told The Local Reporter that she and her husband moved to Carrboro in 1975. A few years later, longtime resident Frances Shettley, who lived on their street, told Mills she was starting a “casual garden club” to help members learn from one another. “One of the members was Ken Moore, assistant director for the North Carolina Botanical Garden,” she said. Moore encouraged the group to plant species native to the state, advice that many members followed.

“Native plants are really good for bees, butterflies and other animals,” Mills said. “We think of it as a whole package.” Her own garden is a natural, native one, with some trees more than a century old. “I just love nature. It’s like my religion — I love to be outside.”

Mills, who volunteers as the club’s coordinator, said there are around 50 current members, with typically 10 to 15 attending the monthly meetings. “There’s no need to RSVP; all you do is show up.” The group skips August because of the heat, and the December meeting focuses on creating wreaths. Members hold a gift exchange in January, during which they sign up to host meetings for the rest of the year.

The meetings offer members a chance not only to share advice but also to help each other physically. Mills said some of the younger gardeners cut the grass in her yard — a task she no longer undertakes at 80.

Wreaths of Carrboro

Mills said the annual wreath tradition was Moore’s idea. He asked the town to make a plywood ring six feet across as the base for a Christmas wreath. Two smaller wreaths have been added since. Every year, members gather materials from their gardens to decorate the plywood.

“We wrapped it in wild grapevine,” Mills said, “because one of our members happened to have a row of grapevines that needed to be trimmed every winter. Every year we kind of repair the wreath and add some more grapevine.”

Next year will pose a challenge, she said, as that member’s grapevines have died. Mills hopes to find usable vines growing behind her house instead.

On top of the grapevine base, members add additional greenery: “evergreens, conifers, eastern red cedar, magnolia, holly — anything we can find in our yards, our neighbors’ yards, Duke Power or OWASA easements. We add cones, berries, pods, anything we find that looks interesting. Every year it looks different.”

This year, instead of hanging the two smaller wreaths alongside the large one, club members created swags — bunches of evergreen branches decorated with berries, cones and a bow at the top. Concerned they might not have enough greenery, one member visited a TROSA Christmas tree farm, asked for trimmings, “and they gave her a whole trailer-load full,” Mills said.

Fraser Sherman has worked for newspapers, including the Destin Log, the Pensacola News-Journal and the Raleigh Public Record. Born in England, he’d still live in Florida if he hadn’t met the perfect woman and moved to Durham to marry her. He’s the author of several film reference books and has published one novel and several short story collections. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocalReporter.press