Andrea Weigl: My West Raleigh garden club brings neighbors together

I still remember the day I was recruited to become a member of the Countryside Garden Club.

I live in a West Raleigh neighborhood called Roylene Acres. Roy and Aselene subdivided a farm to create this collection of mainly ranch homes from the 1950s and a few split-levels from the 1970s.

A few days after I had moved in, Jan Dawson walked up my gravel driveway. We sat on my screened porch, and before I knew it she had the story of this new neighbor for the Roylene Acres newsletter. (Dawson would have made one heck of a newspaper reporter.)

She also invited me to the monthly garden club meeting. Being an ambitious beginning gardener and first-time homeowner, I was eager to attend.

Little did I know that they speak another language at these meetings. I don’t mean Campanula, Dianthus and Rudbeckia.

Rather, the neighborhood’s geography is not understood by who lives in the houses now but by who used to live in the houses. So my house is known as the Pearsons’ house – even though the last time a Pearson lived there was 2001. Another house may be known as “across the street from Joyce Fuller’s house” or “next door to Pete Fralick’s house” despite the fact that Fuller and Fralick died in 2008 and 2007, respectively.

It is completely befuddling to try to follow these conversations.

I was reminded of such at a meeting a few months ago. I was completely absorbed in such a rambling discussion about the homes for sale in the neighborhood when I noticed a new neighbor sitting on the couch, eyes wide in confusion.

What I love about this group is that its crazy coded language speaks to its longevity. Almost as long as there have been homes in Roylene Acres, there has been a garden club.

Back in the day, it was a bit more hoity-toity with a waiting list for membership – a history that has made some longtime residents reluctant to join. The women used to gather at each other’s houses, wearing hats and gloves for special occasions, and learn about flower arranging.

They meticulously documented their activities, as well as the neighbors’ home and yard improvements, in scrapbooks. Looking through those scrapbooks is a favorite pastime.

They include photos of the neighborhood when it didn’t have towering maple and pine trees. They include ribbons from members’ showings at the N.C. State Fair’s flower shows. There are even newspaper clippings, among the most memorable when the garden club ladies shipped some Roylene Acres soil to NASA in Houston for the astronauts to step on after returning from the moon.

The garden club has changed a lot in the decades since the 1960s when it started. The truth is we don’t really garden all that much anymore, except for an annual cleanup of the neighborhood’s entrances. Although last month, we did tour a neighbor’s beautiful and largely edible front and backyard gardens.

We plan an ice cream social in the spring and a block party in the fall. We publish a monthly newsletter. We maintain a directory. We take food to neighbors after a death in the family.

If not for this group, I wouldn’t know my neighbors nearly as well. I rarely drive out of the neighborhood without waving at someone. I can hardly walk our dog without stopping to talk to a neighbor.

What struck me during that recent garden club meeting is how much I owe to these women. There we were laughing and teasing each other and basically leaving the club president to herd cats to get through the “agenda” and I realized that I have known these women for a decade. We have seen each other’s children grow up, our careers change, our families evolve through marriage, divorce, birth and death. In many ways, large and small, we have been there for each other.

With a toddler and a busy job, I don’t get to as many garden club meetings as I once did. But I know that I can pick up with these women at any meeting I can make it to.

They are a large part of what makes my neighborhood home.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 6:18 AM with the headline "Andrea Weigl: My West Raleigh garden club brings neighbors together."