The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG - Gail Gwinn and Joe Patrick's yard on the corner of Sev- enth and Orchard looks a bit bare.

Not only did crews leave "a pretty big hole" when they removed a 135-year- old maple to widen Seventh Street, but the couple just re- located here from Whidbey Island after remodeling their new Waitsburg home and they haven't had much time to devote to a garden.

"There are three plants in our yard and some grass," said Gwinn, who had a lush botanical spread at their home near Coupeville and now wants to start one east of the mountains. "That's a new challenge."

They will be getting a new tree from the city to replace the historic maple. But that's not the only help they're looking for to. Thanks to friend and fellow Waitsburger Karen Stanton Gregutt, Gwinn will also have a revitalized Waitsburg Garden Club to turn to.

Said Gwinn: "I want to get the expertise from people who already live here. I can pay attention to what other gardeners are doing."

That's exactly what Stan- ton Gregutt hopes to accom- plish with the club, which she originally launched in 2006 and finally got around to restarting this spring. This weekend, the club had its first plant exchange in Pres- ton Park, and soon mem- bers will begin to tour each other's little Edens.

"Introducing people to your garden is one of the most fun things about own- ing one," Stanton Gregutt said.

But she hopes the club, which has a former and current roster of about 40 members, can become much more than a loosely-knit group of green thumbs. It can be a showcase for ex- emplary garden, a way to increase Waitsburg's visual appeal and a destination for traveling gardening enthu- siasts.

"It's about bringing out the hidden beauty of Waits- burg," Stanton Gregutt said. "I hope people can start thinking of this town as a place with beautiful gar- dens."

In addition to meeting every third Saturday morn- ing of the month at Coppei Coffee, the first step is to recognize gardeners for their exceptional work by hand- ing out a "Garden of the Month" award and placing a sign in front of their yard, she said. A picture of the recipient and their creation will appear in The Times.

From the monthly winners, the club can then select the "Garden of the Year" and feature it in a parade float during Waitsburg Cel- ebration Days, along with a student who has helped cultivate the courtyard gar- den at Waitsburg Elementary School.

And ultimately, the club could do a Waitsburg garden tour during a weekend in June when the gardens are at their best. With the pro- ceeds going to charity, club volunteers would sell tickets to visitors who would step into a handful of featured gardens around town com- plete with a live musician and an art or craft on display, Stanton Gregutt said.

For this and other reasons, fellow club member Kate Hockersmith, whom Stanton Gregutt approached about facilitating the musical com- ponent, is excited about the club's renaissance.

"There are a lot of beautiful gardens here which you don't see a lot because they're behind people's homes or be- hind a fence," she said. "We have a lot of talented horti- culturalists."

The garden club fits in well with the community's "culture" of growing things, be it wheat, peas, vegetables or flowers. "Everyone wants to get into the act a little," she said.

Waitsburg has long been a place of lush yards and rich shade trees, though even the late Betty Chase wasn't sure if there was ever an of- ficial garden club, Stanton Gregutt said. What she did impart when Stanton Gregutt founded the club is the city's unofficial flower. It had to be the daisy, whose reputation as a hardy perennial brought here by the town's pioneers exemplified the early settlers' spirit.

Hockersmith has lived in Waitsburg for more than 20 years and had gardens from the subtropics of Florida to the timberline heights in the mountains of Idaho. She finds gardening in Waitsburg the most satisfying among those extremes.

"This is a wonderful place to garden," she said. "There are no rocks (in the soil) and the climate is (relatively) mild."

Gardeners are already aided in their enterprise by John and Marilyn Stellwagen, who bring in a large carefully selected variety of plants and flowers to the Waitsburg Hardware store each spring, Hockersmith said.

Still, the layout and selection of a garden can be a challenge, particularly to newcomers who are used to the even more temperate weather of western Wash- ington, according to Stanton Gregutt.

"It's a different collection of plants," she said, speaking from her experience relocat- ing from rain-bound Bainbridge Island near Seattle.

Plants here have to be hardier to survive the colder winter and the scorching summer sun. They have to be frost and heat resistant. Their placement in sun or shade leads to much more of a contrast than it would in a temperate zone.

The club's first meeting is scheduled for June 15, when Stanton Gregutt offers to take members on a tour of her own cottage garden, a color- ful spread of dozens of trees, shrubs, blubs, herbs and veg- etables with a rose garden at the heart of it.

And that will become the club's routine: meet for a bit at the coffee shop, then leave on a field trip where mem- bers focus on just one garden to exchange ideas, offer tips and possibly arrange to swap some plants.

"It's not your great grand- mother's garden club," Stan- ton Gregutt said. "Gardening has become seriously cool."

For more information about the Waitsburg Garden Club, contact Karen Stanton Gregutt at 206-409-8399 or kstanton@mac.com.