By Maggie Dolbow
Correspondent

Joe Buckner proves that men also take part in the Goffstown Community Garden Club. He’s shown here at a previous year’s plant sale. (Courtesy Photo)

You may not notice the snow receding and leaving larger and larger strips around buildings and circles around trees, but the heart of the gardener is beating faster.

Short green swards piercing the brown earth are a sight for a gardener’s sore eyes. You will find many of these “greendeprived” gardeners at a meeting of the Goffstown Community Garden Club.

The group meets on the first Thursday of every month in the undercroft of St. Matthew’s Church.

The Goffstown Community Garden Club was founded in 1933. Its mission is “Conservation, beautification, education.” Accordingly, the club sponsors many community- based projects throughout the year.

“The club is community minded,” said longtime member Jean Walker. “I feel we try to do special things for the town: roadside cleanup, Keep Goffstown Beautiful Week, plantings at Wallace Road and the traffic circle, decorating public buildings for the holidays. At the same time we help our members learn more about gardening.”

Other projects include creating birthday bouquets for residents of the Hillsborough County Nursing Home. Each month a group of garden club members meets in Grasmere Town Hall and assembles the bouquets.

The club also offers an annual scholarship to a senior from Goffstown Area High School who plans to major in horticulture, agriculture or education and the environment. This scholarship is funded by proceeds from the club’s annual May plant sale.

At the sale, customers can pick up perennials, annuals, shrubs, and sometimes even trees at reasonable prices. The stock is mostly from member gardens and comes with advice about planting and care. This year’s plant sale is scheduled for Saturday, May 14, on the Goffstown Common.

Programs change yearly, but always center around the mission. One year the club held a public tour of 11 club members’ gardens. The proceeds benefited the Grasmere Town Hall Preservation Fund.

Another year a grant from the National Garden Club enabled the group to begin a butterfly garden at Parent Baby Connection of the Manchester Visiting Nurse Association.

“I joined the garden club because I learn things and I like the socializing,” said Mae Corriveau, who lives in Medford Farms. “I’ve made some very nice friends. I love the garden club. And it’s not just for ladies, either. We have some gentlemen and they enjoy it, too!”

Wendy Greszyk has been a member for six years.

“The thing I like really now is when people are talking about their plants,” she said. “They know so much. We’re going to do a whole session in which everyone brings a favorite plant and talks about its care and propagation.”

Other members, like Kathy St. Jean and Patti Welch, join for the programs and service projects.

“When I moved to Goffstown, I wanted to find out more about the community,” said Welch. “And I was hoping to learn a little bit more about my garden.”

The Garden Club has about 40 members and is always looking for more.

For information, call AddieAnn Lambarth at 497- 4698, or write to Goffstown Community Garden Club at P.O. Box 572.