Sequim Prairie Garden Club enjoys a fine 75th

By Michael Dashiell • August 2, 2023 1:30 am

Still growing after seven-and-a-half decades.

The Sequim Prairie Garden Club and community members celebrated the group’s 75th anniversary in style on Saturday, July 29, at Pioneer Memorial Park, with a flurry of activities highlighted by a presentation from Pacific Northwest gardening legend Ciscoe Morris.

With a distinctly historic feel to the day — the club also hosted old time fiddlers, spinners and blacksmiths — garden club members gave tours of the clubhouse and historic pioneer home, the refurbished section of cemetery grave markers in the southwest corner and the abundant greenery on the park grounds.

“I think it went great; we’ve never done something like this before,” club president Ellen Castleman said.

“We had a lot of fun putting this together.”

She said the club gained at least four new members at the event.

The event, which included a ribbon-cutting with the Sequim-Dungeness Chamber of Commerce, honors the seven-plus decades of activities, community service and more, for a club that started with just seven women in 1947 to about 70 men and women today.

Morris enthralled a crowd of nearly 100 with tips on a wide range of flora, passing along several stories that had the audience in stitches — including the backstory on his catchphrase “oh la la” (it had to do with an unexpected incident with a self-cleaning bathroom in the French Alps).

Morris gave away several plants from the Sunny Farms Nursery, and also promoted his book “Oh, La La!: Homegrown Stories, Helpful Tips, and Garden Wisdom,” warning the crowd that he couldn’t guarantee buyers would find the stories funny.

“I can only tell you I laughed my head off when I wrote them,” he said.

Following the event, Morris said he had a great time in Sequim.

“It was so much fun,” Morris said. “[We had] a great audience, and that Sunny Farms … is a great nursery.”

For more about the Sequim Prairie Garden Club, visit sequimprairiegardenclub.org.

Gardening guru Ciscoe Morris and Susan (KSQM 91.5 FM’s “Sassy Susan”) Sorensen look for the name of a plant they’re about to give away during Morris’ presentation at the Sequim Prairie Garden Club’s 75th anniversary celebration on July 29 at Pioneer Memorial Park.