Paumanacke Garden Club: growing for 84 years

Members of the Paumanacke Garden Club of Wantagh are fluent in the language of flowers. For example, they know that a hydrangea signifies devotion and lavender means success.

“I guess you could say that our members have a passion for flowers and for gardening,” Paumanacke’s co-President Mary Ellen Kennavane said. “It’s a very creative outlet, akin to drawing and painting. There’s a love of beauty and a sense of design to all of it.”

“But it’s also down and dirty,” Paumanacke’s historian and longtime member Elaine Yarris added. “We’re dirt gardeners.”

Presently, the Paumanacke Garden Club has 29 active members — gardeners who are committed to the club’s mission to beautify public spaces in Wantagh and to promote horticulture with a variety of educational programs for its members and the public. Additionally, members are involved in several outreach projects that bring together a love of floral design and community service. Those programs include donating holiday floral arrangements for St. Francis de Chantal’s Meals on Wheels program, making centerpieces with residents at the Parkview Nursing Home in Massapequa, and providing centerpieces to the veterans in the Northport Hospital. “We are very much committed to the idea of sharing our gardening knowledge with the public and providing community service,” Kennavane said.

Club members meet at the Wantagh Library the fourth Thursday of the month, March through December from 7 to 9 p.m. They are always looking for members. The public is welcomed to join.

Each month, there is an educational program followed by a mini-flower show judged by one of the club’s members, who is a master judge in flower design and horticulture. “This is a way of practicing for the big show,” Kennavane said.

Paumanacke has a garden show every two years, and also participates in the District 2 show annually. While most members are amateurs, some have developed expertise in their field of interest, as the club has two members who are prize-winning members of the Rose Society.

The Paumanacke Garden Club was founded in 1931. A group of men and women from Wantagh, Seaford, Massapequa and Amityville met at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Craig for the purpose of forming a garden club. According to material provided by Yarris, the initial membership consisted of 10 people, and Paul Craig was elected president. The main interest of the group was horticulture, particularly the planting of trees in the area. At its second meeting, the name Paumanacke Garden Club of Seaford was selected, and on June 26, 1931, they applied for admission to the New York Federation of Garden Clubs, and were accepted. The name Paumanacke means “island of shells,” and the scallop shell was adopted as a symbol of the club.

The first tree the group planted was in 1932 in memory of George Washington in Massapequa. They participated in the landscaping of the Seaford train station, Christ Lutheran Church and the Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church. They also presented educational activities for members and the community. The first flower show was held in December of 1932 at the Seaford schoolhouse.

During World War II, the club emphasized Victory gardens, said Yarris. In the 1950s, a push was made to keep Wantagh and Seaford pristine including a community beautification campaign. Paumanacke created a float in 1957 for the Fourth of July parade that was decorated with two litterbugs that urged residents to keep “Wantagh Clean and Green.”

In 1952, Seaford withdrew from the garden club to form its own group. Wantagh kept the name Paumanacke. Today, members come from Wantagh as well as Seaford, Levittown, Massapequa, Bellmore and Freeport. Paumanacke is a member of the National Garden Clubs and the Federated Garden Club.

In recent years, Paumanacke has coordinated with the Wantagh Chamber of Commerce in several beautification projects and is a member of the Triangle Park Committee. In addition to assisting with the initial landscape design at the park, Paumanacke members plant there annually.

Kennavane said the club has also planted Hosta on Wantagh’s Heroes Walk. The club recently planted a Red Bud, Yarris said, as a memorial tree at the Wantagh Preservation Society and “we have planted trees all over town,” she added.

Throughout the year, the club has a number of activities to promote gardening in public spaces. This month, the club has a garden display at the Wantagh Library in recognition of National Garden Week. Each August they hand out the Garden Patrol House Awards that recognizes beautiful gardens in Wantagh, and in December they decorate the grounds of the Wantagh Preservation Society museum.

Kennavane said she hopes that the club will continue to work for the beautification of the town. “I’d like to see us beautify the tree wells along Wantagh Avenue, maybe with a small wrought-iron fence and an evergreen ground cover all year,” she said.

“The town looks prettier when there are flowers; you get a good feeling right away,” said Yarris.

Kennavane agreed. “Maybe we could also have hanging baskets!”