FLEMING ISLAND—Members of the Fleming Island Garden Club have worked for two months on good pruning and weeding to start preparing their gardens for the April 27 Butterfly Release. Also, we had our monthly collection for the food bank and had a great turnout, with donations of 270 pounds of food and $225.

We have a planning committee working hard at work creating beautiful decor, bling, hand scrub, our popular felted bees, and garden essentials for fundraising at the Club Continental Art in the Garden event on May 21. Another committee is planning activities and growing and propagating plants to sell at the April 27 Butterfly Release at the Fleming Island Library.

We welcomed Master Gardener Volunteers Michelle Hord and Sadako Long from the Orange Park Garden Club to our March meeting, who gave us instructions on how to make a topiary floral design. They brought some of the essential materials and had previously asked club members to bring flowers, greenery, and ribbons to create some stunning designs to take home and enjoy or to donate to a local nursing home. Two Fleming Island Garden Club members are planning a follow-up floral design event for the club in early June.

The club is organizing a field trip in April for members to attend a luncheon and then the 11th annual flower show at the Garden Club of Jacksonville. This will be in conjunction with the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs’ Centennial Convention in Jacksonville.

If you’re going to be at the Clay County Agricultural Fair, be sure to stop by the Horticulture Building to look at the Fleming Island Garden Club’s display table and the displays from the other Clay County garden clubs.

Our next meeting is at 10 a.m. on Monday, April 8, at the Fleming Island Library Meeting room at 1895 Town Center Blvd. Meetings are free and open to the public, so we hope to see you there.