This year, the Russellville Cultura Garden Club celebrates 72 years as a Federated Member of the Garden Club of Alabama, Inc., the National Garden Clubs, Inc. and the Deep South Region. For several years, Cultura Garden Club members have promoted the goals of these national and state organizations as well as the goal of beautifying our community.

The first garden club in the United States was the Garden Guild. It was founded in 1913 by Elizabeth Price Martin and Ernestine Abercrombie Goodman. Later, the Garden Club of America (GCA) was formed in Athens, Georgia, to replace the Garden Guild. Its goals were to promote the recording and enjoyment of American gardens as well as conservation and horticulture.

In 1929, GCA was followed by the National Council of State Garden Clubs, now known as the National Garden Clubs. By the 1930s, local garden clubs had formed in communities throughout the United States.

One of these was the Alabama Federation of Garden Clubs. On April 28, 1932, seventy-one delegates from fifty Alabama Garden Clubs met at the Jefferson Davis Hotel in Montgomery to organize the Alabama Federation of Garden Clubs.

The organization’s goals included:
– Aid in the protection and conservation of natural and human resources.
– Encourage civic beauty, stimulate roadside development and discourage unsightly objects and litter along the highways.
– Encourage the maintenance of a State Park system.
– Further horticulture education and landscape design.
– Study in all of its aspects the fine art of gardening.

After all these years, the Garden Club of Alabama, Inc. (GCA), an affiliate of the National Garden Clubs, (NGC), is still making a difference in our communities and our state through civic beautification, scholarships, flower shows, environmental responsibility and supporting the Blue Star Memorial marker program to honor our armed forces.

The National Garden Clubs, Inc. celebrates 110 years of leading the nation in the promotion of the love of gardening. Today the NGC is a 501(c) (3) non-profit educational organization headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, adjacent to the Missouri Botanical Gardens.