In the Beginning

Sixty years ago The Lake Minnetonka Garden Club (LMGC) made the bold decision to raise $35,000 that would enable the purchase of a 160-acre site which had been identified by the Minnesota Horticultural Society and the University of Minnesota Department of Horticulture for an arboretum. The need was clear: a cold weather arboretum in our far northern growing zone (then called Zone 1) was of great importance. It would immediately become a great resource for the U of M fruit breeding farm as well.

According to Ruth Bovey Stevens, a member of the LMGC for 65 years, “this was the biggest thing the garden club had ever done. Our Executive Committee voted to give $10,000- we thought this was very generous. When this was brought before the entire Club, Mrs Harold Sweatt got up and astonished us all by saying, ‘I think we should purchase the whole thing’. We were aghast! But Mrs. John S. Pillsbury, Sr, and Mrs. Edmond Phelps arranged a dinner at Woodhill to which husbands were invited.” Harold Tearse, president of the Horticulture Society spoke, as did Dick Gale. The enthusiasm was tremendous.”

Mrs. Pillsbury was a saavy fundraising chair, having quickly deduced that their ambitious goal could only be achieved if twenty members contributed $1000 each and 20 more $500 each. Although there was no actual solicitation of funds at the dinner, rumor has it that on the back of each place card was the amount expected. Members were asked to signify by letter the amount of their financial support. Within two weeks, the fund was oversubscribed having raised over $39,000 from seventy-five members. Gifts ranged from $10 to $24 to $1,000. The check was presented to the Horticultural Society in 1958, the land purchased and donated to the Arboretum.

A Plan for the Land: 1959

With the land purchased, a plan for the new arboretum was now needed. The following year, at its 1959 Annual Meeting in Richmond, Virginia, the Garden Club of America, which was one of the first to recognize the country’s new cold climate arboretum, presented the Founders Fund Award to the Lake Minnetonka Garden Club for its project- a Master Plan for the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The funds were used to employ Kansas City-based Hare & Hare, a pioneer in the profession of landscape architecture and planning, which created the Arboretum’s first Master Plan.

The Rest was History

Many of the couples at the famous Woodhill meeting became members of the Arboretum’ first Finance Committee- a predecessor of its board of trustees that was formed when it became a foundation in 1972. Since 1958, forty-four LMGC members have served in leadership roles as trustees or on the Founding Finance Committee. Many other generous members and their families have helped build the Arboretum into a world class arboretum and the largest public garden in the Upper Midwest. Today it has expanded to 1,215 acres and attracts close to a half million visitors yearly.

The Lake Minnetonka Garden Club also constructed an entrance of native stone in the early 1960’s that holds a plaque with the following inscription:

The Site for this Arboretum Presented Through the Minnesota Horticultural Society to the University of Minnesota by The Lake Minnetonka Garden Club, Member of the Garden Club of America.

A Continuing Partnership

In subsequent years, the LMGC donated the Knot Garden and the brick path around it in the 1980s and in 2006 created a Maintenance Fund for it.

In 2015 the Club turned it sights on raising support for the new Tashjian Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center. The effort was spearheaded by member Renata Winsor. A year later, with 100% of the membership participating, the LMGC endowed the Center’s new pollinator garden.

Today, in its 60^th Anniversary Year, the Club is poised to begin a new collaboration with the Arboretum called “Founding the Future:  Young Gardeners Initiative 2018”. The undertaking will take pollinator education statewide and build an exciting pollinator curriculum for the future young gardeners of Minnesota. Once again The Lake Minnetonka Garden Club will take the opportunity to rededicate itself to its long-standing commitment to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.