A century of green thumbs: Ravenna Garden Club marks 100 years

The Ravenna Garden Club this week celebrated its 100th anniversary.

The club was established Aug. 1, 1923, with a stated purpose "to cultivate the spirit of gardening in the fullest sense with appreciation of civic beauty and betterment in and around Ravenna, to stimulate the knowledge of gardening among amateurs, to share in the advantages of association, to aid in the protection of native plants and birds and to encourage civic planting."

In 1926, the club embraced the slogan “Make Ravenna Beautiful" and began to take on civic improvements, including landscaping at Reed Memorial Library. The gardeners hosted flower sales over the years and published booklets to raise money.

The Portage County Gardeners, which was once a federation of 16 garden clubs, including the Ravenna Garden Club, began looking for a permanent home in the 1980s.

In 1984, the golden anniversary of the Portage County Gardeners’, Robert Dix, then publisher of the Record-Courier, and his wife, Helen, donated more than four acres off Prospect Street in Ravenna Township to the gardeners, and improvements were made to the land and to a storage building dubbed the "mink shed.”

Gardeners say Robert Dix asked his wife if she’d like a mink coat as a gift; to which she responded, “I’d like a “mink shed.” That is how the yellow shed on the property came to be known as the Mink Shed.

The Ravenna Garden Club still meets regularly, holding picnics and "white elephant sales" to raise money. The club continues to promote community gardening. Recent projects include maintaining the planters on Chestnut Street in downtown Ravenna and updating the entry gardens at the center