Catonsville Garden Club Helps Care for Garden and Grounds at Catonsville Senior Center

For the past six months, a group of women from the Catonsville Garden Club has been slowly working to add to the grounds of the Catonsville Senior Center with plants, flowers and shrubbery.

And while the planting season is just about over, the volunteers are thinking ahead to next year and what else they can add to the ground off of North Rolling Road. 

"The grounds are beautiful," said volunteer Claudia Bohnert. "To me it's so inspiring to work here."

For several years, garden club members have added plants and worked on the grounds with smaller projects. This past spring the group decided to volunteer more of its time, which saves the senior center's site council from having to hire a landscaper.

Starting this spring, the group members added butterfly bushes, crepe myrtles and other flowers in the planters in the front of the building. They helped remove an invasive Bermuda grass that had taken off the shrubbery, and they have also taken over the weeding of the grounds.

During the height of the gardening season in May and June, the group was there once a week. For the rest of the summer, the group has been there every three weeks.

On Monday, a handful of volunteers were out weeding for several hours and planning their next round of planting and mulching. The volunteers were: Martha Lochary, Dorothy Marvel, Julie Lee, Barbara Smith, Bohnert, Lucy McKean and Ellen Scherr.

Nicole Sheehan, director of the center, said many of seniors who visit the grounds have noticed the work the volunteers do.

In fact, often when the volunteers are working in the front, many who walk into the front of the building stop to thank them.

"The people who come are so appreciative," Smith said. "Almost everyone who walks by on their way in says 'we love it.'"