SAUGUS — If you drove by the Roby School or American Legion Building Saturday morning, you’d see two things: signs stating “Saugus Garden Club Plant Sale” and “Saugus Strawberry Festival,” two staple events in town, and a partnership between the Saugus Historical Society and the Garden Club.
Outside the Roby School were rows of plants for people to pop by and purchase. Garden Club members were hard at work setting up for the sale and helping people find exactly what they were looking for.
Standing in front of the different plants, you’d notice Garden Club Co-President Donna Manoogian hustling and bustling to make sure everything was running smoothly.
Both Manoogian and fellow President Lorraine DiMilla spoke about how “absolutely wonderful” it is to see the community come out and enjoy the sale.
“People come back every year looking for this or looking for that, and we sell a lot. And then at the end of the day, we reduce prices, and people come back and buy something they thought was too expensive or they really didn’t need, but that they liked,” DiMilla said.
Manoogian explained that about a month to six weeks before the sale, the club has a workshop where they get together and plant seeds or bring things from their gardens.
“Then groups of us bring them home and babysit them and nurture them so that by the time the plant sale comes around, they’re beautiful,” she said.
Manoogian continued that this wasn’t a fundraiser, which occurs during the Annual Garden Club Fundraiser, but instead it was a way for them to reach out to the community and have everybody be able to afford something.
“It’s like an eighth of the price you would pay at a nursery,” Manoogian said. “A lot of it is dug up from our gardens, and it’s just a nice outreach to the community.”
DiMilla said she had taken things from her three sheds, which she had been nurturing for three to five years. “It was just plants I didn’t want anymore, so I brought them here,” she said.
Both women said that the club has grown over the years, explaining that this plant sale started with one woman, Martha Clouse, who set up a table that was “kind of Garden Club related.” It eventually grew and became a club event. They said that now the club is about 70 members strong and about to celebrate 80 years.
Manoogian and DiMilla also expressed that it was a social club, sometimes only seeing members and connecting at events.
“It’s wonderful. They all support us, no matter what. … We have a wonderful group of people. And they get to talk to someone whom they know nothing about, but you’d think they were best friends,” DiMilla said.
“And maybe at the end of that conversation, they are best friends,” Manoogian chimed in.
After spending time in the sun with the Garden Club, locals could make their way inside the American Legion for some strawberry shortcake and hot dogs served up by the Historical Society and Garden Club.
The president of the society, Laura Eisener, explained that the festival dated back to the 1980s in Saugus and even earlier in New England as a whole.
When asked what she liked most about the festival, Eisener joked that it certainly wasn’t the preparation, but instead, “On the day, people come together, people come from out of town who grew up in Saugus. The vendors are outside, and it’s one of the times the Historical Society and the Garden Club come together.”
Eisener explained that most of Saugus used to be farmland, leading to a love for strawberries. And if you’re wondering why strawberries were the berry to stick, Eisener has the answer for that, too.
“Because they are traditionally the first fruit of the season. They used to say you should never marry a girl who wants strawberries in January, because in colonial days that would be an impossible request,” she said.
Eisener said she enjoys the festival every year, despite her thinking each year might be the last she runs it.
“Each year I think, ‘I’m not going to do this another year.’ It’s just so much work leading up to it, and it’s during planting, growing, and landscape consulting season, where you do a year’s worth of work in a few months,” she said. “But everybody seems to have such a good time, and I see people I haven’t seen for years… So it’s definitely worthwhile when you see everybody coming together and having fun and enjoying the camaraderie and celebrating the season.”
