Garden Club

Leota Ingram Sowell, a former president of the Roland Park Garden Club, died Dec. 12 at her Guilford home of complications from heart disease. Mrs. Sowell, known to her friends as Lee, was 96. Born in St. Joseph, Mo., Leota Ingram grew up on her family's farm in Harrison, Ark. She graduated from Harrison High School there and attended Hendrix College in Arkansas before marrying Paul Dibrell Sowell in 1927. The family moved to Baltimore in 1947, where Mrs. Sowell went on to be a leader and board member of many arts organizations and private clubs.

After a day of working with special education students at Atholton High School, teacher Laura O'Donnell headed to Centennial Lane Elementary to give more instruction. Once a month, she volunteers at the elementary school's Junior Garden Club. O'Donnell and Joanne Winters, a reading specialist at Centennial Lane, are members of the Howard County Garden Club, which sponsors the program, and they run Centennial Lane's gardening club. Winters said the Junior Garden Club is more than an opportunity to teach children about nature.

Mary Elizabeth McNair, an urban pioneer who left a residence near Sherwood Gardens 30 years ago to take on a beat-up Federal Hill rowhouse, died Sept. 20 of heart failure at a Salisbury nursing home. She was 90. She and her husband defied convention, and their residence became a magnet for younger couples and individuals who had begun trickling into what is now one of the city's showcase harbor addresses. Born Mary Elizabeth McNulty in Wilmette, Ill., she earned a degree at Connecticut College for Women.

MARY ELIZABETH McNAIR, 90, of Salisbury and formerly of Baltimore, died Saturday, September 20, 2003 at Wicomico Nursing Home. Born in Wilmette, Illinois on October 19, 1912 she was the daughter of the late Bernard and Elizabeth McNulty. She was preceded in death by her husband, John Wilson McNair whom she married in 1935. She graduated from Connecticut College for Women. She was an ardent horticulturist, a founding member of the Holly Society of America, a member of the Daffodil Society in Baltimore, the Catonsville Garden Club for more than 50 years, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Garden Club of America.

The judges pause on Annapolis' Market Street to praise a boot. It's not just any boot that stops the women -- a member of the Garden Club of Old Annapolis Towne and a guest -- it's a tall black boot filled with luscious red roses and labeled "Kentucky Derby ... Running of the Roses." For a moment the judges consider calling "the girls" -- other women traversing downtown streets -- for advice, but resolve that the rules are the rules. And in the May Day flower contest, an annual tradition celebrated here for nearly 50 years, flowers must be in a basket to win. "We love the boot, but it's not in a basket," judge Mary Small says, as they move on. The discerning judges canvassed the historic district's streets yesterday, scrutinizing arrangements of roses -- and peonies and lilacs and irises -- on front doors and porches.

Go fly a kite in Lewes, Del. Cooperation and weather are two terms that don't often go hand in hand, which makes the feats at the Great Delaware Kite Festival all the more impressive. The event, recognized as one of the Top 10 kite competitions in the country, takes place tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes. More than 200 people take part in stunt, homemade and store-bought competitions in child, teen and adult divisions. The event also includes a stunt-kite exhibition, recreation, food and refreshments.

SHE'S NURTURED the minds of young pupils whose numbers rise into the thousands. Now, Mount Airy Elementary kindergarten teacher Wendy Gahm has turned her nurturing to the environment, and, in the process, wants to see her school honored for its efforts. Three years ago, Gahm saw a need to spruce up the school's landscaping. She also saw a learning opportunity for herself and her young charges. "I started the Garden Club because I've had an interest in gardening since I was a kid," said Gahm.

Phyllis Ross looks more like the boss of a landscaping crew than she does a garden-club lady. She wears work gloves instead of white gloves and a ball cap instead of a flowered hat. And she isn't chatting amiably over tea with other ladies in voile dresses. She is telling them where to dig, what to pull out and what to plant. "Nobody does anything without asking Phyllis first," says a fellow member of the Cliff Dwellers Garden Club. "Phyllis is the boss." Ross is the creative force behind the restoration of the Friendship Garden on the grounds of the Evergreen house, and today is a work day. Members of the Roland Park and Guilford garden club are out in force on this beautiful morning to spring-clean the intimate walled garden created by the late Alice Garrett during Evergreen's heyday.

The Historical Society of Carroll County will offer a series of "In the Garden" seminars in conjunction with the Designer Showhouse 2002. Programs will be held in a climate-controlled tent next to Atlee House on Water Street, New Windsor. Seminars are free with an Atlee House Tour Ticket, except for the vintage tea. Seminars are at 1 p.m. unless noted. Seminars are: Tuesday: Birds by Lynn Walter, Silver Fancy Garden Club; followed by Vegetable Gardening by Marilyn Potter, Mount Airy Garden Club.

IF YOU'VE ALWAYS wanted to celebrate spring by hanging a beautiful May basket or if you're looking for unique, locally grown plants for your garden, don't miss the Four Rivers Garden Clubs' annual flower mart, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday at Market Space in downtown Annapolis. Club members dig up, divide, pot, label, price and sell homegrown plants, including perennials, bulbs and small shrubs. They also offer an assortment of cut flowers, herbs and annuals at the mart. New to the sale -- a downtown Annapolis tradition depicted in a 1949 photograph by Marion E. Warren that hangs in the lobby of Pussers' Landing restaurant -- are floor cloths hand-painted by members, crafted garden ornaments and 18th-century holiday table decorations.