The Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale on Memorial Day weekend at the Old Mill in West Tisbury.

The Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club’s Blooming Art Show, which pairs flowers and artwork, will become an annual event.

Thirty artists and thirty members of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club are combining their talents to produce a double dose of beauty this weekend. The artists will create paintings while garden club members will create floral arrangements that capture the artist’s work. The result is Bloomin’ Art 2013, an event modeled after the Museum of Fine Art in Boston’s Art in Bloom show, an annual celebration of floral arrangements inspired by the museum’s masterpieces.

In case you’re wondering what flowers and fine art have in common, Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club will enlighten with its Bloomin’ Art exhibit at the Old Mill building in West Tisbury. The event pairs artwork by 30 Vineyard artists with interpretive floral arrangements created by the club members. The art is available for purchase with proceeds funding ongoing projects such as scholarships for Island graduates and the preservation of the Old Mill.

After thirty years serving the Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich on Cape Cod, horticulturist Jeanne Gillis said she still loves to work with people and plants.

Speaking before the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club at its October meeting, Ms. Gillis presented more than thirty colorful slides in a talk titled Flowering Plants for the Landscape.

Many of the plants featured in her talk are strong and able to survive high winds.

The lead foreman of Vineyard Gardens, Jeremiah Brown, doesn’t mince words about his expertise.

“What I know is pruning,” he said.

He shared his experience with members of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club at its September meeting by combining a talk and hands-on demonstration on the grounds of the Old Mill in West Tisbury. 

Mr. Brown admitted to starting out his career in horticulture by “knocking out false bamboo in his mother’s garden with a golf club.”

Paul Mahoney, a nurseryman for 30 years and the owner of Jardin Mahoney in Oak Bluffs, spoke at a recent meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club on the topic of Sustainable Plants in the Landscape.

Mr. Mahoney explained that the word sustainable, when used in gardening, has an open definition, but he bases it on three general concepts: a growing public enthusiasm for native plants, conservation of wildlife habitat, and a movement away from the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides.

The Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club has announced its 2009 beautification awards to businesses and landmarks across the Island. These recognize the most beautifully designed, planted and maintained window boxes and/or landscaping. Here are the organizations who caught the gardeners’ eyes, so you can check them out for yourself.

In Chilmark, awards went to Larson’s Fish Market, the Home Port restaurant, Chilmark Public Library, Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank, Menemsha Cafe, and to Chilmark Chocolates an honorable mention.

For many years, the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club has sent two members to the mainland, to participate in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ exhibition, Art in Bloom. This annual April event is a collaboration between garden clubs from throughout New England and professional designers collaborating to produce vibrant floral displays, each one interpreting a different piece of art from the museum’s collection.