Lacombe and District Garden Club celebrates 75th anniversary with tree planting 

The Lacombe and District Garden Club celebrated 75 years in the community by planting a Toba Hawthorn in the Lacombe Memorial Centre Garden on Tuesday.   

“We like the idea of living legacies,” said Karen Holmes, Chairperson of the Lacombe and District Garden Club. “We like the idea that a tree gets rooted in the past, as it were, in the soil and grows into the future and is something that can mark our life together.”  

In the past, a bench was donated by the club to the LMC garden.   

“We love that kind of idea as well, but because we're all gardeners, we love the idea of having something that's living and growing," Holmes said.  

In addition to planting the tree, the club distributed sunflower seeds around the community, hoping that residents would grow them in their gardens this year.  

The club will commemorate the 75th-anniversary celebrations by installing a plaque to the tree site in June. 

“We're doing a number of things to make our mark, plant some seeds, and see some things grow,” Holmes said.  

A Toba Hawthorn tree was chosen to be planted in consultation with the City of Lacombe Parks Department.  

“The city gardeners had a list of trees that they liked, and then we selected Toba Hawthorn,” Holmes said.   

A Toba Hawthorn was chosen not only because it has a four-season interest, but also grows in a unique way.   

“It's a fun tree to watch grow, the trunk twists, and in the springtime, it has little flowers that start white and turn deep pink. It'll have tiny little berries on it, and the leaves are a cut leaf,” Holmes said. “Because of where it's located, it's kind of a feature tree. We were looking for a tree that would be a ta-da, as opposed to a shade tree.”  

 Holmes explained that it was important for the club to plant the tree when they did, to ensure it would be established over the summer to survive the winter.  

“It's also one of the reasons we chose the size of the tree because, in a public park, it's difficult to plant a small tree and have them survive,” she said. “Quite often there's an accident, somebody runs into them, and they get smoked.”