Hills Garden Club of Wellesley
About Us
Metrowest - district within the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts to which our club belongs. Other clubs in this district are from the towns of Dover, Medfield, Millis, Natick, Needham, Norwood, Sherborn, Wellesley, and Westwood (22 clubs).
Cricket Vlass - horticulturist for the Town of Wellesley; responsible for parks and plantings; works closely with Wellesley garden clubs on projects such as Elm Park.
Elm Park or Clock Tower Park - park located on the triangle between Washington St. and Route 9 in Wellesley (across from Blockbuster and Whole Foods). Our members plant bulbs in autumn and work in teams in summer and early autumn to deadhead, weed, and groom the plantings. Our club has also obtained funds through grants and club fundraising activities to improve the structures and plantings of the park. Additional information previously published about the park:
Since its founding in 1945, The Hills Garden Club of Wellesley has worked with the Department of Public Works on the design, planting, and upkeep of Elm Park, the site of the historic Sprague Clock Tower in Wellesley Hills Square. Elm Park is enjoyed as an appealing gathering place as well as an oasis of quiet green space in the midst of a bustling intersection.
Through the years, the Club has partnered with the Wellesley Department of Public Works Park Division and the Natural Resources Commission to develop and fund the Park. Improvements made include the brick-paved seating area with Victorian benches and trash receptacles, plantings for perennial beds, and the transplantation of major rhododendrons. Hundreds of daylilies were also planted around the seating oval. In 2001, the Club provided three new Valley Forge elm trees to replace some of the elms lost to Dutch elm disease in the 1970's. Selected from newly cultivated American elms, this species has shown the highest resistance to the disease. Forty new shrubs were also added.
The park was at one time the site of a tavern and later, the Elm Park Hotel. By about 1905, however, the hotel was abandoned and in ruin. Isaac Sprague V, a prominent Linden Street resident and town official, along with John D. Hardy, spearheaded an effort to buy the land and donate it to the town as a park.
In 1928, Sprague commissioned the Clock Tower to be built in the public park. Benjamin Proctor, Jr., a local architect who designed many of the Town's public and private buildings, designed the imposing tower. The stone facing on the 65-foot tall tower was taken from the rocks on Sprague's property. A bell taken from the former Shaw School on Forest Street (razed in 1924) was placed in the clock tower.
