The Locust Valley Garden Club shares its love of horticulture by decorating local libraries in December. Judy McQuiston and her team decorated the Bayville Free Library on Dec. 2, and Pat Bruderman was the leader for decorating the Locust Valley Library on Dec. 3.
Club President Janet Doctors received photos from Judy McQuiston that she wanted to share as well, as a way to say, “Thank you to all the volunteers.”
McQuiston wrote, “We had a great time this afternoon decorating the Bayville Library. Everything looked so festive by the time we finished.”
She forwarded two pictures that the library’s director, Christine Edwin, took showing the LVGC members who helped.
The groups have a budget of $100 each so it takes some talent to keep within those guidelines.
McQuiston said, “We bought plaid ribbon and more artificial garlands to add to our collection and snowflakes for the windows. This was the first time we decorated the tables in the children’s area.”
She shopped around and found “razzle dazzle Christmas trees that sparkled plenty for a dollar. You have to keep your eyes out for bargains.”
They also put small, sparkly snowflakes in each windowpane in the children’s area and some big snowflakes on the glass partitions.
Outside, everything was home grown. “For the greenery outside, everybody just trimmed their bushes,” said McQuiston. “I have a holly; Maria Merz has a cedar with blue berries; and Marcy Meyer has a variegated holly and also some nice evergreen boughs. So we had big buckets of greenery. I made a piece for the posts in front and we filled big barrows with greens outside. We really cleaned up our yards. I don’t know how Locust Valley does it, but in Bayville this is what we do.”
A Christmas tree was already donated to the Bayville Library. The club put garlands on the tops of the bookshelves interspersed with real poinsettias.
The library is an old stable, explained McQuiston. There is a center room with two wings on the sides where the horses were stabled. It is small but they do amazing things, according to McQuiston. “It’s really quite gorgeous,” she said.
