Woman’s Club of Orange members are responsible for how beautiful the roses look in Old Towne public gardens, including the club’s garden, which you can see at their April 26th Flower Show.
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Woman's Club of Orange
For more than 100 years, the Woman’s Club of Orange has hosted events and organized projects that have beautified, engaged and connected the City of Orange and its people.
One much anticipated event is the club’s annual flower show held since 1916. While breaks have been taken over the years due to two global wars, the tradition was always revived after each break.
The show’s success is in large part due to the work of people like Flower Show Chair Pietra Gaw, who says planning for the next year begins shortly after the event wraps up. This allows the club to plan for obstacles such as scheduling conflicts with other events, and can take nine to 10 months to complete.
“The challenge this year is rescheduling to a Saturday from a Thursday,” says Gaw. “This year’s 2025 Flower Show is the first time ever, to my knowledge, that the show is to be held on a Saturday.” The intent of changing the day from a weekday to the weekend is to allow for more people to attend the event, which last year helped bring in more than $9,400 for local charities.
In addition to raising funds over the years, the Woman’s Club has cared for local public rose gardens. In 1940, the Club was asked by then Mayor Boice to aid in the beautification of Hart Park, and club members took over that job for many years. They were also in charge of the roses at Plaza Park until the 1960s when interest faded.
More recently, interest in taking care of public rose gardens has been rekindled, says Annie Mansell, Lead Rosarian for the Woman’s Club. She explains that during the 2023 Flower Show, Mayor Dan Slater attended and toured the Woman’s Club rose garden. During the tour, he asked the Woman’s Club to take care of the roses at Hart Park and the Plaza Park rose beds.
Now Mansell and a crew of eight other members regularly show up to work the rose gardens every Monday and Thursday at Hart and Plaza Parks.
“A lot of people see us every single week and thank us for caring for the roses,” Mansell says. “I actually had one person ask what I did to have to do this as community service every week, and I had to laugh.”
When asked how they get the roses looking so good, Mansell replies with their secret recipe. “We fertilize every six to eight weeks, and there is actually a method to our madness. We fertilize with coffee grounds from a couple of coffee houses we pick up from. Then we put chicken manure on the soil and mulch on top of that, and then feed them with Liquinox Grow and Bloom.”
The Woman’s Club of Orange is accepting community entries for the April 26th Flower Show, as well as looking for new members. If you would like more information about the Flower Show, please contact Pietra directly at 714-617-0203, or visit our website at www.WomansClubOfOrange.org
* Special thanks to Woman’s Club Historian, Kathy Thomas, for historical information used in this article.
