37th Village Plant Sale

As the Brightwaters Garden Club gets ready to host the 37th Village Plant Sale, Saturday May 11th starting at 8 am. We wanted to take a look back at how this special Brightwaters event came to be a tradition for many in our village.

On Sept. 27, 1985, Hurricane Gloria slammed into the metropolitan New York area, with Long Island bearing the brunt of a storm that whirled winds up to 115 mph. The hurricane caused tens of millions of dollars in damages to homes, beaches, power and telephone lines, vegetation and other buildings and property.

In a New York Times article Brightwaters Mayor at the time Gregory M. Gibson, said the 12-man highway department, augmented by the National Guard and now by outside contractors, would need at least until the end of December to remove all the stumps of the trees – many of them 100 years old -that went down in the village. ”It will be late spring before we’re back to normal,” he said. In the same article residents of Brightwaters say the flavor of the village had changed dramatically with so many trees gone. Mayor. Gibson was more philosophical. ”You could say we definitely have more sunlight – it’s brighter in Brightwaters,” he said.

In December of 1985 the Village formed an Environmental Commission. This committee was formulated to determine types of trees to be replaced, clean up and other environmental projects. At the time the chairman Mrs. Harriet Salomon was calling for residents to volunteer and help her assess the environmental damage the village had taken due to the storm and help make a plan to move forward.

On May 2nd 1987, the now known as Environmental Committee hosted a Spring Fair to raise money for the various beautification projects in the village. They were selling flats of petunias, marigolds and other flowers at “competitive prices”. Their Flower Sale was a great success! According to the May 4th 1987 Board of Trustee minutes “unfortunately anyone getting there after 9:30 am was disappointed because everything was sold out”.

Some things never change.

Today the Brightwaters Garden Club hosts the Plant Sale every Mother’s Day weekend at the Gazebos at the top of the canal. It’s a loved tradition for many families and the Garden Club still uses the profits and left over plants to plant throughout our village for all the residents to enjoy.

Brightwaters Historical Chairman, Marykate Moley, dug into the history of the plant sale. For anyone that would like to get involved with the historical society or for additional inquiries please reach out to us at info@brightwatershistory.org