Lucy Thayer Named Recipient Of Garden Club Scholarship

The Randolph Garden Club has announced that Lucy Thayer of East Wallingford is the recipient of its 2007 horticultural scholarship. 

Thayer is entering her second year at Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center, studying to be a landscape architect. She has already completed the UVM Extension-sponsored Master Gardener program and interned this summer at Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, N.H. It was there that she came to understand the challenges and constraints of an historically accurate garden, where everything is kept as it was at a certain point in history.

Thayer has also worked with several projects involving children in gardening at the Castleton Community Center and the Boys and Girls Club Garden in Rutland. Before coming to VTC, she studied technical theatre and art at the University of Northern Colorado, where she found that many of the design elements and the creation of spaces for humans to interact in were similar to garden design.

After completing a four-year landscape architecture program, Thayer expects to live and work in Vermont. She recognizes that the character of Vermont is challenged by urban sprawl, loss of farming communities, immigration from suburban areas, changing climate and lack of practical horticultural expertise, and hopes her projects can continue the heritage and traditions of our historic state.

This is the second year the garden club has awarded a $1,000 scholarship to a student in VTC’s Landscape Development and Ornamental Horticulture program. The recipient must be a full time student and a Vermont resident. The goal of the scholarship is to deepen the college/community relationship with VTC and to support new horticultural professionals in Vermont. 

The Randolph Garden Club donates $1,500 to VTC each year. One thousand dollars goes toward an endowment fund, and the college matches the other $500 so that a student receives a $1,000 scholarship, and the endowment grows by $1,000 to help more students in the future. The scholarship is the main focus of the club’s fundraising activities, which includes a plant sale in May, and tours of private gardens in mid-summer.

In a continuing effort to deepen relations with the college, Thayer will attend the September 11 meeting on Ferns of Vermont, and VTC President Ty Handy will speak at the garden club’s annual banquet on November 13.