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Grow with the Flow logo2022-2024 President, June Gebhardt 

Welcome OAGC President - June Gebhardt as we GROW with the FLOW

The Garden Path, Fall 2022, Volume 89, No. 1

I have been looking forward to this time eagerly; the beginning of my term as the Ohio Association of Garden Clubs (OAGC) president has begun! From the start as second VP 4 years ago, it took me most of that time to decide on a "theme" for my term. I received a tote at the Region 1 Spring meeting that said, "Grow with the Flow" that gave me my slogan. Mike Kalb, a garden club friend designed the perfect graphic for me, pictured (above). He asked, "Have you Googled the phrase?" I had not. Doing so was such an aha moment!

Google's top definition was "To look for moments of growth in life. To look at obstacles as an opportunity for exploring our fullest potential. To look at mistakes as lessons that we were supposed to learn in a different way." Let's try this way of thinking in our gardens, our clubs, and our lives!

The growth of OAGC depends on all of us sharing our gifts with everyone downstream!

OAGC progressions over the past few years have been like a floating boat, either you ride the flow or fight the current. OAGC listed goals in the Summer 2022 GP issue. I plan to see these goals through, some much sooner than others, but with the next two years.

Our members value natural resources, interacting with nature, the beauty and people, and most of all creativity and growth. OAGC has taken leaps to embrace learning opportunities and techniques that involve all levels, new ways to accomplish meetings or a tour, such as Zoom, sharing using technology like Google docs and digital resources like Facebook or Pinterest, and coordinating within our organization and with other organizations with similar goals such as Master Gardeners. I have witnessed many clubs and regions that welcome "grow with the flow" in the last four years. I am so proud of you! Just as a plant or flower will find a way to bloom despite challenges, so will OAGC!

Look at this video of a daylily doing just that!

My Vision to Grow With The Flow in OAGC

The book, Grow with the Flow: Embrace Difference, Overcome Fear and Progress with Purpose, by Katie Mehnert, caught my eye. Life had thrown this phrase and this book in my face. I have always tried to live life to the fullest, learning along the way. Katie reveals how we can override the voice in our head that tells us not to try because we aren't ready. She believes diversity is being open to other people's perspective. If we are humble, life offers no finer teacher than other people. Katie states that the ability to ask for feedback allows us to constantly reinvent ourselves. Reinventing ourselves is "growing with the times, the trends, the changes. Growing with the Flow"! I want to navigate the waters and bring us safely through to blue skies. Unpredictable as the journey may be, we will still get there. Ready or not, life is just one problem after another, and we all improvise and think of a creative way to solve it.

"Vision, will and grit. Rinse and repeat." - Katie Mehnert

My vision is to open learning about gardening and design to everyone regardless if young or old, working or retired, wealthy or poor. Everyone's will is created with passion. I have a passion to grow plants and find a way to share their beauty and originality. Grit is something that grows with experience to the unwelcome critics and the bad experiences. Not that you get used to them but you learn how to react to the feeling it causes. Take everything into perspective. If OAGC as a whole continues to use our vision, will, and grit to share our love for gardening and design, we will continue to grow our organization as we "Grow With the Flow".

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