Hull Garden Club’s ‘Daffodil Lady’ honored for decades of dedication to beautifying town
By Carol Britton Meyer
Longtime resident Anne Musmeci, known around town as “Hull’s Daffodil Lady,” was honored by the select board last week with a resolution from the “grateful Town of Hull” for her many years of service with the Hull Garden Club.
GRATEFUL GROWTH. The select board presented Anne Musmeci, shown here with some of her fellow members of the Hull Garden Club, with a resolution honoring her years of service to the club and the community. She was a founding member of the club and is known as the ‘Daffodil Lady’ for her work in planting bulbs throughout town. [Skip Tull photo]
Musmeci attended the meeting, and following presentation of the resolution by Chair Jennifer Constable and a round of applause, she posed for photos with the select board and members of the Garden Club who came to the meeting to show their support for efforts over the years.
Musmeci was a founding member in 1966 and served as president from 1997 to 1999, when the Daffodil Trail program was created as an ongoing campaign to sell and distribute daffodil bulbs as part of a continuous planting effort throughout town.
This avid gardener has sold more than 180,000 daffodil bulbs during her time with the club – hence her nickname – and was responsible for having the daffodil named as the town flower because it “represents a sign of spring that makes everyone smile,” according to one club member.
Throughout the years, Musmeci has dedicated her “time, talent, and effort to beautify our surroundings and enhance our quality of life by sharing her gardening skills with our community” through the ‘Adopt a Garden’ program,” the resolution states.
This program, which Musmeci chairs, gives club members and others in the community the opportunity to “adopt” small areas of town property to maintain and beautify, including traffic islands.
When the Veterans’ Council and the DPW had containers added to the Hull Village Cemetery markers for streets named in honor of Hull residents who were killed in action during wartime, Musmeci included them in the program.
The 14 containers were all adopted by members of the club, who are responsible for the plant material, design, and watering.
A smiling Musmeci expressed appreciation for the recognition and offered a special thank you to fellow Garden Club members for their assistance in planting the daffodils and with other projects.
“It looks so nice when they start to bloom throughout the town,” she said.