Friendly Garden Club plants 5,000 flowers for Cherry Festival logo garden

About 30 volunteers from the Friendly Garden Club of Traverse City filled the Open Space Park display with more than 5,000 flowers on Wednesday, turning a downtown flowerbed into one of the clearest signs that Cherry Festival season is near. This year’s design carries extra weight: a giant 100 and cherry-themed elements mark the 100th National Cherry Festival.

The annual Logo Garden is more than a decoration. The club says it is one of its best-known projects, designed, planted and weeded every year at the Open Space in downtown Traverse City, where it helps shape the look of one of the city’s most visible public spaces. Susan Townsend, who co-chairs the Friendly Garden Civic Beautification Committee with George Townsend, said the work is part of a tradition the club has kept going since the late 1980s. The garden is expected to stay on display through the end of summer, weather permitting, giving residents and visitors a reason to keep stopping by long after the planting is done.

The club’s own materials say the garden typically uses more than 6,000 annual flowers and depends on all active members. That volunteer labor has become part of the civic machinery that supports Traverse City’s tourism identity, especially at Open Space Park, which sits among the main festival grounds downtown and faces West Grand Traverse Bay. The National Cherry Festival’s 2026 schedule lists July 4-11 as the 100th celebration, putting the garden squarely in view as the city prepares for one of its signature events.

The Friendly Garden Club’s roots go back to 1923, when sisters Edna Barnum and Annette Barnum founded the group. Northern Express reported in 2023 that the club had more than 50 active members, while a 2023 UpNorthLive report said the Open Space flowerbed was already in its 36th year and used 6,000 annuals. In that report, Peg Jonkhoff summed up the project in plain terms: “This is the logo garden.”