About Us
GCA Mission
To educate and inspire members of our community to become more complete gardeners.
GCA Vision
Everyone in greater Kansas City leads more fulfilling lives as stewards of a beautiful and sustainable landscape.
Meetings of the GCA Board of Directors
Board Meetings of the Garden Center Association are at 6 p.m. the second Wednesday of each month with the exception of August and December at the Loose Park Garden Center at 5200 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, Missouri in Loose Park.
2011 Board Meeting Schedule
March 9, 2011
April 13, 2011
May 11, 2011
June 8, 2011
July 13, 2011
August 10, 2011
September 14, 2011
October 12, 2011
November 9, 2011
Garden Center Association Board of Directors
Chuck Robinson, President
Jo Missildine, Vice President/Commemorative Trees
Jean Kiene, Secretary/Treasurer
Don Schreiner, Affiliates
Georgia Lou Quentin, Membership
Judy Penner, Building and Landscape
Courtney Earnest, Hospitality/Commemorative Trees
Jo Missildine, Commemorative Trees
Dr. Norlan Henderson
Prudence True, Public Relations
Kristine Schrock, Programs
Susan Houdek, Hospitality
Dianne Swann
Ann Milton
Jill Bunting
Garden Center Association Board Advisers
Ginny McCanse
Joyce Deering
George Eib
Al Karsten
Marion Paulette
Debi Stumpff
Eric Tschanz
Chuck Brasher
Garden Center Association Staff
Brian Chadwick-Robinson, Web Editor
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Maureen Elton, Membership
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GCA History
Founded in 1958, the Garden Center Association’s mission has been to promote and encourage among citizens of the greater Kansas City area an interest in horticulture and related gardening activities through education and information. Foster involvement to attain a more attractive and beautiful community, thereby helping to increase tourism, increase property values, preserve the environment. To make the community a more desirable place for business to locate and individuals to live.
The Garden Center Building was constructed in conjunction with the Garden Center Association’s founding. The buildings cost and a director of the building was hired with funds from the Ella C. Loose Trust. Horticulture classes were offered as well as soil testing. Garden clubs and societies were formed whose activities were based in the building.
The Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department took over the operation and maintenance of the building a few years later and has remained the caretaker of this important horticulture resource ever since.
In the 1960’s the trees at the park were mapped by Spenser Crews and plans were begun to replace those that were declining. In the 1980’s, the Garden Center Association founded the Stanley R. McLane Arboretum adding 450 species of trees to the park and providing funds to maintain them.
The GCA maintains an extensive horticultural library at the Garden Center Building. The original books were donated by the Kansas City Library at the time of the construction of the building and the collection has grown ever since.
Presently the GCA hosts their speaker events at the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Discovery Center, due to the increased attendance of the events and the needed parking. The Garden Center Association still holds special events and workshops in the Garden Center Building and the Board of Directors still meets in the Horticultural Resource Library. Additionally, 15 other horticulture groups and societies meet at the Garden Center building. Approximately 4700 people use the building yearly for horticulture purposes.
The History of Loose Park
In 1927, Mrs. Ella Clark Loose deeded 78 acres of land at fifty-first Street and Wornall Road to the Board of Park Commissioners. She gave the land as a memorial to her husband, Jacob Leander Loose, who had died in 1923. Jacob Loose founded the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company, producer of Sunshine Biscuits. He was also a philanthropist and active in Kansas City’s social and cultural circles. In 1926 Mr. Loose had purchased the front nine holes of the Kansas City Country Club golf course, intending to donate the land to the city as a park. She bought the land for $500,000 from the Hugh Ward Estate, which had leased it to the country club*. A clubhouse, a swimming pool, and a lagoon still remained on the land. The Ward Investment Company retained 30 additional acres directly west and south of the park as part of its Sunset Hill residential development.
Mrs. Loose’s deed stated her wish for a “public park for the benefit an enjoyment of the public generally and more particularly for the children”. She intended the park as a “quiet restful area” as opposed to an active recreational site. She wanted no monuments, memorials, or statues (without her approval), no automobiles except at a proposed parking area near the north entrance, and no permanent ovens or camp stoves. Also forbidden were golf links, football fields, and baseball diamonds.
In 1929 S. Herbert Hare, landscape architect for the nationally recognized landscape architectural firm of Hare & Hare prepared plans for an arboretum to include 13 varieties of oaks, lindens, buckeyes, and black walnuts; 10 species of maples; and 6 varieties of ash.
*Editors note: Hugh Ward was a lawyer and the son of Seth Ward, who had previously owned the property. Ward Parkway was named for the younger Ward.
+ This history of Loose Park is excerpted from An Historical Survey of the Kansas City Missouri, Parks and Boulevards System, 1893-1949, published by the Kansas City Design Center in cooperation with the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Kansas City, 1993, and is reprinted by permission of the Kansas City Design Center.
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