Community effort brings new life to museum facade

Garden club funds, KCCC students plant hollies at Historical Society

Workers stand beside a brick building, fitting and finishing large wall panels on a concrete walkway.

Students in the Knox County Career Center Landscape Design and Management program plant Japanese Sky Pencil Hollies in front of the Knox County Historical Society Museum on May 5. The project was paid for with a gift from the Town and Country Garden Club.

Fred Main

Published May 10, 2026 - 8:01 a.m.

Each December, the meeting of the Town and Country Garden Club for members and guest is a silent auction to raise money for grants. Those grants are given to various projects in Mount Vernon as determined by the Civic Affairs Committee.

A $200 gift from Region 7 has been added to the amount raised by Town and Country Garden Club in December 2025 and is being used to improve the planted beds for the Knox County Historical Society Museum's facade at 875 Harcourt Road.

The design was made by Jason Elliott, Elliott Landscape Design, in consultation with members of the museum board who, along with other volunteers, will maintain the landscape. The landscape includes eight Japanese Sky Pencil Hollies, mixed buff and neutral colored rocks, new weed barriers and signage acknowledging Town and Country, OAGC Region 7, and Knox County Career Center students as donors.

Elliott, along with John Campbell, instructor for the KCCC Landscape Design and Management program, supervised students from that program as they cleaned up and disposed of current plant materials and rocks. The weed barrier was replaced, the hollies planted and existing artifacts rearranged on May 5.