Winter Around the Grounds

As fortunate as we are to have mild winters here in the Bay Area, things do quiet down in the gardens between December and March. Bare branches are revealed as the oaks lose their leaves, and the brown fronds on our stately Dawn Redwood often lead to worried inquiries as to its health. Never fear, this is an example of a unique (and long thought extinct) species of deciduous redwood, so its foliage will return in the spring. Our garden team is hard at work clearing out the old growth and trimming back grasses, pruning roses and pulling weeds

 

Early in February, the Marin Garden Club organized a volunteer work party to get the Memory Garden in ideal shape for the season ahead. The Memory Garden has been in the care of the Garden Club since it was planted early in the history of MAGC. Today it is a lovely place to sit on a warm day, shaded by a bay tree and a strawberry tree and edged by azaleas, rhododendrons, ferns, boxwood, and holly. More azaleas and rhododendrons provide the backdrop to the elegant arbor and bench at the Fountain Pond, just below the Memory Garden. These hardy plants are among the first to bloom, and we have washed and re-stained the arbor, just in time to show off the early spring flowers. We hope you’ll enjoy these tranquil spots as the days grow longer.

More to explore

IRS Guidelines for Gifts from Donor Advised Funds to Support MAGC Events

Thank you for your interest in giving to the Marin Art & Garden Center events from your Donor Advised Fund (DAF) or Family Foundation.

We sincerely appreciate your generosity and support!

To ensure your gift follows the current IRS guidelines for DAF/Family Foundation support of an event, we would like to share the below guidelines with you.

  • Raffle tickets, tickets to galas and other special events, auction items, and benefits conferred in connection with a DAF/foundation grant are not permitted.
    • IRS has specifically ruled that fair market value associated with fundraising events cannot be separated, a practice known as “bifurcation.”
      • For example, with Edible Garden, if the price of the ticket is $200 and the FMV fair market value (non-tax-deductible amount) is designated to be $50, the donor must pay from sources other than her DAF/foundation for the full value of the ticket ($200) and not just for the non-tax-deductible amount ($50).
    • We recommend you confer with your financial advisor to confirm if any of these examples of how donors may still use their DAF to support an event would work for you:
      • A donor could sponsor the event, and not attend, and pay fully out of the DAF/foundation.
      • A donor could sponsor the event using DAF/foundation funds and attend by purchasing an individual ticket through non-DAF/foundation funds.
      • A donor could sponsor the event, join the event as a guest of another donor/table guest, and pay fully out of the DAF/foundation.
      • A donor could sponsor the event and host the afforded number of people at their chosen level as long as they pay for the seats at the lowest ticket price ($200 for Edible Garden) outside of their DAF.
        • As an example, a $1,500 sponsor that covers 2 guests, could pay for their sponsorship with $400 from a different source of funds, and then give an additional gift of $1,100 out of their DAF.

 

Please email Tod Thorpe, Director of Development at tod.thorpe@maringarden.org to discuss your gift to Marin Art and Garden Center