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POMONAL – The Australian Plants Society is hosting its Open
Garden Weekend tomorrow and Sunday from 10am-5pm to raise money for the Pomonal
Hall.
Tickets are $20 per person and children enter free. Maps and
tickets will be available from the Pomonal Hall.
Six gardens within close vicinity of the town centre will be
open for viewing across the weekend. Here is a preview of each:
Wayne Farey’s 3.5 acre native garden in Cassell Court is an
ever evolving labour of love. The beautifully landscaped garden featuring many
ponds, dry creek beds, rustic sheds and aviaries has an emphasis on Grevilleas
both species and hybrids, some of which are grafted. The extraordinary garden
has grown from a bare paddock with one tree in 1998 to a beautiful show piece
and you’ll pick up many landscaping ideas here.
Phil William’s 4.5 acre garden in Wildflower Drive is a
mature native garden with many new plantings, big trees and wildlife habitat.
It’s a glorious collection of Australian flora with many plants clearly named.
As a special treat Phil’s house block and bush block, which are not usually
open to the public, will be on display.
Beverley and Kevin Grace’s five acre Tunnel Road garden was
30 years old before it was destroyed in the Mt Lubra bushfire in 2006. Now a
replacement garden, it is an eclectic collection of plants and is a work in
progress. It features Proteas, Leucadendrons, Leucospermums and Geraldton wax
for cut flowers. There are annuals, perennials, roses, shrubs and thousands of
bulbs as well as deciduous trees as fire diverters and there is a fabulous
native garden made from soil washed down in a storm after the fire.
Another victim of the Mt Lubra bushfire was the garden of
Linda and David Handscombe in Long Gully Road. Also a work in progress, it
features many 13 year old shrubs that have survived and regrown and many garden
beds completely replanted in the last seven years. The garden features a
landscaped pond, a wetland, gravel mulched garden beds, native and South
African cut flowers and a large collection of Carnivorous plants.
Brian Mullens’ rambling two hectare garden called
Boorooloola (Aboriginal for perpetual water) is 65 years old. Growing in stages
over the years it features many natives including Banksias, Grevilleas and
Eucalypts as well as exotic irises, roses and succulents from all areas that
will survive in this climate. Its special features include a fishpond, an old
wagon, a landscaped dam and soft flowing lawns. The views to the Black Range
are stunning and wrens, honeyeaters, parrots and thrushes abound in this
spectacular garden.
Leon and Joyce Sachse’s 3.5 acre garden at 2111 Pomonal Road
was originally purchased in December 2001 and was an overgrown block with sheep
grazing on wild oats and other grasses. It is now a picture perfect mix of
mostly natives and some deciduous trees with a fishpond, a gazebo and
beautifully mulched garden beds and five of the original six pear trees that
adorned the block.
New gardens are always underway and excess house water is
being directed into an exciting pond development.
You can bring a picnic lunch to eat in any of the gardens
and light refreshments can be purchased from the Pomonal Hall Committee
fundraising barbecue and the Pomonal General Store.
For more information about this weekend’s open gardens
contact Linda 5356 6352, 0407 700 843 or dlhandscombe@bigpond.com
A canary date palm towers over the front lawn of a home in Bellevue. The date palm can withstand temperatures to about 16-18 degrees Fahrenheit.
— Lyle Graves | Nashville Ledger
Tropics-loving Nashvillians suffering painful cases of beach-envy will be sorry to learn it’s too late to plant palm trees in the yard this year.
“The planting season for palm trees here is from April until the end of September,” says Jonathan Howlett, 31, Music City’s Johnny Appleseed, of sorts, of the palm tree.
Most avid weekend landscapers probably thought there never was a right time to plant those towering, coastal gems in and around Music City.
It’s not only possible, largely thanks to Howlett, it’s become less unusual to see green fronds swaying in the Tennessee wind as the gentle bite of early autumn forces other trees to begin shedding foliage.
All it takes is a little faith, which is precisely what led this former Virginia Tech Hokie outfielder to launch Nashville Palms – the palm-planting, frond-tending arm of his 4-year-old Covenant Landscaping – in mid-summer.
“I owe everything to God,” says the young man whose faith finds him tending to the soil in Middle Tennessee rather than following his youthful aspirations and skills on major league baseball’s well-cropped, emerald-hued diamonds.
“I had the speed. I had the arm. I had the power. I had the tools and stuff,” he says, reflecting back on his Hokie days.
He also has no regrets that thanks to his own religious convictions and the prayers of his mom, palm-planting rather than the proverbial “cup of coffee” in the bigs became his destiny.
“My mom was praying for me. She thought baseball wasn’t for me,” even when he was winning accolades on the fields of dreams.
This man of deep faith says his mom’s prayers worked and helped, eventually, to point him to the field he’s in now. Fields, plural, really: Middle Tennessee plantations, posh pastures and pool-side patios, where he’s spreading the gospel of palm trees by inserting them into landscaping plans, one frond at a time.
By popular reckoning, a guy would have to possess more than faith to plant tropical trees in Music City USA, where ice storms and even a bit of snow and temperatures in the teens are expected every year, often crippling the city for a week beneath a quarter-inch of snow.
Palms purchased at the warehouse home stores for use on summer decks and patios are discarded after the first burn of frost.
Howlett, though, not only has the passion for palms, he has schooled himself in the types that can grow here, year-after-year, adding touches of tropics to the hardwood-covered landscapes of his Brentwood and Williamson County clientele.
“I just like the beach,” says Howlett, who grew up in the Virginia Beach area, by way of explaining his interest in these trees whose fronds have symbolized victory and even immortality back to ancient times and in religions preceding his own.
For Howlett, each tree that stands firm – or, more likely, sways – in gentle Nashville winds, represents victory and perhaps at least a dash of immortality by carrying touches of summer and tropical hope through long, cold, lonely winters of discontent and death.
“I started in the landscape business four years ago in Nashville, Covenant Landscaping. I started doing some research on palm trees at about the same time.”
What inspired him in his research is what he’d seen back home.
“There’s a guy in Virginia Beach who has been (planting palms) for 14 years. They have the same weather conditions there, except they are on the coast.”
He does admit that coastal planting conditions are better, for the sandy, easily drained soil near the seas must be duplicated here – replacing the generally dense clay and rock beneath Middle Tennessee’s topsoil with a concoction mimicking those coastal soil properties – if a palm is expected to survive.
During his research, he was further encouraged by finding landscapers successfully nurturing palms all the way across the country and as far north as Vancouver, B.C.
“We’ve got a lot of people who are doing it in the Northern Hemisphere now,” he says.
While pondering this puzzling palm proliferation, Howlett decided it was time to branch out from the more mundane, or at least expected, landscaping ideas.
Jonathan Howlett of Nashville Palms describes how to care for a pindo palm, one of several able to survive Tennessee winters and temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
— Lyle Graves | Nashville Ledger
“I love palm trees. I thought it was a good idea. I thought: ‘Man, if they can live there (in Canada and Virginia), they can live here. I know if people knew about it, people would like to get them.’
“It gives a different appeal to the landscape. I love them all year long. They stay green all year long. They don’t get brown, like all the other trees, except the evergreens. I thought it would be neat to bring them to Nashville.”
It was another step in his journey of faith, so this year he began proselytizing how a palm or palms would add to the yards of his Covenant Landscaping clientele.
“We’re a full-service landscaping company,” he says of his business located near Lennox Village out toward Nolensville, near the neighborhood where he lives. “We do everything except spray. We leave that to the companies with the big trucks and equipment.”
He and his two-man crew “mainly work in Brentwood and Franklin. We take care of trees, plant, design and installation, lawn maintenance, edging, trimming. We do full-scale landscaping.”
He’d gone into landscaping four years ago, when he realized how unhappy he was in the world of real estate property management and sales, for which he had trained when not roaming the outfields for the Hokies.
Like so many transplants, his guitar and his interest in songwriting helped draw him here. The role of a songwriting troubadour – he writes worship and secular (but “not vulgar”) songs he hopes help heal the soul – is something he’d eventually like to add to his resume.
But he also knows that carhops, waitresses, valet-car jockeys and landscapers before him all have proven that musical success in Nashville, as the great late-20th Century British poet Ringo Starr sang, “don’t come easy.”
Real estate salesman Howlett may not have been in the right profession when he came to Nashville, but he knew quickly he was in the right place.
Not only did his guitar help him feel at home, but the first time he visited church here “a guy I played baseball with in college was there. And a girl I had class in college with was there. … I knew God placed me here, I knew once I encountered them, God had me right where I was supposed to be.”
He rather quickly realized his future was in soil, not sales.
His landscaping business was up and running and successful when he began to see signs that indicated it was time to take the leap of faith that would be necessary if he was going to convince people that palms fit snugly among the area’s hardwoods and hackberries, the magnolias – steel or otherwise – and the maples.
“I’d been wanting to start the palm tree thing. Been researching it, learning about palm trees, talking to people in Florida and Virginia.
“I went to Paris, France, this past winter on a mission trip and they have palm trees there. I’d go online and I’d see a bunch,” Howlett says.
“I kept on seeing palm trees everywhere I went. Didn’t matter if I was in the grocery store, seeing a sign, seeing a card. I would see palm trees. I knew I was supposed to start it. Sometimes you keep on getting hints about what you should do. You’ve got to eventually step out and face it. And that’s what I did in mid-summer.”
The first step was to get people to even imagine that palm trees could thrive here. By way of advertising, he and his crew planted a palm in the front yard of one of his favorite clients, whose yard faces Old Hickory Boulevard, precisely where Brentwood looks across the street at Forrest Hills.
It’s a highly traveled, low-speed, traffic-choked stretch of highway and the palm is almost impossible to miss. Beneath it is a sign advertising “Nashville Palms.”
“I’ve been doing landscaping for them for four years. They are super-good people and told me I could plant one there. That was kind of a blessing, my first big leap of visibility for Nashville Palms.”
He does not think this leap was accidental: “I’m a Christian. I give God all the glory for all he’s done.”
That simple bit of advertising has been successful.
“It’s been going good. I’ve gotten a ton of phone calls, left and right. A lot of people have been kind of shocked seeing a palm tree in Nashville. A lot of people are very interested. I haven’t sold a ton, but I’ve sold many.”
He expects that this year’s foray into the palm-planting profession – and the subsequent winterizing he recommends for most of the trees — will lead to more success next year, when “God will bless us and it will be really good. You’ve just got to trust God and make sure it works and follow through.”
Of course, he hopes his faith in fronds will help fulfill his own dreams as well as those of some of his beach-loving customers.
“When I think of the palm tree, I think of when Jesus was on earth, when they were waving palms. It’s an awesome tree.”
So instead of waiting until that next trip to Orange Beach or the Florida panhandle for the psychological lift bestowed by that first glimpse of a palm, Howlett recommends Nashvillians insert bits of the beach in their own front yards, where fronds will flourish through gray winters and into bright summers to come.
As Tug McGraw, a great poet of summer’s hope, once said: “Ya gotta believe.”
“Use implies something utilitarian,” he said on a recent weekday after a rain had doused the yard. “I don’t want it for anything utilitarian at all.”
Mr. Golden does not grow vegetables. He leaves the farming to the farmers. If he wants to cook or dine, he’ll do it in the house. And although he is 68 and seemingly into his hammock years, he doesn’t maintain a lawn for sitting. There is no tetherball pole. He leaves the entertaining to the entertainers.
But useless is not the same as meaningless. Mr. Golden was puttering around the mahogany-paneled parlor, looking for one of his favorite books, by the designer Rory Stuart, titled “What Are Gardens For?” Though the garden, called Federal Twist, is at the center of Mr. Golden’s life, he admits that he has trouble formulating an answer.
“I would say the main purpose of this garden is aesthetic, ornamental, even emotional,” he said. “And I don’t think most Americans think of gardens in those terms at all.”
This Saturday, Mr. Golden invites the curious public to visit as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program. (Tickets are $5.) Agnostics can inhale the fragrance of the JPEGs on his blog, View From Federal Twist.
Taking in the scene evokes the breathless rush through the fabric store Mood on “Project Runway.” Like the endless bolts of cloth, there are grasses here that shimmer and grasses that undulate, grasses that you’d like to feel caressing your neck and grasses you might don as a hair shirt. (Mr. Golden also maintains a judicial list of fashion crimes; for years, he rejected all yellow blooms as “brash.”)
The grass is a hint: The garden at Federal Twist is meant to be a prairie — or a prairie masquerade. It is an ecosystem that most likely never existed here on the edge of a shaded woodland.
Mr. Golden has sowed native plants by the thousands. But he is not restoring a pristine habitat. When he started landscaping here, eight years ago, he cleared 80 scrub cedars to bring in light. A good part of the garden grows over his septic field.
The plants he prizes bear the oversize, fantasy foliage of a Maurice Sendak dreamscape. “I don’t care that much about flowering,” he said. “I’m much more into dead plants and seed pods” — or rattling calyxes that look as if they might contain goblin teeth. If this is a prairie, it is a prairie of the imagination.
A garden, Mr. Golden said, should be a place “to sit in, think about, look at the sky in, live in. In my case, it’s sort of a psychological exploration of the hidden, the part of myself that never got expressed because I was such a timid, shy little boy. I learned to adapt over the years to living in the world. On sunny days, when the garden is in full growth, it’s quite exuberant and in-your-face. It’s pretty much the opposite of my personality.”
In other words, Mr. Golden’s garden is useless, except as an all-encompassing creation that fills his days and reveals his innermost feelings to the world.
And the world, for once, is listening. William Martin, an iconoclastic gardener and lecturer in rural Australia, discovered the Federal Twist blog and now counts himself among an international fan club. “It’s not really about horticulture,” he said of Federal Twist. (“Haughty-culture,” is the way Mr. Martin pronounces it, although this could be an accident of his Scottish and Australian upbringing.)
Though his own dry-climate garden, Wigandia, showcases vastly different plants, Mr. Martin reports that the two often correspond about “gardens as places for the mind instead of places for shovel and spade.”
Mr. Golden claims no formal training in haughty-culture. “I didn’t grow up seeing many pretty gardens,” he said. “The closest I came was the cemetery in Canton, Mississippi. I used to play there.” His favorite spot was the old brick columbarium, built for the casualties of a yellow fever epidemic.
R.S. Walsh Landscaping recently donated and planted grapefruit and tangerine trees in the garden at the Sanibel Historical Museum and Village. The mission of the Museum and Village is to preserve, protect and share the island’s history. The story of Sanibel is told from the Calusa and Spanish eras to the early pioneer families who settled on the island in the 1800s. Nearly 10,000 guests visit the Museum and Village each year.
“The purpose of the garden is to demonstrate to visitors how Sanibel pioneers kept ‘truck gardens’ to help feed their families,” said museum manager Emilie Alfino. It’s a beautiful addition to our picturesque village and the trees provide much-needed shade for the garden.”
“We have been providing landscape design and installation services in Southwest Florida for 30 years,” said Robert Walsh, president of R.S. Walsh Landscaping. “Our company feels a great responsibility to make a positive contribution in the community where we live and work. We support The Sanibel Historical Museum and Village because of their important role of preserving and sharing Sanibel’s history.”
R.S. Walsh Landscaping is a family-owned and operated, full-service landscape design-build Company specializing in landscape design, installation, and maintenance. For 30 years, R.S. Walsh has been committed to superior workmanship, the highest standard of materials and the constant pursuit of excellence. R.S. Walsh Garden Center Outdoor Showroom is located at 3889 Sanibel Captiva Road, across from the Sanibel School. For more information call (239) 768-5655 or visit www.rswalsh.com
This time next year, Concordia students could be celebrating fall with fresh produce from campus bushes. Landscaping on Concordia’s campus could become edible if a Concordia garden intern’s proposals are accepted.
John Stelter, a garden intern from this past summer, believes the landscaping on campus would be more productive if it yielded edible produce. As part of his internship he wrote a paper describing his research and conclusions, which he passed on to President’s Sustainability Council Chair Ken Foster at the end of summer. Stelter hopes the paper will eventually help influence the PSC to add edible landscaping – or permaculture – to the landscaping agenda.
Foster and the PSC will let the campus know when they have formed an opinion of permaculture. It is also likely permaculture will be a topic in Concordia’s sustainability action plan that comes out at the end of the year, according to Foster.
Foster said the PSC hopes to have permaculture incorporated into campus landscaping by next summer. To do this, the native and organic plants that now thrive throughout campus would be replaced with native plants that produce food.
Depending on the plants, such a change may allow students to grab food from the bushes as they walk across campus.
Stelter hopes Concordia will modify examples set by the campuses of Carleton College, Luther College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Landscaping at these campuses include berry bushes, which students are free to take from.
While these campuses mainly reside in rural settings, Stelter believes they could be adapted to a more urban setting like Concordia’s.
Stelter believes landscaping on campus could be designed to use space more productively. He hopes marginalized spaces could be made productive. The 10 feet of grass between the edge of the science buildings and the sidewalk or the dead grass under pine trees could ultimately be transformed into edible landscaping.
Edible landscaping also has the potential to provide food for Dining Services. Luther and Amherst specifically have gardens that provide food for the campus dining centers. According to Stelter, their example could be replicated at Concordia.
The edible landscaping preliminary research was given not only to the PSC but also the landscape coordinator.
“They seemed interested and hesitant,” Stelter said. “As they should.”
Foster believes adding permaculture to campus is a real possibility. He said the PSC is currently working with facilities and other staff to decide where to incorporate edible landscaping.
“John’s paper is helpful in providing some initial information and ideas,” Foster wrote in an email.
He said the PSC hopes to have the landscaping updated in time for the 2014 Symposium, as it will be focused on sustainability.
Edible landscaping would help spread the image of the campus garden, according to another summer garden intern, Maddie Hyde. Hyde also believes it would spread a message of sustainability.
Stelter agrees that the campus garden should be a more integral part of campus. Still, he pointed out that the campus garden and landscaping are different projects and does not want them to be confused, as they have different purposes. The point of having edible landscaping on campus is to have productive space, he said.
Before a recommendation can be sent to decision makers, more research needs to be done to determine which edible plants would work well as part of campus landscaping, Foster said. He hopes either Stelter or other students will continue to show interest in permaculture research on Concordia’s campus. Stelter said some of the research would be to decide which plants to use, as the plants would need to be native and ripe while students are on campus.
“A lot of these plants are ripe in summer and early fall,” Stelter said. He suggests that plants ripening in fall are the best choice. Some options Stelter pointed out include everbearing strawberries, raspberries, pumpkins or apple trees.
Foster agrees with Stelter that native, edible plants are important. He pushed that the presence of native, edible plants reinforces both the need for natural foods and that our area is a place where important plants thrive. Instead of simply planting traditional landscaping,we can better utilize the resources we have on campus, according to Foster and Stelter. One way to do this is to focus on planting productive greenery.
“There’s an opportunity cost for there just being grass,” Stelter said.
Britt Bublitz, 2016, is a News Writer for the Concordian. Originally from Centuria, Wisconsin, this sophomore has declared a psychology and English writing double major. She is also involved in the Jazz band and Tri-College Swing Dance Club.
Contact Britt Bublitz at bbublitz@cord.edu
Tags: edible landscaping, gardening
have a lot of good luck with your green surrounding.
Experts say that the planning and design of your garden should have a significant effect on your mood, health and prosperity. Your garden should be built in the house, so that it enables a person to feel close to nature. It should also help one to enjoy the serenity and calmness affected by the presence of the plants which you have grown in your home. It is largely believed that people make gardens to refresh their character. It is the lush green surroundings which help in relaxing and restoring ones inner peace.
In every home you will have some sort of a garden space and in large homes you will have a large garden space, smaller homes create a smaller garden. Here are some of the best Vaastu guidelines for your garden space and plants which are decked in it. It is believed that if you follow these Vaastu tips for your garden, it will bring prosperity to the residents of the home.
Take a look at these Vaastu garden tips:
Placement
The placement of the garden should always be in the northwest direction of your home. It can also be placed in the East direction if North is already accommodated. Placing your garden in the North will bring in peace of mind for the residents of the home.
Trees
If you are planting tall trees, they should not be placed in an area in front of the door. The tree should be placed in the East direction of the garden. Avoid placing the tall trees in the middle of the garden as well.
Fruit trees
If you are planting fruit trees, it needs to be planted in the East direction of your home. Placing the fruit tree is this direction will help to produce more fruit on your tree.
Idols
For good luck and presence of God, it is best to place an idol in your garden. An idol in your garden should be placed in the center to draw in the spiritual vibes emitted from the sun.
Dry plants
Make sure to trim your garden over a period of time. Never have dry leaves or branches in your garden area. One Vaastu tip for gardens that you need to follow is to get rid of your dried leaves before the sun sets for the day. It is a bad omen to keep dried leaves in your garden area until the next sunset.
These are some of the Vaastu tips for your garden you need to follow. You can also place a fountain in the East or North area of your garden area. The fountain placed in your garden will always keep your flowers and trees in full bloom.
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This is the time of year when folks suddenly realize that it really is over. There will be no more outdoor gardening for nine whole months. What to do in that void? Obviously, indoor growing should be considered. And, it seems to me that in these dark months it’s worthwhile to catch up on reading. This is a great time to get into some gardening magazines.
I know we all have iPads and computers and get a lot of our gardening information from the Internet, but there is something about a print magazine, especially a gardening or horticultural one, that makes it important to keep them around. I note this because earlier this year the entire staff of Garden Design magazine, one of the few magazines left, were summarily dismissed as the mag went out of publication. Personally, that is a shame. There is a place for these publications in the garden world, even if there may not be in the news world. Gardeners really should support them lest they all disappear. Here are a few suggestions.
Let’s start with one I always push because it is so unique. “Green Prints” (www.greenprints.com) is the only monthly compilation of what I call “Hort Lit.” This consists of horticultural stories and writings rather than the “how-to” stuff that you find in all the other gardening magazines. This is a thick — 75 or so pages — “Readers Digest-size” monthly compilation of the best of what editor (and my good friend) Pat Stone can find amongst all the garden print. (He must read a lot!) In any case, you will find funny stories, poignant stories, children’s stories and more. As an added inducement to subscribe to Green Prints, I would mention it won the Best Garden Magazine Award from the Garden Writers Association.
Next is Rodale Press’ “Organic Gardening” (www.organicgardening.com). Yup, this is the successor title to the original Organic Farming and Gardening, still going strong after all these years. It keeps reinventing itself, which means it is always changing. If that sounds bad, it isn’t. It keeps the magazine fresher (and trying harder) than some of the others. If you are not an organic gardener as a result of reading this column, perhaps Rodale Press will convince you of how easy it is to drop the chemicals.
“Garden Gate” (www.gardengatemagazine.com) magazine comes out every two months. It is a glossy full of gorgeous pictures and fact-filled articles on all aspects of gardening. The folks who publish it are so sure you will want to subscribe, they are willing to send you a free issue to try. What have you to lose?
“The English Garden” (www.theenglishgarden.co.uk/magazine) is, as you have already guessed, a publication out of England. It is full of fantastic garden pictures and interviews with gardeners who design, build or maintain them. Yes, it is all about gardening in Great Britain and reviews their stuff and people, not ours, but hey, it’s winter here so what does that matter?
“Gardens Illustrated” is another garden magazine from England (www.gardensillustrated.com). Get ready to do some drooling. This one is full of beautiful pictures of gardens, English gardening advice, and articles about plants worldwide.
“Fine Gardening” (www.finegardening.com) bills itself as a garden design magazine. It is probably the American equivalent of a high-brow English magazine, and I mean that in a positive way. It has fantastic photography and writing. You won’t just read this in a couple of minutes. If you want you can purchase one month at a time. People use words like “breathtaking” when describing some of the gardens covered, and there is no question yours might seem a bit pale in comparison. Nonetheless, there is always something inspiring as well. Besides, aren’t Alaskan winters for dreaming a bit?
There are other magazines, horticulturally oriented and otherwise, which always devote a portion of their print pages to gardening and gardens. If you have one worthy of note, let me know at www.Teamingwithmicrobes.com. It’s a long winter, climate change or not. We have plenty of time to read.
Jeff Lowenfels’ bestselling books are available at tinyurl.com/teamingwithmicrobes and tinyurl.com/teamingwithnutrients.
Garden calendar
NOT TOO LATE: BRING IN CERAMIC POTS, UNDO HOSES FROM OUTDOOR FAUCETS AND OTHERWISE SAVE THINGS FROM WATER EXPANDING WHEN IT FREEZES.
LIGHTS: FOLKS, NOW, NOT IN MARCH, IS THE TIME TO INSTALL AND START USING GROWING LIGHTS.
HOUSEPLANTS: GET SOME NEW ONES. NURSERIES, SUPERMARKETS, FLORISTS ARE ALL STOCKED UP.
ALASKA BOTANICAL GARDEN: THE GARDEN IS OPEN DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS, ALL YEAR LONG. GREAT TIME TO CHECK OUT THE BIG GLACIER BOULDER AND SEE HOW THE PROS PUT A GARDEN TO BED.
Barb Macbeth, Betsy Ray and Marcia Deiss won for the best representation of the selected theme.
Jan Murray, Karen O’Connor and Brenda Strange were awarded best floral design.
Kathy Aquilla and Mackey Dutton won best overall design.
Nora Carey, Sandy Griffin and Karin Cowperthwait were awarded most creative design.
Posted: Wednesday, October 16, 2013 12:00 am
|
Updated: 5:48 pm, Wed Oct 16, 2013.
CHESTERTOWN — The Chestertown Garden Club had its second meeting of the season Oct. 1 at Emmanuel Church. The program, Chestertown Flower Show 2013, was devoted to enhancing members’ floral design abilities.
Members were divided into small groups and designed an informal table selected from six themes: Mums the Word!, Gourd Gracious!, Summer’s Last Hurrah, Autumn Leaves are Falling, Apples Spice, and From the Pumpkin Patch. Members could meet and plan their table arrangements, but tables had to be arranged on the day of the meeting. Judging was done by secret ballots submitted by members of the club in the following categories: best floral design, best overall design, most creative design, and the design that best represents the selected theme.
The individual tabletop designs were used by each group to eat lunch. The exercise helped the club members to enhance their arranging skills and to understand judging parameters at garden shows.
The winners were: best floral design – Brenda Strange, Karen O’Connor and Jan Murphy for Autumn Leaves are Falling; best overall design – Kathy Aquilla, Mackey Dutton and Chris Kirk for Gourd Gracious!; most creative design – Nora Carey, Sandy Griffin and Karin Cowperthwait; and the design that best represents the selected theme – Betsy Ray, Barb Macbeth and Marcia Deiss.
Posted in
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on
Wednesday, October 16, 2013 12:00 am.
Updated: 5:48 pm.
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