February 2010 Southeastern Flower Show

The Merry Weather Garden Club held its monthly meeting on Thursday, February 11th at the home of Sally Neal with Angie Williams and Neal hosting.  Members enjoyed Angie’s wonderful dessert of chocolate bread pudding using Paula Dean’s recipe.  While enjoying Valentine refreshments, the club members also heard garden club news from around the state and issues clubs are supporting.
   “Beautify Blight” is the national garden club’s endeavor to create teams within a town, city, or region to develop a vegetable garden on a formerly unsightly piece of property chosen by the group.  Members discussed the Greenville park on LaGrange Street which has the potential of being a wonderful community garden area.  Sally Neal noted that Laura O’Neal has drawn up a plan for the area if monetary backing and support can be found.
   The Georgia DOT also has information available for clubs to support the Wildflower Project. Club treasurer Jean Biggers urged members to pay their dues as she sends the membership list to the state at the beginning of March.
   The program was a slide show of the 2010 Southeastern Flower Show that some members attended only the weekend before.  Suzanne Tigner, Mary Anne Rasmussen, Sally Neal, and Sallie Mabon enjoyed the show at Cobb Galleria.  The group took in the presentation and educational lecture by Ryan Gainey, landscape architect from Decatur.  The slide show featured Gainey’s garden that covers three city lots and how it has matured and changed over a twenty year period.  The various garden rooms, passageways, knot gardens, and whimsical features have recently been given landmark status to preserve the garden permanently as a public greenspace.
   Gainey’s gardening expertise has taken him all over the world: six years in France designing and creating a garden for an historical chateau and numerous trips to England. The Concord Garden Club was selling his children’s book on gardening through the months of the year.
   The Southeastern Flower Show was not as large as it has been in year’s past with entries and exhibits less than half of what has been the norm.  However the exhibits and arrangements displayed were as beautiful and inspiring as ever.  Forced bulbs and blooming flowers were part of the landscapers’ vignettes with curving paths, stone walks, bubbling fountains, and outdoor firepits and patio furniture displayed.
   The flower show did not have some of its popular categories like miniatures and the large vase displays, but the doorway entries and window boxes were unique.  One class was named “Rabbit in the Garden” and exhibits used wheelbarrows packed with garden greenery and tools and all had a rabbit invade the setting.
   Always popular, the table settings drew a crowd.  Often composed and exhibited by a garden club instead of an individual, the table settings had themes of Dr. Seuss, Kermit the Frog, Green Acres, and the blue ribbon winner, Alfresco Dining with Mother Earth.
   The photography category numbered larger than ever with unique photos taken from around the world.  Shopping the vendors at the garden show is always a delight as specialty tools, plants, clothing and containers, etc can be found.
   Mrs. Greenthumb was on hand to discuss chickens in the garden as well as the benefits of having worms in your soil.  Rain barrels and the newest watering devices were available.  Seed and book seller booths had large crowds looking and buying, and amid the browsing and shopping tumult a children’s orchestra performed.
   The Southeastern Flower Show is put on solely by volunteers and they manned a crowded children’s area as children hammered and made pot holders, birdhouses, and spread fat and birdseed on pinecones for our feathered friends in the garden.
   The next meeting of the Merry Weather Garden Club will be in March and hosted by Erma Jean Brown and Kitha Kierbow who may be making arrangements for the club to tour Hills and Dales and view the newly restored upper floors of the Callaway home.