Southeastern Flower Show

 

The Merry Weather Garden Club met on Friday, March 15, 2013 to attend the 2013 Southeastern Flower Show held at Cobb Galleria. The three day event displayed horticulture, landscapes, artistic designs, photography and added to the Marketplace of vendors this year were antique dealers. The garden show tickets also allowed access to the craft show at Cobb Galleria and members found the array of handmade, one of a kind pieces very interesting.

The speakers for the show ranged from TV gardening celebrities to the ever popular Coach Vince Dooley, an avid gardener. The Katherine Astor lecture was attended by several from the club and the British gardener had a lovely slide program featuring England’s finest gardens, houses and estates. Astor spoke from first-hand knowledge of the titled as she is a descendent of the Waldorf-Astors and has spent much of her adult life restoring the gardens at Kirby House.

The flower show featured landscapers transforming small designated areas into backyard paradises and giving viewers loads of ideas and inspiration. The show included a juried competition recognizing excellence in garden design, floral design, photography, horticulture and more. The horticultural exhibits are interesting as the entries are usually the very varieties blooming in our yards in Meriwether. Sadly the dressed front doors and window box displays were not part of the show this year.

The youth areas were very well done with a Discovery area encouraging composting, bee keeping, backyard gardens, and eating home grown vegetables.

Most impressive and a delightful surprise for the group was the entry by Hills and Dales of LaGrange. Horticulturist Jo Phillips, from Meriwether County and who annually does a program for the club, was part of the team that recreated part of the 1928 garden of Ida Callaway. The exhibit was breath taking and deserved the many awards it earned.  Designed by Brooks Garcia, many of the props were made by the Theatre Arts Department at LaGrange College and some of the plants used came from the popular supplier Petals from the Past and Woodbury’s Thunderwood Farms.

Besides the overall beauty of the display, most striking of all was the attention to detail of the entry. Months in the making, the recreated garden featured Mrs. Callaway’s potting shed, chicken coop, birdhouses, and fenced in vegetable garden. The plants were trellised on the picket fence and wound their way up with some even blooming. The lettuces, strawberries, and other common vegetables were beautifully fresh and spring like. The accompanying brochure told the names of the 1928 varieties used by Mrs. Callaway plus her use of bat guano, wood ash, chicken manure, bonemeal, blood meal, lime, cottonseed meal plus compost to enrich the soil. Members were so proud Meriwether was a part of the top display at the show.

Upcoming events for the garden club: Coweta Master Gardeners Spring Plant Sale-April 13; the April Meeting will be the Lunch and Learn with the Concord Garden Club on Thursday, April 18th; Troup County Master Gardener Plant Sale and Swap on April 27th and Coweta Nurseries 2 for 1 sale at the end of April.