The
Merry Weather Garden Club joined the crowd at the Concord Garden Club’s Lunch
and Learn on Thursday, April 17th. Always a popular event, the program
draws a crowd that grows larger every year.
The
old Strickland General Store is a perfect venue accommodating the many tables
for the attendees and their sack lunches or purchases from the Concord Café, and
the store has space for the vendors ranging from garden artists to jewelers to
plant growers.
The
“learn” segment of the meeting featured Sharon McGukin, florist, who was named
by Floral Management Magazine as one of the Top Ten Floral Rock Stars. She is
the past-President of the American Institute of Floral Designers and is a
member of the prestigious Smithers-Oasis Design Directors Team. Her forty years
as a floral designer has taken her to almost every state in the US and abroad
many times.
After
her presentation where she designed over a dozen arrangements in about as many
minutes, she was available to sign her new book: Flowers of the Heart
which features decorating with flowers for weddings. Flowers set the mood and
tone of an event and her book covers weddings in each of the four seasons along
with tips for planning a wedding and of course incorporating flowers.
McGukin’s
programs are called ‘edu-tainment’ and by demonstrating fast, easy, design tips
and techniques she “takes the fear out of flowers.” The Concord club provided
her buckets and baskets of flowers from members’ gardens and a variety of
container types. She emphasized expanding your space as she used traditional
containers and seasonal flowers. New trends and techniques, like adding wool to
an arrangement, to design shortcuts and ways to budget the floral necessities
for an event were part of her presentation.
McGukin
videos and tips can be seen on her Facebook page and she has many UTube videos available
that demonstrate working with difficult flower varieties and unusual containers.
Her fresh modern innovative approach to design made for a delightful day for
Merry Weather Garden Club members who secured the front row tables at the
program.
The
garden club has many activities going on this April after the Concord event:
the Atlanta flower show is April 25-27 in Buckhead, Antiques in the Garden will
be at Petals from the Past in Jemison, Alabama April 26th, and Art
in Bloom is in LaGrange May 1st.
