Autumn Wreath-making

The Merry Weather Garden Club met on Thursday, September 22, 2011 at the home of Helen Claussen in Harris City.  Toots Hobson co hosted. Claussen lives in Meriwether’s first gated community-one that she developed-and it was interesting seeing the new extension to our county airport on the drive in to her home.

Members were met with delicious refreshments made by Claussen and many brought back by Hobson from Hawaii featuring macadamia nuts or coffee flavors.  Claussen entertained the group with readings from popular emails, jokes, and stories before the business meeting.

Linda Wilburn gave an update on Greenville streetscapes noting that the work is coming to a completion. The wrong size railing was ordered and delivered, but that error was caught by Sally Estes and corrected. The $300,000 Phase II portion has been approved that will renovate the west side of the downtown area. Matching money from the Callaway Foundation, the city and the county should allow for the project to be done. $50,000 was raised privately for Phase I, and $70,000 will be needed for Phase II. Wilburn expressed her thanks to Sam Welborn of the DOT who has been most helpful with extra funding for Phase I.

Phase II will reuse many of the granite slabs currently on the sidewalks as well as add pavers. The next step will also redo the traffic signs with the hope there will be fewer of them. Currently one downtown island has eight directional and traffic signs on it.

Toots Hobson presented the program on wreaths noting that their use goes back to the Greeks who “wreathed the vines” and used them as crowns. She showed the club Scandinavian wheat straw woven into wreaths that were displayed hanging horizontally instead of on the usual vertical plane.  African grasses from Tanzania are commonly woven into wreaths as are German E aster wreaths of twisted grass.

Months earlier, Hobson had cut grapevines and twisted and shaped them into wreaths for the club members to use.  She purchased colorful and whimsical fall items for the ladies to decorate their wreaths noting, as Diane Sawyer also found, that she could find no American made decorations at the craft stores. Scarecrows, bright orange leaves, feathery plumes, sunflowers, ivy, and beautiful ribbons all made for a fun afternoon of decorating wreaths which each member took home.

The next meeting of the garden club will be October 13^th at which Jim Byce will entertain the club with the secret life of bees and the fun of beekeeping.  Jean Biggers and Linda Latzak will host the meeting.