The Southeastern Flower Show is a juried consumer flower show that heralds the coming of spring and has Artistic Floral Design, Discovery, Horticulture, Landscape and Photography Divisions, as well as a marketplace and programs on stage. This year visitors were invited to “Discover the Beauty of Green”. The idea was to celebrate natural beauty, green eco-friendly living, excellence in horticulture and a renewed focus on hort education.
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My first volunteer gig, two days before the show opened, came as it was being staged. Tension was high as landscape garden displays and floral designers hustled to get their final touches together. As a “Horticulture Passer” I helped people to identify, register, groom and enter their treasures in the hope of earning a blue ribbon. The schedule demanded that the woody stems be in flower or fruit, and we had a lovely assortment of Prunus, Daphne, Edgeworthia and Hamamelis in the hardy category, as well as a couple of lemons and a lone kumquat in the tropical class.
A few days later I volunteered with the Plant Societies at the Herb Society’s table, flanked by the Rose and Dahlia Societies, and just down from the Daffodil and Native Plant Societies. Marvelous that there’s an organization for every interest, don’t you agree?
On my tour through the Show I saw lovely veggie containers and a locally-grown food display garden.
The children’s division boasted live chickens (with eggs), and one of the table settings had an exceptinal tablecloth made of Galax leaves!
Teaching the merits of locally grown, veggies overflowed from an educational garden and a chalkboard explained plant parts as food.
In the UGA exhibit I thought I recognized Golden Dream Boxwood from Garden Debut®, a real show stopper with glamorous evergreen foliage brightly splashed and edged with gold.
I ran into some familiar faces and met some new ones. Dr. Michael Dirr was signing his books in the hort bookstore.
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