Date: Fri 06-Jun-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Southbury-Koons-flower-show

Full Text:

(Southbury Garden Club show preview, 6/6/97)

Southbury Spring Flower Show Sat.- Gardeners Return To Their Favorite Labor Of

Love

BY SHANNON HICKS

SOUTHBURY - For the first time in five years, the members of the Southbury

Garden Club are presenting a spring flower show.

Since 1992, the members have continued to learn and share their horticultural

knowledge among themselves. But now it is time to start sharing that knowledge

again. Along the way, garden activities and topics have continued to be a

labor of love for the 50Á members of the club, which also happens to be this

year's show theme - "Labors of Love."

"Labors of Love: A Salute to the Early New England Settlers Who Shaped Our

Future" will be presented Saturday, June 7, from 1 to 5:30 pm. The show will

be at The Southbury Museum for Country Living and the Parish Hall of the South

Britain Congregational Church. The buildings are across the street from each

other, on Route 172 in the historic district of South Britain.

This year's show - the garden club's 11th - will present visitors with nine

design classes, a number of horticultural collections, and three educational

exhibits. Twelve judges from the National Council of State Garden Clubs will

arrive Saturday morning to judge the exhibits, before the show opens to the

public at 1 pm. Admission is free.

The show is a standard flower show. It will follow the requirements and

objectives of the National Council of State Garden Clubs, Inc. The Southbury

Garden Club is a member of The Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut, Inc.,

and The National Council of State Garden Clubs, Inc.

Garden club members will present seven design classes at the museum, a

building owned by the town of Southbury and maintained by the town's

historical society (two additional classes will be shown at the Parish House).

In presenting the classes, the club will utilize a number of buffet tables and

tea wagons for the display, incorporating the historic building into the show.

"We are asking for the arrangements to be in traditional designs, nothing

ultra modern," explained Harriet Koons, show chairman. Inside the building are

various antique farming tools; members have been challenged to incorporate

such pieces within their arrangements.

"Garden club members will be interpreting the titles of the design classes,"

club president Elizabeth Riebe said last week. A Master judge herself, Mrs

Riebe is also serving as one of the show's class consultants, along with Grace

Colligan.

"You just interpret the titles of the classes with your flowers and

accessories. The `Skilled Hands at Work,' class, for example, might show

weeding or weaving, depending on how the designer interprets the class title,"

she continued. "And they are all a labor of love."

All garden club members are expected to participate in the show in one aspect

or another. In addition to being show chairman, Mrs Koons is working on one of

the show's educational exhibits, "Green Invaders, 1620-1840." The two

additional educational exhibits will be "The Sugar Bush" (maple sugaring) by

Carol Fugate, and "The Herb Garden," by Helen Feingold and Virginia Smuckli.

Mrs Koons' exhibit has a backboard with line drawings and depictions of

flowers, along with their descriptions, and an explanation of how these plants

- aliens to the United States before settlers began arriving with them

beginning in 1620 - have become commonplace.

"Buttercups, daisies, dandelions, celindene... these are all alien plants,"

said Mrs Koons. "These were not in this country before the settlers came over.

"Some came as fodder for livestock, others stowed away in gardens. There are a

lot of plants around here now that were not native, but they have taken over.

"They look as though they've been here forever," she explained.

Mrs Koons' exhibit will contain not only the line drawings and history of such

"alien" plants, but also live examples. Mrs Koons was unsure which plants she

would be using as of last week, but like every other member of the show,

anything she uses in her display will be grown in her own garden.

The Southbury Garden Club counts among its goals the promotion of interest in

horticulture, the furthering of the conservation of natural resources, and the

increase of knowledge in the artistic use of plant materials. After five

years, garden club members are ready to show - and sow - their stuff once

again.