Garden club show features more than 90 entries

By BRITTANY FHOLER 

Cove Leader-Press 

The smell of plants and flowers greeted attendees of the annual Browning Community Garden Club’s Flower Show at Clear Creek Baptist Church in Kempner Saturday afternoon. 

This year’s show was titled “Petal to the Metal” and featured more than 90 entries among several divisions and categories. 

The flower show was a National Standard Flower Show with the National Garden Club and featured three certified judges from the National Garden Club judging entries in five divisions: Horticulture, Design, Education, Youth and Botanical Arts, according to Anelicia Cheney-Campbell, president of the Browning Community Garden Club. 

The Botanical Arts Division was a new addition this year, and the club also added to their Design Division and expanded the Education and Youth Divisions and added a coloring contest for the youth in the community. 

Within the Horticulture Division, every entry must have been grown by the person who is competing, whereas in the Design and Botanical Arts Division, the flowers can be cut and bought from someone else but are put together by the competitor. Heritage Flower Shop of Lampasas worked with the Browning Community Garden Club this year in providing the cut flowers. 

“We’ve got a lot of people in the Garden Club that struggle growing, especially in the last couple of years with the snow, so I really wanted to open it up so that people that didn’t necessarily have prize-worthy plants to enter into Horticulture could still do something,” Cheney-Campbell said. “That was the big push with the Botanical Arts and the Education and the Design Division. We had a lot of really good entries too in the Horticulture.” 

The different Horticulture Division categories included roses, A&P, bulbs/iris, vines, trees, shrubs, miniature, containers, combination plantings, hanging baskets, fruits and vegetables (from lettuce, asparagus, chard, beans, peas and more to large fruit, small fruit and berries), collections of plant materials, any other worthy specimens- container grown, single plants and  any other worthy specimens-fruits, vegetables, or nuts. 

In order to get a ribbon in this show, an entry must have scored a 90 or above. Cheney-Campbell added that every single entry from the Browning Community Garden Club scored at least a 90. 

Ann Laver had 13 entries in this year’s Flower Show and took home the Sweepstakes Award rosette ribbon. She has been with the Browning Community Garden Club for around four years, and she first had entries in the annual Flower Show three years ago. 

“To start with, it was like, I don’t have anything that’s worthy of a flower show, but the president at the time came over to my house the day before the flower show, walked around my yard with me, and said, ‘What’s this? What’s this? What’s this?’ and she took flowers, and she took leaves,” Laver said. “That got me hooked. I don’t even know what awards I got that first year, but it was fun, and it wasn’t that much work because I didn’t have that many entries and so my friend did all the work.” 

Laver added that the number of entries she has entered grows each year. Last year, she entered nine items. 

“I love gardening because being out in the yard is relaxing for me, and it just gives me a chance to be a steward of what God has given us of our Earth, taking care of my yard and the plants,” Laver said. “It’s creating beauty and feeding my family and the birds and the butterflies. It’s just very rewarding, and so, something like this is a lot of work because setting up for it is a huge amount of work…just getting all your exhibits ready and identified and staged, but it’s fun to see what all the other people in the club have done and what they have, and it inspires you to try something different or to share seeds or cuttings.”

Amy Parke had 10 entries in this year’s flower show and won three rosette ribbons, including the Collector’s Showcase Award for her upright succulent collection in the Horticulture Division. Another rosette was for her board about the color and shape of pollinators in the Education Division and the third was for her table arrangement in the Design Division. 

“It’s so gratifying because you put a lot of work into these things,” Parke said. 

This is Parke’s fourth year participating in the Flower Show, she said. 

Parke is a Master Gardener from Burnet County’s High Lakes Master Gardeners, which does not offer a competition. Parke said she joined the Browning Community Garden Club to do the flower shows each year. 

Each attendee also received a ticket to use to select the entry they liked best, and the one with the most votes received the People’s Choice Award. 

This year, the People’s Choice Award went to Betty Secrest, who also received a rosette ribbon for Table Artistry.