My master gardener group in El Dorado county recently held their winter celebration meeting and potluck. Part of the program was a competition to adorn tables with a centerpiece. What a great inspiration to get creative in the dead of winter. There were 4 categories, two for botanical creations and two for edible creations. The botanical group was split into two categories, one for strictly homegrown or gathered materials, and one that used non-homegrown elements. I chose this latter category because tulips and mums had caught my eye at a store. If you’ve followed my blog, you will remember my weed walk, where I made a bouquet of wild things I gathered in the area. But this time I used some fresh color grown and gathered by others. I made 3 arrangements, but entered only one in the competition, which is the second arrangement shown below.
The first “boot” arrangement includes viburnum tinus ‘Spring Bouquet’, red-twig dogwood, white chrysanthemum, and a pink tulip with white edges. The small blue boot contains a jade plant in bloom, and the small green boots (from Kew Garden in London) also contain the ‘Spring Bouquet’. Amidst all the flowers lives the whimsical gardener, actually a Christmas ornament. In case you missed him, here is another picture:
For my entry I used a soup tureen for the container, given to me by a very dear friend who was downsizing her dishware. I started with the fillers of the viburnum titus ‘Spring Bouquet’, pittosporum tobina ‘varigatum’, variegated euphorbia, and hellebore, all from mu garden. I purchased the ink tulips and white chrysanthemums as accent color and finished with the red twig dogwood for see-thru height, also from my garden. I discovered the yellow Parisian lady while wandering through a Parisian flea market in the rain. This garnered a third-place prize.
Lastly, my third arrangement used a simple vase with both red and yellow-twigged dogwood, the red berries and red/green leaves of Nandina domestica and leaves of Ligularia varigatta, and hellebore (white flowers).
All in all – the competition challenged my creativity, and seeing the other arrangements inspired me with new ideas, and for a while I forgot it was winter!