The Event of the Year
This year I had the opportunity to present demonstrations for two outstanding organizations—Longwood Gardens and the National Garden Club Annual Meeting which was hosted in Philadelphia. Longwood Gardens’ theme was, “The Art of The Party” and with a stellar crew of Longwood’s staff and volunteers we created five different party themes with table linens and music for each party.Starting with a garden party, spring lilacs, and narcissus combined with tulips and of course garden roses donated by Alexandra Farms.
The second party was a romantic wedding in a series of silver compote vases using soft peach and white colors. Romance was followed by drama with dramatic black vases filled with green spirals of midollino, hot pink roses, and green anthurium. A beach party and backyard barbeque followed and the grand finale was a Midsummer Night’s Dream party.
An arbor of birch was bursting with greens and white forest flowers. True to Longwood’s mission to entertain its visitors, a kabuki drape was used to “reveal” the grand final.
National Garden Club’s 2018 Symposium “Philadelphia Love It”
Just a few weeks later came,“Philadelphia– Love It!” which was the theme of this year’s National Garden Club symposium. Each year NGC brings together 500 flower lovers from three continents for a garden symposium. This year it was staged at Lowes Hotel in downtown Philadelphia. For the final gala dinner, my challenge was to entertain 400+ guests for their after dinner program.
Each design created for my program was set to music starting with the Theme from Rocky and an Italian inspired horizontal design using silver branches to mirror the art museum steps and strong red anthurium placed by audience members. Included in the evening were designs representing Bartrams Gardnes, Longwood Gardens illuminated fountains, and the streets of Philadelphia. Of course Bruce Springsteen’s song of the same name was played for this.
By the time Philadelphia’s Patti Labelle was singing A New Attitude the whole room was filled with the Philadelphia spirit.
