“Confusion is the welcome mat at the door of creativity.” —Michael J. Gelb

I probably should’ve mentioned this sooner, but if you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a little ADD. (“Little” being somewhat of an understatement—like being a “little” pregnant.” You either are or you aren’t.)

Like most right-brained types, I live in the visual, creative side. My problem isn’t concentration—it’s resurfacing. Once I dive into a project, I don’t lose focus; I forget to come up for air.

As my parents’ firstborn, a lot was expected of me—like brilliance.

Perhaps my precocious nature as a preschooler got their hopes up, but my grades were rather average until I got to college.

This was particularly worrisome to my mother, who had never made a grade lower than an A and graduated from the University of North Carolina at nineteen.

I wasn’t a disciplinary problem, and I was never bored. When told to go outside and play, I never asked, “With what?” Other than a bicycle, a pair of roller skates, and a doll or two, I didn’t have toys like kids have today.

Everything I needed to entertain myself was either in my head, in a playroom stocked with art supplies, or just outside my back door. I gathered sticks and played with moss. I built little cabins and roofed them with ligustrum leaves, then landscaped them with reindeer lichen. I picked flowers and made bouquets—some of which wound up on the breakfast room table. Then there were the bees. I caught them in jars, into which I dropped a cotton ball saturated with alcohol. The fumes got the bees drunk enough for me to remove their stingers so I could play with them. This really impressed the burden of boys in my neighborhood, who cut me a wide berth.

But as the years went by, my parents began to think something was wrong with me—that I wasn’t “normal,” whatever that is besides a cycle on a washing machine.

After looking at some old photos, I can understand their concern. Buckteeth, an eye that tended to wander, combined with a mop of unruly hair is a scary combination—especially the hair, which Mama whacked off every chance she got.

“My goodness,” said Daddy, trying to disguise his dismay. “Did someone get a haircut today?”
“Yes sir,” I said. “Mama says it’s a pixie.”

Later, I heard them arguing about it.

“My lord, Martha! What have you done to the child’s hair?”
“I think she looks cute,” she said.
“Cute? She looks like a prisoner of war.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, James.”
“I’m dead serious. Leave Mary’s hair alone.”

After someone in the drugstore mistook me for a boy, Mama—against Daddy’s orders—gave me a home permanent that stunk to high heaven and made my scalp itch for a month.

Besides my rather odd appearance, I also suffered from these strange headaches—headaches I described as “a might-pop feeling in my brain.”

“What do you mean?” Mama looked worried.
“Well, it feels like my brains are gonna pop right outta my head.”
“Probably a result of that damn permanent,” Daddy muttered.

I was ushered into our pediatrician’s office and told to take a seat. Dr. Lesesne Smith wore tweeds that smelled like mothballs. He sat behind a large desk, fountain pen in one hand, cigarette in the other. (Yes, doctors smoked during meetings with patients back then.)

“Where does it hurt, honey?” he asked.
I pointed to my head.
“Where, exactly?”

I was a child. What did he expect me to say? Somewhere between my temporal and frontal lobes, tucked in there behind the basal ganglia? Once again, I pointed to my head.

“What does it feel like?” he asked.
“It sorta hurts, ’cause of the noise,” I said.
“What kind of noise?”
“Like when Mama and Daddy have a cocktail party,” I said. He looked confused. “I feel like I’m sharing my brains with a lot of people, and they’re all laughing and talking at the same time.”

His pen hit the desk, splattering blue ink. He snuffed out his cigarette, told me not to move, and left the room.

I heard him out in the hall talking to Mama, who seemed to be having trouble keeping her voice under control. When he came back, she was with him.

“Hey, sweetie.” It was a soft, sing-song tone I’d never heard her use before—but one I’ve heard since when she talks to crazy people.

The next day, I was whisked off to Columbia, South Carolina, to a specialist whose office was in, of all places, the S.C. State Mental Hospital.

Walking down a long hall, holding fast to my mother’s hand, I couldn’t help gawking at the hollow-eyed patients meandering to and fro like zombies.

“What’s wrong with them, Mama?”
“They don’t feel very good,” she whispered. “Try not to stare at them.”

The specialist had me draw a few pictures and look at some others, which were nothing more than blobs of color. He puffed on his pipe (yes, another smoking doctor) and talked to me for over an hour.

While I didn’t know it at the time, Multiple Personality Disorder was Mama’s greatest fear. She had just read The Bird’s Nest—a psychological thriller about a woman with MPD that came out a couple of years before The Three Faces of Eve. So when I mentioned that I might be “sharing my brains,” no wonder she freaked out.

MPD was obviously ruled out, because I went back to school the next day and learned to live with the might-pop feeling in my brain—a condition later attributed to what we now call Attention Deficit Disorder. But back then, who knew?

The noise in my brain—the one I seemed to be sharing with “a lot of other people,” the one that made my mother question our gene pool—was nothing more than a mob scene of ideas, all vying for my attention. And trust me, they are still in there.

Over the years, I’ve learned that most of us with ADD are natural-born explorers—we can’t help ourselves. For decades, the experts thought only boys had it, that it was somehow related to testosterone. Then along came Sari Solden, author of Women with Attention Deficit Disorder, who begged to differ. “There are many positives with ADD,” she wrote, “including a surplus of ideas, creativity, excitement, and interest, which accompany this kind of mind.”

🤓 Most authorities on the subject agree that structure and discipline can keep a wandering mind on the rails—with what the medical types like to call “coping mechanisms.” Mosby’s Medical Dictionary defines a coping mechanism as “any effort directed toward stress management, including task-oriented mechanisms—the factors that enable an individual to regain emotional equilibrium after a stressful experience.”

Trust me, having a brain that never shuts up qualifies as a stressful experience.

So I developed my own set of “task-oriented mechanisms,” most of which involved making things. I made doll clothes, then later my own. I learned to knit, took up needlepoint, painted pictures, and covered every discarded box in the house with discontinued wallpaper samples Mama picked up at a local paint store.

I was always making something. I even made a pair of sandals out of a piece of leftover linoleum and nearly sliced off a finger in the process.

According to some psychologists, a coping mechanism is basically a form of addiction. If that’s true, then I’m addicted to staying busy. It’s the only way I can control the voices—the ones that rudely interrupt whenever they find me sitting quietly reading a book and yell, “Get off your ass and go do something constructive! Go make a dress!”

Braces took care of my buckteeth, and glasses corrected my eye, but I never knew what my hair was going to do—it had a life of its own, and there was so much of it. I was 5’11” by the time I was thirteen, so between my height and my hair, I had plenty to be self-conscious about. Looking good, no matter what it took, became a high priority.

Sex, drugs, and alcohol are common coping mechanisms among people with ADD. Mercifully, I never went that route. Growing up, I was on a short rope—someone always knew where I was and what I was doing.

Short rope notwithstanding, my mind was free to wander. I always knew where the line was and rarely crossed it; earning my parents’ approval was far more rewarding than incurring their wrath.

As a result, I tended to be a bit performance-based, overcompensating for lackluster grades by creating things—things my parents could point to and say, “Mary made that. Isn’t she something?”

And now you know

🤔 In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been MIA since April—but not without good reason. Other priorities took over: a bum knee that will probably require surgery, a needy husband, editing a 75,000-word manuscript, and packing for a trip to Africa. My Substack got pushed to the back burner.

On top of that, the storytelling is about to wander into some rather delicate territory—think tiptoeing through a minefield—and I’m doing my best to avoid litigation.

Stay tuned.

The chairman of the club’s 2013 flower show called one morning and offered to take me to lunch.

She must need something, I thought.

She did.

We had just sat down when she asked, “Would you write the schedule?”

She had already chosen the show's title: From the Ground Up. The class titles practically wrote themselves. We are a garden club, after all; we grow things—in the ground—and barring weird weather, water restrictions, or a plague of locusts, those things tend to go “from the ground up.” Duh.

I grabbed a pen, and we knocked out the schedule on the back of a napkin before our salads arrived.

For the Traditional Class, which is usually always a mass arrangement: “From Bud to Blossom and Beyond.” Sounds overblown, yes?

Two Freestyle Classes: “Out on a Limb” and “A Fungus Among Us” because my troubles with “A Girl Named Sue” were still fresh in my mind.

The Small Arrangement, “Growth Spurts—Saplings, Seeds & Seedlings” Think small.

“Roots & Shoots” for the Challenge Class (the one where the plant material is provided and all entrants have to do is show up with clippers and a good attitude).

Class Six was traditionally a table class, meaning the design had to be viewed from all sides. But table classes were starting to feel a little old hat, and I thought we could do better.

“If the show’s called From the Ground Up, why not make that the title of Class Six?” I suggested.

“And do what?”

“Let entrants create anything that goes from the ground up—a flower, a tree, a beanstalk, a volcano...anything.”

We settled on a three-foot-square platform and gave exhibitors permission to build upward—way upward. The finished design could be as tall as seven feet and, like a traditional Table Class, had to be viewed from all sides.

The aforementioned show chairman also talked me into entering not one, but two classes: "Out on a Limb," which I planned to do solo, and "From the Ground Up," which she suggested we do together. As the latter could be up seven feet, I suspect recruiting me had more to do with my height than my design expertise. I'm almost six feet. She barely cleared five three.

I have, on more than one occasion, found myself out on a limb, and trust me, it was not pleasant. That class title conjured up all sorts of images, none of which inspired me, making me wonder why I had decided to do it. Perhaps “Out on a Limb” would’ve been better suited for the Challenge Class.

I came across the photo below in a magazine—a tree with limbs flung every which way, as though it were performing Swan Lake. It could have worked for either class. I kept looking.

Shortly thereafter, I literally stumbled across these discarded mannequins in the parking lot of the Palm Beach Lakes Mall (RIP).

More limbs, I thought. I was seeing them everywhere. I asked a workman if they were being thrown away, and they were.

“Mind if I take a few, you know, limbs?” Shaking his head, he told me to help myself. I tossed them in the back of my car.

Knowing Joe would ask a bunch of questions I didn’t feel like answering, I didn’t carry the arms and legs up to our apartment until I decided what to do with them.

The tree ballerina stuck with me, so I sketched a couple of ideas. The one below was my favorite, so I ran with it.

The mannequin limbs I’d lifted from the parking lot, however, were too heavy, too stiff, and the feet looked, well, flat-footed. The legs needed to be lighter, the toes pointed, so I decided to carve them out of styrofoam.

If you ever decide to carve anything out of styrofoam, call me and I will talk you out of it.

Based on what I learned doing the tree limbs for A “Woodsy” Wedding, I should’ve known better. I wish I had photos of that exercise. What a mess.

It’s really rather remarkable that the HOA of my building hasn’t staged an intervention. When questioned, my stock answer is usually, “Don’t ask.” That is if they ask. They usually just shake their heads and keep moving.

Other than the ferns and leucadendron, and without my entry card, I don’t recall the botanical names that make up her tutu. The legs are covered in pine bark, and her shoes are sphagnum moss. She won a blue ribbon and my “limbs” were a real crowd pleaser among the children who visited the show.

As for “From the Ground Up,” we envisioned a design secured to a base that spiraled up to the sky—as living things do—in search of sunlight. Ideas came from unexpected places, like this Absolut ad.

We purchased a piece of heavy-duty cardboard tube and unravelled it, but couldn’t figure out how to make it stand up. It had the structural integrity of a wet noodle. We desperately needed some structural integrity, and almost came to blows as to how to achieve it.

In a rather seedy section of West Palm Beach, we found a metal fabricator. I sketched a spiral, and he built it. It was 82” high and weighed over 80 pounds. Getting it to the garage and then to the show required paying a man with a truck. We covered it in banyan roots (Ficus benghalensis) then added brilliant red, star-shaped bromeliad blooms—at least I think that’s what they were. Without my entry card, the Latin name has long since vacated the premises.

My partner was outraged that our spring didn't take first, insisting the winning exhibit looked like an unmade bed. I wasn't nearly as bothered. Ours won the Harriet DeWahel Puckett Creativity Award, and I'll take that over a blue ribbon any day. But that’s just me.

Editor’s Note: A version of this story was originally printed in By Design, a publication of The Garden Club of America, Fall 2014

Entering a flower show in town is nerve-racking enough, so why I decided to enter one 1,300 miles from home is a real head-scratcher.

No one bullied me.

No one twisted my arm.

I did it to myself.

A small arrangement is one thing, but I decided to enter the “Great Performers” Class, which required entrants to select from one of Chicago’s museums a great performer. I chose to interpret “Sue,” the famous T-rex and main attraction in the Field Museum of Natural History.

The class called for a “two-sided” arrangement.

Two-sided?

I’d never done one—wasn’t sure I’d ever seen one. I checked the definition in the 2009 edition of the Yellow Book; it described the two sides as “opposing.”

🤓 Two-sided design: [FA] an arrangement organized in one or more containers (joined to appear as one). Opposing sides present a composition usually thematically linked: judged as one unit.

Opposing how? The book didn’t say. I should’ve asked for clarification.

I did not.

I spent two days in a friend’s garden where an overgrown banyan tree (Ficus benghalensis) was being removed. The opportunity to scavenge some gnarly branches and roots was just too tempting. I dragged my treasure home and deposited it in our condominium’s communal garage. (This earned me yet another formal complaint.)

I also rummaged through Palm Beach’s street trash—botanical, not Euro—collecting anything that looked Jurassic. I bribed gardeners and imposed on neighbors: “I noticed you have a couple of dead fronds hanging off your Licuala palm. May I have those?”

I mocked up the design and placed it on the dining room table. I sawed, glued, and wired until I had the mechanics figured out and enough debris on the floor to warrant buying a new rug.

“Whoa,” Joe said, upon seeing it for the first time. “How you gonna get that puppy to Chicago.”

I had no idea, and it was giving me night sweats.

Shipping Sue meant taking her apart, so I dismantled everything, numbered the pieces, and made a map of what went where. I swaddled the bound banyan root shaft in a garbage bag and placed the head (Licuala grandis) in a hat box, along with the fronds that made up her shoulders. The Princess palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana) tail got its own plastic wrap.

After exhausting my shipping options, I convinced a friend to haul Sue to Lake Forest on her way north for the summer. I probably should’ve specified some basic storage conditions.

A month later, my flight landed in Chicago in a driving rainstorm. There was no rental car to be had, and the hotel didn’t show me arriving until the next day.

I started to panic.

Sue was waiting for me! Across town! In pieces!

To her credit, the desk clerk found me a room and a rental car. I drove straight to to Lake Forest in rush-hour traffic. My friend looked more than relieved to be rid of my project. Back in my hotel room, I could see why. Her body—and this is no exaggeration—was covered in a host of angry mold. Not the dusty green kind.

These were textured.

Anatomical.

Like warts and scabs.

There were tiny mushrooms poking out here and there, like the whole thing had entered a different era of evolution.

She had clearly gotten wet, and stayed wet for weeks.

I threw her in my rental car and headed (unsurprisingly) for Home Depot.

“That’s some mean-looking mold you got there,” said an orange-aproned employee, demonstrating strong situational awareness. None of his fungus-killing solutions would work before Sue’s scheduled installation at the Chicago Botanic Garden in less than 24 hours.

“What about alcohol?” I asked.

“For you?” He gave me wink.

I would’ve laughed, but I was in no mood for jokes.

Left to my own devices, I bought seven gallons of denatured alcohol, a metal scrub brush, some walnut stain, a can of quick-drying varnish, and a couple of brushes—everything but a blow torch.

Back in the hotel room, I placed Sue’s mold-covered trunk in the bathtub and doused it with alcohol. I scrubbed, stained, varnished, and blew dry well into the night.

My room smelled like a chemistry project, and given the fumes, I didn’t even need a drink.

The next morning, I picked up my fresh plant material and transported Sue’s still-sticky components to the show. The only difference between her “opposing” sides was the color of the flowers: white on one side, dark purple on the other.

As Sue began to take shape, a young arranger working next to me asked, “Aren’t you from Palm Beach?” I said I was. “How in the world did you get that to Chicago?”

I looked at her, then at Sue, and shook my head. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Sue won second place.

According to the judges’ comments, there was “not enough contrast between the opposing sides.”

Not enough contrast? Damn! The Yellow Book’s definition said nothing about contrast. I later pointed this out to the national flower show chairman. Opposing and contrasting are not synonomous. The definition has since been completely rewritten.

🤓 Two-sided Design: a design organized in one or more containers that are joined to appear as one. Opposing sides (back and front, never left and right) present a composition thematically linked. A concentration of components between the two contrasting design segments prevents one side from showing through to the other in their focal areas. The center may be composed of plant material or an accessory that will provide a visual concealment between the focal areas of the two designs, however, not a background panel. Both sides may share the dominant line and enclosed space. Staged to be viewed from all sides and judged as one unit from the front and the back.

At least no one else will have to travel 1,300 miles, disinfect a dinosaur in a hotel bathtub, and reassemble it while it’s still tacky to the touch—only to be told it needs more “contrast.”

Despite all of that, Sue also won the Carol Coffey Swift Medal, given to an arrangement of great distinction in a Major Flower Show. An award most befitting of her namesake.

How’s that for contrast?! 🤣

Before this auspicious announcement, and after Frances and Todd had been dating for six years, I said, “If you want to get married in Montana, I’ll need a year pull it off.” The rentable wedding offerings out west were slim to none back then. Today, however, the area is destination wedding central. So, after getting engaged in August of 2011, we set the date for August 4, 2012.

By mid-September, I had nailed down the caterer, the tent, the chairs, the tables, and had a lead on a band willing to double as a gospel choir. Frances wanted “Oh, Happy Day,” instead of “Here Comes the Bride,” or Clarke’s “Trumpet Voluntary in D Major.” Her plan was to process down the front steps to an area on the lawn in front of the house where three aspens formed an apse of sorts.

“Can we rent pews?” she asked.

“Well, maybe not pews per se, but benches definitely.”

The reception would have to be in the meadow, 1500 yards from the house—the only place on the property flat enough to pitch a tent. Unfortunately, this would involve a three-quarter mile trek downhill on gravel. Golf carts? Horse-drawn carriages? I’d figure that out later.

Back in Palm Beach, invitations were designed and ordered.

“Brown ink?” Mama, a staunch traditionalist and high priestess of proper etiquette, sounded horrified. “Her invitation is in brown ink?’”

Now was not the time to tell her about the elk rack at the top in lieu of a family crest, or that it would be letter-pressed (she favored engraved), or that we would not be using “Shadowed Roman,” her preferred typeface.

“It’s a Montana wedding, Mama.” Then, in a rare moment of bravery, added, “And if you say one word to Frances, I’ll…”

“What? Kill me?”

“Mama, please.”

“Go ahead,” she said. “I’m half dead anyway.” She was about to turn ninety but didn’t look a day over seventy. She had some serious health issues but was sharper than people half her age. “So what exactly is a Montana wedding?” I’m sure she’d combed the 1922 edition of Emily Post’s Etiquette and found nothing.

After a twenty-minute explanation, I assured her it would be tasteful. “And kinda woodsy.”

“Woodsy?”

“You know, pine cones, moss, ferns, birch bark, that sorta stuff.”

“Oh.” I don’t think she was convinced. I’m not sure I was either. Before I left Montana, I had sat on the front porch for hours, studying the trees, the creek, the mountains—waiting for inspiration to come flying out of the woods and connect the dots. I could see the components, but had no idea how all that “woodsy” stuff would come together.

Frances found a dress she loved—a $40,000 Elie Saab. Gulp. It only came in “blush,” so we kept looking. We found a fabulous designer in Miami who made one very similar in ivory.

By mid-March, the ’Save-the-Dates’ had been mailed and the invitations were addressed, stamped, and stacked on the dining room table.

“I’ve got to get to Montana,” I said.

“Now?” Joe sounded incredulous.

“Yes, now.”

“But isn’t everything pretty much done?”

“Done? What planet are you living on?” There was a 5000 square foot tent to decorate, a staff to hire, twenty to thirty centerpieces to come up with, linens to be ordered, and I had to figure out how to make the tent poles look like trees. Yes, trees. If I was going for "woodsy,” the poles, of which there were three, had to be trees. And not just any trees—fairytale trees—enchanted forest trees.

I had a plan but needed to get “boots on the ground” to pull it together. I left Frances with instructions to mail the invitations on June 4th then flew to Montana. The wedding was five months away.

I did diagram after diagram of the tent; I didn’t want the tables all the same size, but a variety of round, square, and rectangular. White linen over burlap, brown ballroom chairs with white cushions. Simple. Limited palette. As for the centerpieces, think the forest floor—twigs, acorns, pine cones, moss, even antlers.

I couldn’t find burlap underskirts, so I ordered 200 yards from a mill in Massachusetts and decided to make them. I had time, and it would give me something to do while I figured out the trees, which were making nightly appearances in my dreams, some of which were downright scary.

Joe called about a week later. “As long as you’re there,” he said, “would you please cut the grass?”

My response is unprintable. I mean, what did he think I was doing out there? Sitting around? But being somewhat of a people pleaser, I cranked up the John Deere and headed toward the front lawn. The job was half finished when the damn thing ran out of gas—there was none in the barn—then it started snowing. I went in the house and built a fire. The mower sat in the yard for two days, covered in snow.

A friend called with the name of a place in California where I could buy hemstitched linen napkins and table cloths for the same price as renting them. Why not, I thought.

I mocked up centerpieces in the barn—sticks, moss, antlers, ferns—until the burlap arrived and I turned the front porch, the only place long enough to roll and cut it, into a sweat shop.

I called every person in Montana who had ever helped us—house cleaners, bartenders, servers—to drum up bodies for the wedding.

“Gee, I’d love to help,” one said. “But I’ve started my own party planning business.”

“Does that include staffing?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“What about flowers?”

“Sure.”

“When can we meet.”

The girl was a godsend. She caught my vision, and we were off. But the trees, I couldn’t quit obsessing about the trees. The trunk would have to be something flexible that could be wrapped around the poles. Paper? Fabric? What?

I called Marcia Wendel, a dear friend and well-known muralist. She came right over and we brainstormed for hours. Figuring it would probably involve fabric, I had bought twelve yards of brown cotton the day before.

“What if we dip it in liquid starch or diluted Elmer’s glue,” I suggested. “You know, to make it stiff.”

Marcia gave me one of her droll looks. “Then what?”

I had no idea. “Spread it out and let it dry?”

“Yeah, but it needs to be bumpy, like bark.”

We dipped three yards into a washtub of starch, laid it out in the driveway—a gravel driveway—scrunched it up and let it dry.

“It needs paint,” Marcia said. I lead her into my studio in the barn where we mixed up a batch of brownish-gray paint. “Where are your brushes?” I handed her several. She chose the biggest.

Back in the driveway, she said, “We need to splatter it like this.” She flung some paint on the cloth. I did the same. “Be careful.” she said. I stopped. “There’s a fine line between it looking like bark and looking like a drop cloth.”

We wanted the bottom to settle on the ground like a tree trunk. We added some spray foam for more texture, painted it, and stood it up. The roots splayed out like Morticia’s skirt.

But the limbs? To be the right size, real ones were too heavy. I combed Home Depot and found some 4’x8’x3” sheets of Styrofoam™. It weighed next to nothing.

“What’s this stuff used for,” I asked an orange-aproned employee.

“It’s roofing insulation,” he said. “How much do you need?”

I did some quick math and ordered 24 sheets. “How do you cut it?”

He suggested a jig saw or electric carving knife and said they’d deliver them for fifty dollars.

Once cut, the limbs had to be painted brown and splattered like the trunks. As for how to attach them to the poles…without going into too much detail, it involved a visit to a metal fabricator. After an exhaustive explanation of what I was trying to do, complete with photos and diagrams, he came up with a gizmo to hold the limbs that wouldn’t slide down the poles. I would have to cover the mechanics with ferns.

The weather in Montana—which I described in another post as an attention-seeking child—can throw a ninety-degree temper tantrum in May and a blizzard twenty-four hours later. When it took a turn for the worst, I took cover and starting cutting burlap.

Every day, UPS, FedEx, and DHL showed up with some piece of this project. Containers, birch bark, sheets of moss, even plants. Yes, in addition to everything else, I decided to nurse a variety of plants to use in the centerpieces.

On the east side of the barn I kept Angel Vine (Muehlenbeckia), Ivy (Hedera), Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum) and a mixed bag of succulents (Echeveria, Sedum, Crassula, etc.) alive for two months.

I was feeling rather good about how things were going, when I received the estimate to floor the tent. I burst into tears and started the now gassed-up John Deere and drove it down to the meadow. Even mown, the grass looked like scorched earth. I was beside myself. I couldn’t have the floor of my woodsy tent looking like scorched earth. It needed to be green and mossy.

It was almost June and Joe was still in Palm Beach. The man has his shortcomings, but he can flat out grow grass. He arrived a week later and went to work.

Rocks were removed, soil was tilled, and grass was planted.

1500 yards of flexible pipe had to be attached to a pump in the pond next to the house and laid all the way to the meadow to keep the grass watered. It doesn’t get dark in June until 10:30 and the sun comes up around 5:00, so there was plenty of plant-growing daylight. By the first of July, we had grass. Joe verticut it every other day, and by the time the crew showed up with the tent, it looked like a fairway at Augusta National a week before the Masters.

Meanwhile, I was holed up in the barn making stuff. The cake table was draped in moss with a pine cone border. Joe, when he wasn’t tending his grass, cut aspen discs for table numbers. Then there was the cross. We had to have a cross.

As for the electricity, we rented a generator, of course, then Joe asked, rather matter-of-factly, “What if people need to go to the bathroom.” Great. How was that not on my list? I finally found an adorable portable powder room—a his and hers four-holer with wood siding about the size of a small house trailer—complete with running water, thanks to the pipe from the pond. You couldn’t drink it, but you sure could flush it.

The week before the wedding, the bride and groom showed up, along with the tent and things started moving. As with any production, there are ups and downs, things you didn’t see coming. No one was allowed to mention rain because there was no plan B.

Chairs, tables, and benches arrived. We started hauling everything—tree parts, centerpieces, bars, lamps, cake table, wicker lounge chairs, even a sofa—from the barn to the tent.

Three hours before the wedding, I was standing on the front steps trying to decide what to do with a table. I still had to finish the arrangement for the buffet.

“Mary,” Joe said. “Catie is dressed. Go get in the tub.”

I’d been working on that wedding for a year, and it was finally happening. I shed the paint-covered Carhartts I’d been wearing for five months and lowered myself into a tub of soapy hot water. A minute later, Joe knocked on my bathroom door and handed me a vodka and grapefruit juice—my drug of choice. I took a swig then burst into tears.

He let me cry a minute or two, then said, “You know that’ll make your eyes swell.”

“I know,” I wailed, “but I can’t stop.”

He sat on the side of the tub. “I have a confession to make.”

“What?”

“About the tent.”

“What about it?”

“I never quite visualized what you were trying to do.” Still sobbing, I choked down the rest of my drink. “But I gotta hand it to you, Mare, you knocked it outta the park. That tent looks amazing,” he gushed. “And those trees.”

I handed him my empty glass and ducked under the water, knowing I had to pull myself together. It’s the only cocktail I had that day. One more and I might’ve embarrassed myself. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping me vertical.

A little before midnight, the disco part of the evening started—Club TP was in full swing. Joe and I were sitting in the golf cart about to head up to the house when Frances came running out of the tent. “Wait!” she shouted. She hugged Joe then me. “It was beyond my wildest dreams,” she said. “Thank you.”

Wildest dreams? If she only knew.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, this is not the story promised at the end of my last post. Instead, I am going back in time—almost 40 years.

Membership in the Garden Club of Palm Beach, in the opinion of most, is an honor and privilege—some might even rank it right up there with winning the lottery. (I’d rather win the lottery.) So, how did a relatively unknown southern girl land an invitation to join this august institution? Stay tuned.

In 1987, Joe sold a golf community he had developed on Hilton Head Island to the property owners for one dollar. For ten years, he’d run the place like a benevolent dictator, with no input from anyone, and it had run like a well-oiled machine. Once he relinquished control, however, a couple of egocentric retired military types got involved, set up a chain of command, and formed thirty committees. All hell broke loose. Residents and club members began calling the house, morning, noon, and night, complaining about everything from the length of the fairway grass to the size of the club’s new dinner forks.

“You’ve got to do something!” they screamed. Joe was coming unglued.

“They’re gonna ruin it,” he said. If I didn’t get him out of town—and fast—he was going to have a stroke.

We tried London, but it got dark at 3:30, the sky looked like wet cement, and keeping up with the girls’ foul weather gear was a full time job. (No wonder the English have mudrooms bigger than their kitchens.) After a dreary Thanksgiving, with no turkey to be found, we headed back to South Carolina, where the weather wasn’t much better, and the telephone started ringing again.

Joe loved to fish and had spent every January since the early 70s fishing back-to-back sailfish tournaments off the coast of Palm Beach. We had rented a house for the month of January, but it was barely December. Not sure we would survive the phone calls or the bad weather, I got in touch with our agent and asked if we could get in the house sooner—like NOW. Two days later, I packed suitcases, threw the girls in the station wagon, and drove to Florida. Joe relaxed, the girls played on the beach, it was heaven.

During one of the tournaments, however, the weather took a turn and the fishing was called off. Joe suggested we look at real estate, more to relieve boredom than any interest in buying anything. Well (drumroll here), we bought a house, enrolled our children in school, and decided to stay.

“My Lord, Mary! Have you lost your mind!” were the first words out of my mother’s mouth as she breezed through the front door of our new/old house—a house she called a bastard. “It’s not true to a particular architectural style”, she said. And, as usual, she was right. What started off as a Monterey house in 1922, was “Bermudatized” in 1966. And while I know you can’t turn a noun into a verb by simply adding ‘t-i-z-e,’ that’s exactly what had been done to this house.

The only thing Mama had ever done in Palm Beach was sunbathe on the beach in front of The Breakers. “Nobody really lives here, do they?” I assured her they did. “What do they do in the summer?”

“Actually, it’s cooler here than it is in South Carolina.” I don’t know whether I was trying to convince her or myself.

To be true to the original design, I asked that all extraneous doodads be removed. The construction foreman obliged by slipping a tool akin to a crowbar under some unwanted door trim and prying it off. When the molding hit the floor, so did the entire west wall of living room, the studs of which were the consistency of parchment paper. The diagnosis: terminal termites. The remedy: tenting the house to the tune of eight thousand of dollars.

“Got any more bright ideas?” Joe was beginning to regret this impulse purchase.

“Well, next time the fishing is called off, why don’t we tootle on over to Worth Avenue and look at jewelry,” I suggested.

“Cute.”

When Joe could no longer stand the noise, he rented office space; when he could no longer stand the boredom, he bought a bankrupt golf course off the courthouse steps, which only added insult to injury—it, too, had to be completely redone.

Despite the construction, I managed to turn a room over the garage into a studio, where I did craft projects and sharpened my sewing skills.

The wardrobe needs of one living in Palm Beach far exceed those of one in the South Carolina low country. After exploring expensive Worth Avenue dress shops, I hurried home to my petite atelier over the garage and sewed like a Seventh Avenue seamstress on speed. I knocked off a pointe esprit Chanel evening gown, which I wore to a benefit at The Breakers. While waiting for our car, a lady complimented me on the dress, adding that if she’d spent that much on a gown, her husband would’ve killed her.

Joe, whose face had turned a scary shade of gray, whispered, “I thought you made it.”

“I did. Relax.”

When I wasn’t sewing, I faux painted tables, lamps, baseboards, ceilings, and in one case, a bathroom. I fooled around with decoupage for a bit, selling my creations in a local gift shop. I was always making something.

When Christmas rolled around, the girls were consumed with finding just the right gifts for their teachers. All I want to do was stay home and bake. When it comes to gift giving, I’ve tried to teach them that it’s the thought that counts—a point I stressed even harder after witnessing a Palm Beach Day School parent give a teacher a color television for Christmas. I was incensed.

When I suggested that they make their teachers’ gifts, they balked. To lead by example, I made little Christmas trees, trimmed with a mixture of miniature ornaments, balls, and lights. They had fun and their teachers loved them.

It was my first experience wielding a hot glue gun—emphasis on ‘hot.’ I burned myself so many times that the officer taking my fingerprints when I applied for a concealed weapons permit could find no sign of a print on the index finger of my right hand. (Why I needed a concealed weapons permit is another story.)

A member of the garden club stopped by one afternoon, saw my little trees standing all over the dining room table, and sweet-talked me into making some for the club’s annual Christmas Boutique. And she paid me. Six weeks later, I was formally invited to join The Garden Club of Palm Beach and was naive enough to think it had something to do with my Christmas-tree-making skills. Little did I know that the minute I moved to town, well-meaning garden club friends of my mother’s began a Herculean letter-writing campaign on my behalf.

I should’ve known something was up when two days before I was officially invited to join, Mama called.

“Mary!” she exclaimed. (She never started with ‘hello.’) “If you receive an invitation to join the garden club down there, would you please accept.” She was painfully aware of my track record with women’s organizations. I fared no better with the Junior League than I did with my college sorority, and she was taking no chances. “I know how you are,” she continued. “You’ll hole up in the mess of a studio of yours, not to mention that unfinished house, and not come up for air. You need to get out and meet some nice people.” I assured her it would never happen. “But if it does?” I knew it was a long shot, so I agreed. “Good,” she said, and hung up.

The Garden Club of Palm Beach is under the auspices of The Garden Club of America, which is divided into twelve zones. Palm Beach is in Zone VIII, along with Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. So between GCA Horticulture judge mother-in-law in Savannah, my mother’s kin scattered all over Georgia and Alabama, and a huge family in South Carolina, we know a lot of people.

When I was formally introduced to the membership at the February meeting, the looks on members’ faces ranged from mild confusion to downright disbelief.

“Who is she?” I heard whispered, along with “Where’s she from?” and “I’ve never heard of her, have you?”

Fearing I might die of embarrassment, I quickly sat down and buried my nose in the club’s handbook. GCA’s mission statement is printed on the first page:

The purpose of the Garden Club of America is to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening; to share the advantages of association by means of educational meetings, conferences, correspondence, and publications; and to restore, improve, and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic improvement.

Now, that’s all well and good, but there was nothing in there about furthering one’s appreciation of art as it pertains to flower arranging or making Christmas trees. The only words that popped off that page were ‘educational meetings’ , ‘conferences’, ‘correspondence and publications’, ‘the environment’, ‘civic improvement’, etc.—words that trigger a fight-or-flight response, heavy on the flight.

I looked around the room. One member had been wheeled in by a nurse, several others hobbled along aided by canes and walkers. There were maybe five women close to my age, the rest appeared to be my mother’s generation.

With last names reminiscent of robber barons, and wearing an assortment of floral prints and pastels, most were endowed with more than their fair share of patrician reserve. The lady on my right was wearing a pin the size of a salad plate—I tried not to stare.

What had I gotten myself into? You know the rest.

“They need someone to interpret Richard Avedon’s ‘Dovima With Elephants’,” she said,

“But Richard Avedon was a photographer.”

“That’s right, and ‘Dovima With Elephants’ is probably his most famous work,” she said.

“So, you want me to interpret a black and white photograph with flowers?”

“Yes, when I showed the committee that bizarre ‘Easter Island’ thing you did a couple of years ago, they’re dying for you to be part of ‘Art in Bloom’.”

I think there was a compliment in there somewhere.

“Lemme think about it.” And I did, morning, noon, and night, but once I saw the photograph, I agreed to do the arrangement.

Interpreting a work of art with plant material is like having a roadmap. Once you understand what makes something a great work of art, you begin to grasp a better understanding of the elements and principles of design, and “Dovima With Elephants” has it all: balance, contrast, rhythm, proportion, line, form, pattern, texture, space, even color—it is more sepia and ivory than flat black and white.

“It will be placed here,” said the museum staffer when I met with her about the show. We were standing in the middle of the Norton’s massive entrance hall, some twenty feet from the nearest wall.

“Here?”

“Uh-huh, on this pedestal.” The damn thing was the size of a refrigerator. Doing an arrangement on a pedestal that big would definitely involve a ladder. I’d never arranged on a ladder. Furthermore, to be in proportion, it would have to be almost six feet tall.

Everything I’d ever done had been displayed against a wall or in a niche, which meant you couldn’t see thirty percent of it. The backside is where you hide the things that hold a design together—in other words, its underwear. But this arrangement would have to look good from every angle.

The Art in Bloom coordinator handed me a folder containing the rules and other pertinent information, and I left, feeling that familiar combination of excitement and dread.

I had admired Richard Avedon’s work in fashion magazines but had never scrutinized any of his photographs as intensely as this one. It was a study in contrast: smooth vs. rough, weak vs. strong, clean vs. dirty, light vs. dark, feminine vs. masculine.

I purchased two postcards of the photograph in the museum store, and taped one to my bathroom mirror and the other to the dashboard of my car. I squinted at them from time to time, which did away with the extraneous and allowed me to see the strongest lines in the design. Several days later, along with some new crows’ feet, I noticed a strong “T” shape in the photograph: Dovima’s arms along with the elephant’s trunk being the horizontal, and the dress and sash the vertical. I kept thinking I’d seen it before.

Several days later, while watching a documentary about the Lourvre, I saw it: the Winged Victory of Samothrace, that stolen masterpiece of Greek sculpture standing at the top of the museum’s grand staircase—the headless angel—Nike herself.

Call me crazy, but there is something very elephantine about that statue. I downloaded a photo of Nike and overlaid Dovima. Bingo.

Big stuff. I needed big stuff, and it had to be brown, which in plant speak means “dead.” I combed trash piles all over Palm Beach and quickly acquired a collection of choice items.

Amongst the debris was a dead royal palm crownshaft (Roystonea regia) about three feet in length. It looked like a wing from one angle and a raised elephant’s trunk from another. The color and texture were definitely pachydermal.

Heaven only knew what was living in those dead limbs, sticks, and leaves, so I stashed them in the garage—a garage I share with our building’s other four tenants, most of whom have learned not to ask questions when they see me playing with yard trash.

I headed to Home Depot—that repository of hard goods where you never know what sort of flower-arranging gadgetry you might find. After cruising the aisles, I had an assortment of objects in my cart that left more than one orange-aproned employee scratching his head. Along with a five-foot piece of PVC pipe, I picked up an HV/AC grate the size of a medium pizza, a can of dark brown spray paint, a Demel®—that pygmy of saws with a thousand uses—and a tube of Liquid Nails®. I had a plan, but no idea whether it would work.

I bought dried lotus leaves at the local Chinese market and Oasis® foam cages at the floral supply. Liquid Nails was used to glue the pipe to the grate and the grate to an oval wooden base I found at Michael’s. The label recommended waiting twenty-four hours before applying pressure; twenty-four hours later, the contraption was lying in three pieces on the garage floor, which brings me to the subject of glue. There are over a hundred kinds of glue out there, and I’ve tried most of them. Rarely do they live up to the claims made on their labels, which has led to crying jags and screaming fits.

There’s a store in West Palm Beach appropriately named Glue Products, and they stock every kind of glue imaginable. Their staff is ready and able to tell you everything you ever wanted to know about adhesives and then some. There is glue in that place designed to hold boats together. When I explained what I was trying to do, the salesman showed me a product he swore would glue anything to anything and cure in an hour. I had used it before to repair the turtle I did with Pat Cook after it hit the floor, and had forgotten all about it. (For more of my adventures with glue, please see A Reptile Dysfunction.)

Back in the garage, I, once again, glued the pipe to the grate and the grate to the wood, and an hour later, you couldn’t break them apart with a sledgehammer—not that I tried.

Dremel in hand, I cut rectangular holes down the front of the PVC pipe to receive the foam cages, along with a hole at the top through which I threaded the wing-shaped piece of royal palm.

“What’s that thing in the garage?” Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether Joe is genuinely interested or borderline concerned; his tone suggested the latter.

“You mean that pipe standing next to my car with a piece of a palm tree sticking through it?”

“Yeah.”

“My Norton arrangement.”

“Oh.” He acted as if he knew exactly what I was talking about, which, of course, he didn’t. “What time are we meeting the Dudleys for dinner?”

“Six-thirty.”

There are several areas of negative space in the photograph—between the legs of the elephants and around Dovima herself—that enable the viewer to see through to the background, so there needed to be areas of the same in my interpretation. I wanted the arrangement to look as though it had stepped onto the pedestal, not landed there with a thud.

The PVC pipe was the backbone of the structure, and had to be completely camouflaged. After spray-painting it brown, I covered it with lotus leaves which, like the yard trash, was the color and texture of elephant skin and acted as a petticoat.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a dead Alocasia leaf (Alocasia macroohizos) appropriately named ’Borneo giant,’ which should give you an idea of its size. It had this delicately ruffled edge, a perfect foil to the other more masculine material.

I ordered four dozen giant white Anthuriums (Anthurium andraeanum). With their flawlessly smooth, almost wax-like surface, I wanted them to simulate the sash, and when placed in the Oasis cages embedded in the pipe, would cascade down the front of the design, spilling onto the pedestal.

Twenty-four hours before showtime, I was in bed with a terrible cold, but confident I had everything figured out. Between naps, I decided to go over the “Exhibitors’ Information” folder given to me by the Norton staffer two months prior.

All arrangements must be made in a designated area of the museum, then transported to their respective pedestals in their respective galleries. No paint or painted materials will be allowed anywhere in the Museum. All plant material must have been purchased by a licensed florist and certified bug free.

And I thought GCA flower show rules were tough.

After a wave of nausea passed, I picked up the phone and called Art in Bloom’s museum liaison.

“You sound terrible,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I have a cold, but that’s not why I called.”

“Whew, for a minute there I thought you were calling to say you were too sick to do the arrangement.”

“Well, let’s talk about that.” I gave it to her straight. “With the exception of forty-eight anthuriums, a few aspidistra leaves (Aspidistra elatior), and a bit of brunia (Brunia noduliflora), everything in my arrangement came out of trash piles.” I heard her gasp. “Not only that, a lot of it has been spray painted.” Another gasp. “Now, I realize you’ve got some pretty valuable art around there, but it’s not like my arrangement is going to be near any of it. Right?”

“Ah, right.”

“It’s in the lobby, not in a gallery. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“You’ve got people traipsing through the lobby with worse stuff on their hands and feet than anything in my arrangement.” Dead silence. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” she said, her voice, while a bit shaky, was the epitome of control.

“Also, there is no way I can do this thing in some ‘designated area’ then carry it all the way to the lobby. It’s gonna be six feet tall and will have to be constructed on site—and I’ll need a ladder.”

“We can handle that,” she said, “but I need to know more about the things you got from the trash piles?”

“Yeah, that.”

“What sort of things are we talking about here?”

“Well, I have a crownshaft off of a royal palm.”

“You mean like a palm frond?

“Not exactly, but sort of. I also have a large alocasia leaf, and a inflorescence pod off a royal palm (Roystonia regis). I gave everything an alcohol bath, but just so you know, even plant material from a florist could still have a bug or two. The only people who can legally certify anything bug free are exterminators.”

“I see,” she said. After a long pause, she continued, “Well, you aren’t technically in the gallery; I guess we can make an exception in your case.”

“Thank you,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I hope you won’t be disappointed.”

When I walked into the floral supply the next morning, the staff looked like someone had died.

“Mary, we have a problem,” said Aldo. “We only have twenty-four anthuriums.”

I felt my knees buckle. “But I ordered forty-eight.”

“I know, but they only sent us twenty-four.” What he didn’t tell me is that they didn’t send any. None. Aldo had driven ninety miles to Miami to procure the twenty-four currently on hand. The order had been in for weeks. I wanted to kill somebody, or at the very least scream, but what was the point. Instead, I took a deep breath. The staff felt badly enough. Why make an ass out of myself. “What are you gonna do?” Aldo looked genuinely concerned.

“I have no idea.” I was about to cry. “Right now all I want to do is crawl back in bed.”

“I have some white calla lilies (Zantedeschia aethiopica), if you can use them.”

“Thanks, Aldo, but their stems are too thick. They won’t work.”

I paid for my order and left.

“Good luck,” said Aldo.

“Thanks, I’m gonna need it.”

Debby Beard—a friend who readily admits she’s no flower arranger (but has impeccable taste and knows a lot about art)—volunteered to be my lackey. When we arrived at the museum, the place was crawling with gallery gawkers, most of whom eyed us suspiciously as we wrestled a cart full of flowers and painted trash into the lobby. For some reason, I’d assumed the museum would be closed. An audience makes me nervous as all get out, but I felt so crummy, I hardly noticed them. Besides, they were the least of my worries. I was much more concerned about being short twenty-four anthuriums than a slow moving tide of the culturally curious.

With an audience I hadn’t planned on (and didn’t particularly want), I finished the. arrangement in under two hours.

“Where’s the chain?” I asked.

“What chain?” Deb began rooting through the cart. “I never saw a chain.”

“I must’ve left it in the car. I’ll be right back.”

There were chains around the ankles of the elephants, therefore, I don’t think Mr. Avedon shot the photograph in Africa; a circus seems more likely. I wanted to incorporate a chain into the arrangement, but had no idea how or where. A chain technically falls under the category of an accessory, and accessories should always be used sparingly. Just like a great dress, many a good arrangement has been spoiled by being over accessorized—junked up with an overabundance of stuff. Like my “Easter Island” wooly mammoth, the “Dovima” design also needed a anchoring element.

I returned with the chain, which was about six feet long, with big rusty links. Holding it like a snake, I stood in front of my arrangement, trying to decide where to put it. An older man, clad in typical Florida retiree attire, sidled up next me.

“Whachoo gonna do with that chain?” He must gargle with rocks.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I said, walking around the pedestal.

“It could use a good cleaning, you know…and some oil.”

A crowd began to gather, asking questions I was in no mood to answer.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“What kinda flowers are those?”

“What’s she gonna do with that chain?”

“That’s what I wanna know,” said the man with the raspy voice.

I didn’t answer any of them, just simply stood, feet rooted to the floor, holding the chain.

Debby appeared at my side. “You’re about to scream, aren’t you?”

“How can you tell.”

“Do you want me to handle this?”

“Please.”

Turning to the assemblage, she said, ”Excuse me. Excuse me, but would all of you please stand back and stop asking questions. She’s trying to finish.” And, mercifully, they did.

“Thank you.” I would’ve kissed her, but I had a cold.

“Anytime.” Debby stood next to me for a couple of minutes, eyeing my arrangement. “By the way, what are you gonna do with that chain?”

I circled the pedestal several times before finally placing it on the back left corner, where I tucked one end under Dovima’s “skirt.” I poked and pushed until it looked like it belonged there, like it had fallen off an elephant’s foot and landed in a clump. I moved the chain’s end diagonally until it was hanging over the edge of the pedestal. I stepped back and studied the design. It could use a few more anthuriums, I thought, otherwise it was damn close to what I had envisioned.

“It looks really good,” Debby said. “I mean really good.”

“Thank you. Now, let’s get out of here and go eat lunch before I mess it up.”

With a load of leftover stuff, Debby rolled the cart to the car while I packed my tools. I was tidying up, when I noticed a very old woman tottering toward me. They don’t call south Florida “God’s Little Waiting Room” for nothing.

“Did you do that?” she squawked, waving her cane dangerously close to my arrangement.

“I did.”

“Really?” I got the distinct impression she didn’t believe me. She looked me up one side and down the other, then studied my arrangement. “Funny,” she said. “You don’t look that weird.”

I try very hard not to look weird, but some of my ideas for flower arrangements scare me to death.

What followed was a moment of mutual avoidance—lost eye contact, scraping chairs, hands plunging into pocketbooks as if something urgent had just been remembered. Based on these reactions, you’d have thought volunteering involved an interpretive dance—or full cavity search.

Excuses ranged from “I’m not sure I’ll be in town,” to “My doctor suggested I avoid stress.”

And I’ve been there—putting something on a pedestal to be judged by a group of women with very definite ideas—who might have had too much to drink the night before at the judges’ dinner—can be intimidating. Okay, very intimidating, but it won’t kill you.

Every time I ‘volunteer,’ my first thought is not, I want to win. More like Please, God, don’t let me embarrass myself. So I get it. That kind of anxiety is in a league of its own.

I humored, cajoled, threatened, and I still couldn’t get the classes filled.

“Maybe you should do a little workshop,” suggested the show chairman. So like a good soldier, I conducted one entitled “Everything You’re Afraid Might Happen When You Enter a Flower Show But Probably Won’t,” and why the outcome, whatever that might be, is not a referendum on your self worth. I encouraged members to arrange in pairs, if that made them more comfortable. Double the pleasure, divide the pain.

It worked so well I agreed to do one with Susan Van Pelt, a member who had entered shows in the past, had won the Beattie Medal in horticulture (a big deal), and a blue ribbon in a little show on Long Island, but had never won one in floral design in our show.

The class titles were based on the original six demonstration gardens on the grounds of The Society of the Four Arts.

Class 1. The Formal Garden: Form Trumps Content

Class 2. The Madonna Garden: Purity and Goodness

Class 3. The Chinese Garden: Happiness and Harmony

Class 4. The Moonlight Garden: Light and Shadow

Class 5. The Jungle Garden: Tropical and Wild

Class 6. The Spanish Façade Garden: Placed at the Door

Susan and I decided to do the door, which was provided by the flower show committee. The damn thing was 80” tall—no jamb, no trim—just a hollow core wooden door. Much to Joe’s relief, we decided to work on it in Susan’s garage.

In an effort to lead by example, I also signed up to do Class 4, “The Moonlight Garden…Light and Shadow,” which meant Joe’s brief fantasy of a debris-free kitchen went right out the door—a different door. (Why I do this to myself makes me seriously question my sanity.)

The door, meanwhile, leaned against the wall in Susan’s garage for days while we tried to decide what to do with it.

There is an abundance of Spanish architecture in south Florida, and as the class title was “The Spanish Façade…Left at the Door,” we thought it should be distinctly Iberian.

There is a house in West Palm Beach I’ve driven by a gazillion times never failing to admire the strap hinges on its front door, therefore the door had to have ornate hinges.

Aldo, who worked at the wholesale floral supply, gave us his recipe for making woodgrain—toilet paper mixed with Elmer’s glue. You spread it on with a fork and once it’s painted brown, it looks just like bark. Susan mastered this technique, adding wood knots here and there that looked incredibly real. We used acorns as studs, pine cones, moss, and we had a blast.

The subtitle of the class was “left at the door,” which could mean anything from a Fedex package to a bouquet of flowers (too predictable). Our door, we decided, belonged to a woodsman, so we placed a cypress (Taxodium distichum) stump in front of the door into which we thrust a hatchet. Perched on the hatchet’s handle was a bird of unknown origin made out of Leucadendrun (Leucadendron ‘Safari Sunset’) leaves. The door’s panels were covered in Spahgnum moss (Sphagnum platyphyllum) and the jamb was grained in our magic mixture of toilet paper and glue. All we had to do now was figure out how to haul it to the museum.

I was cruising over the Royal Park Bridge one afternoon still trying to decide how to interpret “The Moonlight Garden…Light and Shadow,” when I heard a song on the radio that gave me an idea. Inspiration comes from all sorts of places, but I can safely say this is the first time the idea for my “statement of intent” came before the idea for my arrangement.

🎶 When a deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls
And the stars begin to twinkle in the night
in the mist of a memory you wander back to me
Breathing my name with a sigh 🎶

There it was! The song had everything—garden wall, twinkle in the night—now all I had to do was come up with an arrangement.

Later that day, while perusing an auction catalogue, a Tiffany lamp on the cover caught my eye. Now, I’m no fan of art nouveau, but the organic quality of it gave me an idea. It also didn’t hurt that it was purple.

This is why I advise arrangers to look at art. You can pull inspiration from the design elements without the risk of “copying” another arrangement, which believe it or not, I’ve been accused of doing. (More about that later.)

While setting up to do my “deep purple” arrangement, I overheard a fellow participant say to her partner, with a nod in my direction, “If I’d know she was in this class, I’d have never entered.”

I felt like a playground bully. She assumed I would win, whereas I never assume anything of the sort. There are too many variables, too many things that can go wrong—asshole hydrangeas, hungover judges, some obscure rule that said I couldn’t run a garden hose into a museum (pfffft)—not to mention my borderline crippling insecurity. There is no such thing as a ‘sure thing’ when it comes to flower shows.

I left the floor and headed toward the gallery’s loading dock to retrieve my toolbox and flowers. As usual, the area was a madhouse of last minute horticulture entries and cut specimens.

“Hello, Mary.” It was Arabella Dane, a well-respected GCA judge in three disciplines—floral design, horticulture and photography! She is extremely knowledgable and was there to pass arrangements and help members fill out their entry cards.

“Arabella, how nice to see you.”

“Good to see you, too, but, why the long face?”

“You got a minute?”

“Of course.” I steered her away from the noise and confusion.

“I need some advice.” I told her about the grumbling going on in the gallery. “Should I stop entering our flower shows?”

“Never!”

“But I feel like I’m hogging the ball and...”

“Well, you’re not,” she said. “By continuing to enter, you’re keeping the bar high.”

“But I feel so...”

“Mary, listen to me. One of these days, someone’s gonna come along and beat you, and if you haven’t entered, people will say it’s the only reason she won. But if you have, and she beats you, it’s going to be one of the happiest days of her life, and yours, because every time you put something up on a pedestal to be judged, you’ve conditioned people to expect brilliance, and that takes a lot more from you than it gives.”

I thanked her profusely, but left wondering how could I possibly feel good about losing, even though I never set out to ‘beat’ anyone.

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. —Ayn Rand

In hindsight, entering flower shows was about achievement and personal growth, but in the moment, it was always about just not embarrassing myself.

“The standards I set for myself are almost unattainable; I am my harshest critic and my toughest judge,” I said during an interview for the local newspaper.

“You are obviously very talented,” said the journalist.

“Not really—if you ask my mother, she’d tell you I am very deliberate.”

“But you won your first flower show at age eleven.”

“I know, but I was just an average kid who put forth above average effort.” And didn’t want to look stupid.

For my “Moonlight” entry, I used dark purple min calla lilies (Zantedeschia rehmannii), Fiddlehead fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), and Galax leaves (Galax urceolata), formerly known as (Galax aphylla). It was all held together by a ball of Oasis at the top of a metal pole threaded into a base, all of which came from Home Depot.

After completing my entry, I wandered into the main gallery where another member was finishing her arrangement. The minute I saw it, every hair on my head stood straight up. Without saying a word, I stood behind her, studying her design. The class title was “The Formal Garden…Form Trumps Content,” the point being you should notice the design’s shape before you notice it’s components. It was brilliant. After a minute or two, she turned and saw me. “Help,” she mouthed.

“Come here,” I said.

“What’s wrong with it?” She was close to tears.

“Not a damn thing. It’s going to win the Puckett and it’s gonna get Best in Show.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice.”

“This has nothing to do with being nice,” I said. “And it’s not coming from me as a friend, it’s coming from me as a judge. Trust me, you’re gonna win and you’re gonna win big.”

And she did—both the Harriet DeWaele Puckett Creativity Award and Best in Show.

Turned out, Arabella Dane was right. I was as happy for the woman who won as I had ever been for myself, and it was the weirdest feeling—a mixture of joy and relief. Like breaking my winning streak had released the pressure valve of expectation, and I was free to arrange for the fun of it, to make mistakes.

That night, at the preview party, I watched as a crowd gathered around the winning arrangement, which was one of the most creative interpretations of a class title I’d ever seen.

A friend sidled up to me conspiratorially and said, “I bet you could kill her.”

“Actually,” I said. “I’m thrilled for her, and for me.”

“For you?” She looked at me like I was out of my mind.

I’d seen the look before.

The door I did with Susan won a blue ribbon, and my “Moonlight” arrangement did as well, along with the Dorothy Vietor Munger Award in recognition of creative work of outstanding beauty using predominantly fresh plant material.

It was good day all around.

I was talking to a very accomplished arranger from Texas. She had judged several of our shows and conducted a couple of workshops.

“Careful about what?”

“Your arrangements. I’m starting to recognize them.”

Was that a bad thing?

As an art form, is flower arranging any different than sculpting, painting, or dress designing? I can spot a Chanel suit from across the street, but that’s the point, isn’t it? If I were a professional, having a recognizable style would be an asset. But in competitive flower arranging, anonymity is important. Judges never evaluate classes they have entered, but when they judge and enter the same shows, anonymity is almost impossible.

What did she mean by, “you’d better be careful?” Was it my fondness for Protea and yard trash? Was dead plant material fast becoming my shtick? Whatever the reason, if a judge knew an arrangement was mine, I hope she’d be fair.

But you never know.

I once recognized an exhibitor’s handwriting on an entry card and nearly recused myself from judging the class. Then I remembered she was the helpful sort and might’ve just filled it out for someone else. (I can rationalize almost anything.) Regardless, at the judges’ evaluation meeting following the show, I suggested that entry cards be typed—or at the very least printed in block letters.

As with any endeavor, there are always people who know—or think they know—more than anyone else, and flower show judges are no different. GCA is blessed— or cursed, depending on your point of view—with an overabundance of dramatis personae. Navigating the personalities is tricky. Add competition to the mix, and you have an environment ripe for theatrics.

In 2008, I was judging a show in Georgia. After the ribbons were placed, we regrouped into panels to decide the special awards and Best in Show. Along with two others, I was asked to select the Harriet DeWaele Puckett Creativity Award. One judge kept pushing a particular arrangement. It was good, but others were more creative. But like a snapping turtle, she wasn’t going to let go until it thundered. Unwilling to wait that long, we awarded the Puckett to her favorite, albeit under duress.

We later learned the arrangement had been done by her sister! And if that wasn’t bad enough, they had traveled to the show together! I was incensed.

Back at the hotel bar—at three o’clock in the afternoon—I ordered a beer. Another judge from the panel joined me and ordered a vodka martini, straight up.

“Are you as pissed off as I am?” she asked.

“Apparently not since I’m only having a beer.”’

She laughed. “Do you really think she didn’t know that was her sister’s arrangement?”

“Oh she knew. I’d put money on it.”

“What can we do?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Cheers.”

At another show, a panel awarded Best in Show to an arrangement my panel had struggled to give a blue ribbon. It won by default—best of the worst, so to speak—and definitely not in the same league as the show’s other blue ribbon winners.

I later asked a Best in Show judge how it happened.

“One of the other judges wore us down,” she said. “She wouldn’t budge.”

“Was there a connection between her and the arranger?”

“My, God! I hope not.”

“It’s happened.”

Quite often the Puckett is given to a design that placed second. When this occurs, I feel like the awards panel is saying to the original panel, “What were you thinking?” Rarely, in my opinion, is the design that placed first better than the Puckett winner—but again, it’s a subjective discipline.

A design can also lose by comparison. While judging hats in Philadelphia, each of the four designs deserved blue ribbons. We could only give one.

We point-scored the entries using a predetermined scale.

• Conformance (20 pts): Meeting all schedule requirements, including space, style, and theme.

• Design Principles (42 pts):

  Balance, Proportion, Scale, Rhythm, Dominance, Contrast (7 pts each).

• Artistic Concept (12 pts): Creative use and organization of components.

• Expression (10 pts): How well the theme/class idea is interpreted.

• Distinction (16 pts): Quality of plant material, grooming, overall excellence.

• There were points for conformance to the schedule, design, creativity, distinction, and interpretation.

Since all were equally well-executed, I based my decision solely on creativity and distinction. There is always one that edges out the rest—but it kills me to give third place to an entry that in any other show would have placed first.

Some judges treat awards like participation trophies.

“We can’t give that the Puckett,” a judge said. “It’s already won Best in Show.”

“It’s not the same thing,” I said. “If an arrangement is the most creative and the Best in Show, it should be given both.”

“Well, I think we should spread them around.” Spread them around? She wanted to dole out awards like suckers to well-behaved children.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from exploding—a trait Esther Veramae Hamél’s Encyclopedia of Judging and Exhibiting Floriculture and Flowers describes as ”most unbecoming in a judge.”

At another show, my panel made four sweeps of the exhibition floor and decided no arrangement was worthy of the Puckett, so we didn’t award one.

“How could you not give the Puckett?” someone asked. “The show chairman will be so disappointed.”

I believe that awards are earned, not dispensed, and that an award given just to spare disappointment has already lost its meaning.

Judging horticulture is more objective. Plants, like dogs, have standards and are supposed to look a certain way. And like dogs, you may prefer one breed over another, but a good judge sets aside her personal preferences and awards ribbons based on merit.

When a plant wins the Beattie Medal, it’s because it is “vibrant, in prime condition, and perfectly groomed.” It also helps if it’s not “rather ordinary”—like the ivy that was my first horticulture entry.

Catherine Webster, my mother-in-law and a GCA Horticulture Judge, knew more about plants than anyone, and she didn’t suffer fools. Barely five-foot-three, it’s hard to believe she gave birth to my husband and his twin brother, both of whom are well-over six feet.

While judging in Palm Beach, a panelist wanted to award a blue ribbon to a plant Catherine thought pedestrian.

“Why, my dear, you can grow that between the cracks of a sidewalk in Savannah, Georgia” Needless to say, the plant didn’t win.

When a Crocodile fern, (Microsorum musifolium) won the Garden Club of Palm Beach’s Native Plant Award, Catherine said, “it’s native to Indonesia, not south Florida.” She didn’t add “you imbecile,” though she probably thought it.

The award stood because the definition lacked clarity. It has since been changed.

Deciding ribbons is easier than writing coherent comments, which are meant to educate and convey where the entry succeeded and where it did not.

A comment should be two sentences, or two complete thoughts—one complimentary, one constructive—and refer to an element or principle of design, leaving no doubt in the arranger’s mind where the problem lay. It’s not enough to say, “The placement of plant material disrupts rhythm”—rhythm being one of the key design principles. The arranger might be confused as to what plant material you mean. If the container is too big, the constructive comment should include a word about scale and mention the container specifically.

Handing me her entry card, a very experienced arranger asked, “what do you think this means?” The comment said, “Contrast between rock and plant material creates drama. Static placement of components disturbs dimension.”

“I have no idea. Who wrote this?”

“Shh! She’s standing right over there.”

“I don’t give a damn. Dimension isn’t a principle or an element of design, and which component is she talking about?”

“Who knows.”

Hamél also warns: Judges should avoid clever comments which might be misconstrued as sarcastic. In other words, don’t get too cute. I once judged a show with a woman who thought she was the reincarnation of Erma Bombeck. Her comments were witty and amusing, but they didn’t tell the arranger anything.

Under no circumstances should “Good effort. Better luck next time,” EVER be inscribed on an entry card, but believe it or not, it was, along with, “This could’ve been a real show stopper.”

Could have been?

For God’s sake, tell her how!

Nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing a truly innovative response to a class title. “Don’t be predictable,” I tell would-be arrangers. “Think outside the vase.”

For a workshop to encourage novices to enter flower shows, I suggested they bring schedules from other shows, and we would discuss creative ways to interpret a variety of class titles.

One participant handed me one from an out-of-town show. “Do you have any idea what this means?”

The language was vague and ambiguous. I knew the author, so I called her. “I understand you wrote the schedule for your zone show.”

“I did.”

“I need some clarification on class two,” I said.

“What don’t you understand?”

“I can’t figure out the staging.”

“What can’t you figure out about it?”

EVERYTHING! I wanted to scream.

She was obviously not used to being questioned. “Are you planning to enter the class?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then why do you care what it says.”

“Because I’m doing a workshop on interpreting schedules and yours was brought in by one of our members.”

Long silence. “That’s very brave of you, Mary.”

“How so?”

“That you feel qualified to do such a thing—you being so new and all.”

New?

I had been conducting workshops, judging, and speaking to garden clubs all over the Southeast. But in every organization, there is always an unofficial keeper of the pecking order, tasked with putting others “in their place.” Garden clubbers are no different, and those roles tend to fill rather quickly. I have since added that exchange as an icebreaker to my talks, lest anyone think I’ve let ribbons and awards go to my head.

The president of our garden club called one afternoon in a panic. “Mary, we’ve lost our March speaker! Do you know anyone who could fill in?” It’s worth noting that my own club had never asked me to speak.

“Let me think about it and get back to you.”

The first garden club to invite me was Grass River in Delray. I was a nervous wreck, so I called my mother. “You’ve got this, Mary—just tell them a good story. Lord knows, you never met one you couldn’t make better. And don’t bore them.”

After the president’s call—and a dozen speaking engagements later—I phoned Mama again, and filled her in.

“What!? She doesn’t know what she’s missing, but I’m not the least bit surprised.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just like Jesus.”

“Jesus?” I knew Mama loved me—was possibly proud of me—but was she comparing me to the son of God? “What does Jesus have to do with this?”

“John 1:46—‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ The people there only knew him as a carpenter’s son.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You’re a local, Mary. Too familiar—not a big enough deal to be the March speaker.”

The next day, the president called back. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said. You weren’t, I thought. “Are you available to be our March speaker?”

She finally recognized me, after twelve other garden clubs already had.

“We hope you will enter the show, too,” said the Judges’ Chairman.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ll definitely be there to judge.”

Remembering the Milwaukee Museum and the little German restaurant across the street from the hotel, I was actually looking forward to this trip.

Earth’s Treasures was the name of the show, and after reading the schedule, I was intrigued by a class simply entitled, “Energy.” Ever mindful of the unused three-hundred-dollar-seven-legged-anorexic-octopus-looking container collecting dust in my studio, I resurrected my oil well idea. The unavailability of black tulips, once again, posed a problem, and would necessitate finding another flower, preferably one bearing a strong resemblance to an oil spurt. If it wasn’t black or purple, I could always paint it, I thought.

Aliens, mice, a wooly mammoth, now oil spurts. What next?

With less than six weeks to pull an arrangement together, my first trip to Milwaukee was a stress-filled expedition into the unknown. This time, however, I had over four months to prepare—and I’d been there before.

“I’m going back to Milwaukee,” I announced. Joe was pouring himself a glass of red wine. He stopped, mid-stream, and looked at me. I’d seen the look before. “What?”

“You know perfectly well ‘what’,” he said. “If memory serves me, it’s in the middle of July.”

“Yeah, they’ve invited me to come back and judge,” I said. “It’s a big show, and...”

“Are you planning to enter?”

“I might.”

“You might? Mary, you either are or you aren’t.”

“There’s this class called ‘Energy’ and...”

“You are.” He did not look pleased.

“Look, I’ve got a lot of time to get ready, and it won’t be like before.”

“How is it not going to be like before?”

“Because I’m gonna have the whole thing figured out before we even get to Montana.”

“We’re outta of crackers.” I wasn’t sure whether he was being dismissive or initiating a subject change.

“There’s a box in the bottom drawer.”

Unable to find a plant or flower remotely resembling an oil spurt, I decided to bag the oil well idea—again—and do a design that implied motion, something energetic, like a windmill, which got me thinking about wind, which got me thinking about weather. There is a lot of “energy” in weather—tornados, lightening, hurricanes. I began playing around with some dried stuff stashed in the garage.

“Does this look like it’s being blown by the wind?” I held up a dried Bismarckia panicle, the same one I’d used in my Easter Island arrangement, and showed it to Joe.

“Sort of. How are you planning to use it?”

“I have no idea.”

Weeks went by and suddenly it was April. I had been actively working on this project for five weeks, less time than it took to come up with the sheaf, and I had nothing. I couldn’t get going with the kinetic idea mainly because it was too obvious. Everybody in the “Energy” class would probably do something related to motion.

“Holy shit!” I was suddenly awake. Did I hear it or dream it? A bright glow illuminated from the flatscreen television in our bedroom. It was after eleven, Joe was wide awake, sitting straight up.

“What?” I rolled over. “What’s going on?”

“You aren’t going to believe this.” He turned up the volume. “There’s been a massive explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and they don’t how many people are dead.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

“Katrina, now this?” I said.

Red flames lit up the night sky, while a newscaster speculated on how many gallons of oil were gushing into the Gulf. Well into the night, I watched the story unfold before finally falling back asleep. I awoke the next morning hoping it had been a bad dream. Regretfully, it had not.

For days I watched, thinking any minute the spill would be capped. After all, good ole American know-how put a man on the moon; surely somebody knew how to stop the 53,000 barrels of oil spewing from the Deepwater Horizon rig into the Gulf every twenty-four hours. I was beside myself.

A camera was sent down and transmitted pictures of the unending plume of petroleum twisting it’s way out of a hole in the sandy bottom under the rig.

I watched in horror as it spiraled to the surface, spreading crude oil from Florida to Mexico.

The visual was on television all day, every day, highlighting the gravity of the situation. Weeks went by and oil continued to gush—contaminating fish and wildlife. On a less important note, I still had no idea what to do about my “Energy” arrangement, which was now less than eight weeks away.

Four times a day, rain or shine, I hit the sidewalk with Sweet Pea, my labradoodle. I usually followed the same route around the block, up to the beach, and back to our building, unless it’s raining. In inclement weather, she is whisked from the front door to this patch of grass across the street, where I stand, umbrella in hand, issuing threats until she does her business.

There is a tree around the corner, I don’t know what the attraction is, but the area beneath it has become my dog’s dumping ground—pardon the double entendre. With Sweet Pea at the end of her leash, looking somewhat compromised, I’ve stood in front of that tree more times than I can count, waiting, poop bag in hand. It was on the second such “drop” of the day that I noticed the tree’s trunk, the way it twisted out of the ground reminded me of the plume of oil I’d seen billowing up from the bottom of the Gulf.

Had I been watching too much television?

“I’m doing the oil spill,” I said, excitedly, when Joe got home.

“What exactly are you doing to it?”

“No, no, no. I’m doing the oil spill—for my arrangement in Milwaukee.”

“Oh, that.” He tried very hard not to roll his eyes. “That’s great.”

The next day I went to Home Depot and bought a flexible metal dryer hose about four inches wide and three feet long, a round HV/AC vent the size of a salad plate, and a large funnel.

A man in an orange apron breezed past me. “Excuse me, where is the plaster of Paris?” I asked.

“It’s you again.” He looked vaguely familiar.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “You’ve helped me before.” He examined the contents of my cart.

“I remember.” He looked in my cart again. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Not at all.”

“What do you do with all these odd things?”

“I make stuff, for my flower arrangements.”

“Flower arrangements?”

“Yeah, I’m a flower arranger.”

“Okay, well then. Got everything you need?”

“Plaster of Paris?”

“Oh, yeah.” I followed him to the end of the aisle. “Big box or little?”

“The small one’s fine. Thanks.”

“Flower arrangements, huh?” I nodded. “Got any pictures?”

“I’ll bring some next time.”

I had recently discovered Rigid Wrap® plaster cloth. It’s similar to what’s used to make medical casts. You dip it in water and once it dries, anything you wrap it around—no matter how flimsy—gets stiff. (Mind out of the gutter, please.) I manipulated the flexible drier hose into a shape similar to the tree around the corner, attached it to the round vent, then covered it with Rigid Wrap®.

Once the whole thing dried, the curves in the hose held firm. I set it on the kitchen counter, placed the funnel in the top, and wrapped it again. Then I screwed the round vent at the bottom onto an oval-shaped wooden base, which allowed the whole thing to stand without tipping over.

“I can only assume that thing on the counter has something to do with your Milwaukee arrangement,” Joe said.

“Right.”

“Which has something to do with the oil spill?”

“Right, again.”

“It looks sort of like a leg in a cast, don’t you think?” I didn’t, until he mentioned it.

“I obviously need to paint it.” Which I did. Dark brown.

When I plugged the bottom of the funnel, I accidentally spilled epoxy down the side of the painted plastered hose. The glue looked like an oil drip, so I added more. Into the funnel I placed a round piece of Oasis® the size of a cantaloupe. I spent the next two weeks playing around with different plant material until I had a design I thought might work.

I picked up a bunch of Leucadendron (Leucadendron laureolim x salignum ‘Safari sunset’) with no intention of using anything but the small green and yellow buds tucked inside the red leaves.

Before I got too carried away, however, I called the floral supplier in Milwaukee and asked about the availability of Leucadendron in July.

“I can get it,” he said. “But there are several varieties called ‘Safari sunset’.”

“I’ll send you a photo of it in my hand, that way you can see the exact size of what I want.”

Within an hour, he emailed back to say he knew exactly which one I needed. I placed an order for ten bunches, along with a bunch of green Brunia (Brunia albiflora.)

The ball of Oasis® remained bare for days. On a whim, I pavéd the ball with the Leucadendron buds and Bunia, but it needed another ingredient, one slightly bigger to break up the monotony of the other plant material. I added pine knobs (Leucadendron platyspermum). Bismarkia (Bismarckia nobilis) palm panicles, which were dark brown and wavy, were inserted last. They appeared to be clawing the other plant material, like the oil currently choking the life out of the Gulf. The arrangement sat on the kitchen counter for a week in various stages of development, until one day it clicked.

“That thing is starting to look very interesting,” Joe said.

“Do you see an oil spill?”

“Definitely.”

“I’m sort of pleased with it.”

“You should be,” he said. “It looks damn good.” Did I hear him correctly? This was a first. Joe usually waited until after my arrangements had won to compliment me. “Is it about finished?”

“Yeah, I’m trying to decide how to pack it up so I can ship it to Milwaukee.”

“To the hotel?”

“No, the Judges’ Chairman is gonna keep it in her garage until I get there.”

“Good deal.”

“Yeah, this is going to be a lot easier than last time.”

“Well, you’ve been there before, there’s something to be said for that.”

I had not decided what my “Statement of Intent” should say, but in twenty-five words or less, I had to convey to the judges that they were looking at an oil spill. God forbid they miss that.

In case I forgot what went where, I took detailed photos of the mock up, which I stashed in the box, along with my tools.

Right before we left for Montana, I shipped the everything to Milwaukee and prayed. Two days later, the Judges’ Chairman called. The box had arrived.

Once in Montana, I worked in my garden for the rest of June. My sister and brother-in-law arrived the first week in July. We fly fished and went to the Livingston Rodeo on the fourth, but the oil spill and my arrangement were always on my mind.

“You’re amazingly calm,” Joe said.

“I know, I’m never this calm before entering a flower show, and it’s scaring me to death.”

“Why?”

“I’m waiting for something to go wrong.”

On the afternoon of July thirteenth, I flew to Milwaukee. The next morning I picked up my packages and flowers and headed over to the Boerner Botanical Gardens.

Experience gives me a lot of comfort, and when I arrived at the Boerner, I knew the drill. I found my assigned pedestal, unloaded my flowers, container, and tools, donned an apron, and went to work. I glanced at the other arrangements under construction in the “Energy” class and—as I expected—they all dealt with motion.

My painted plastered dryer hose container was in perfect proportion to the pedestal and in good contrast to the background. So far, so good. I moved it around until it looked comfortable, then went in search of a Diet Coke. Upon my return, there were two women standing in front of my pedestal, eyeing my oily-looking container.

“Hi,” I said.

“Oh, hi,” said one. “Is this yours?”

“It is.”

“What’s it made of?”

“Have you got an hour?” They obviously didn’t, and neither did I, but I caught up with them later and gave them the lowdown. They nodded attentively, but I think they both left thinking I was a little nuts.

I finished the arrangement in three hours, and as usual, decided not to have it passed until the next morning, in case something went bump in the night. I was on my way out the door when the Entries Chairman approached me.

“I don’t have your ‘Statement of Intent’,” she said.

“I know I sent it.”

“Well, I don’t have it. Just scribble it on something, and I’ll type it on your entry card.”

She handed me a piece of paper on which I jotted six words and handed it back to her.

“Disaster in the Gulf—Wasted Energy.” She read it, then looked at my arrangement. “Wow.”

After the judging, I learned I had won a blue ribbon. When I walked out of the judges’ evaluation meeting an hour later, I bumped into the Flower Show Chairman.

“My Lord, Mary!” she said. “You won everything!”

“Everything?”

“Almost.”

In addition to first, the arrangement won the Margaret Clover Symonds Medal, given to an innovative, modern design in a Major GCA flower show that creatively combines man-made materials with fresh and/or dried plant material; the Anne H. Vogel Award, presented by the Green Tree Garden Club to an outstanding floral design that reflects a sensibility and insight into the natural world; and Best in Show. I was dumbfounded.

With a 5:00 plane to catch, I was dashing toward the parking lot when a women stopped me. I didn’t know her.

“Are you Mary Webster?” She looked as though she’d been crying.

“Yes,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing at all, I just wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“For raising awareness about our tragedy—that mess in the Gulf. I’m from Louisiana.”

“Oh.” I teared up.

“Have you talked to the women who judged your arrangement?”

“No, why?”

“The minute your statement of intent was read, the coordinating judge burst into tears—said it was the most extraordinary thing she’d ever seen.”

“Now I’m really gonna cry.” There was a lump in my throat the size of an orange. I swallowed hard, yet it remained. “Thank you for sharing that. You have no idea how much it means to me.”

“Well, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” She hugged me and was gone. I didn’t get her name. I’m sure she introduced herself, but I was in a mild state of shock and had a plane to catch.

Once in my rental car, I burst into tears. I was in such an emotional state, I cruised past the airport exit, and the next thing I knew, I was lost. Figuring I’d probably miss my flight, I started to turn around, head back to Milwaukee, and go to the preview party.

I called Joe and told him I might have a problem and to stay tuned. I completely forgot to tell him what I’d won, and I can’t believe he didn’t ask, but he gets flummoxed when travel plans go awry.

When I finally arrived at the airport, I learned, my flight was delayed. I could relax.

The scene on the other side of security was a giant cocktail party in full swing. Drinks in hand, passengers were everywhere—spilling out of restaurants and bars, laughing and talking.

A man in a wrinkled tan suit bounded up to me asked, “What cha drinkin’?” He was a friendly sort, but I’d never seen him before in my life.

“Ah, nothing, yet,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Sure I can’t buy you a drink?” This guy was not going away. “Come on! You gotta join the celebration!”

“Yeah, sure. Stoli and soda with lime.”

“Hey, that’s what I’m having.” He held up his glass. “How ‘bout that?”

“Great, what are we celebrating?”

“The oil spill.”

“What’d you say?”

“THE OIL SPILL!” He shouted.

“What about it?” My knees began to buckle.

“They capped it a couple of hours ago.” The noise in the bar stopped. People were still laughing and talking, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I thought I might faint.

“I need to sit down.”

Did I hear him correctly? They capped the oil spill?

“You all right?”

“No,” I leaned against the nearest wall. “I’m not.”

“Lemme see if I can find a chair.” In the meantime, I slid down the wall onto the floor.

I needed to find a television. There was one across the hall. Not trusting my legs, I crawled toward it, dragging my carry-on. No one seemed to notice. I found a chair with a clear view of the TV. I couldn’t hear it, but closed captions confirmed the oil spill had been capped at 2:25 Central Daylight Time, approximately two hours after my arrangement was judged.

“Here you are,” said the little man in the wrinkled suit. He was holding two drinks.

“What?” I could barely hear.

“Your drink,” he said. “The Stoli and soda with lime?”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks.” I took a swig. “How much do I owe you?”

“My treat. Cheers!” He tapped my glass.

“Cheers.”

“Look, I gotta run catch my plane,” he said. “But you have a safe trip…and enjoy that drink.”

“ I really wish you’d let me pay you for it.”

“Not a chance,” he said, disappearing into the crowd. I needed to call Joe.

“You won what?” I could hardly hear him.

“A blue ribbon and three other awards.” I gave him the details. “But more importantly, did you hear about the oil spill?”

“Yeah, can you believe it?”

“I’m numb.”

“Weird, isn’t it?” he said. “That it was capped today of all days. Where the hell are you?”

“Sitting outside a sports bar in the Milwaukee airport. A man bought me a drink.”

“A man bought you a drink?”

“Yeah, this place is wild. Total strangers with their arms around each other, celebrating like it’s the end of a war.”

“Well, it sorta is.”

We chatted another minute or two and agreed to talk later. I sat in a stupor, sipping my drink, watching the crowd. I felt a part of something big, yet somehow removed. I called Mama.

“Where in the world are you?”

“In the Milwaukee airport.” I said, shouting above the noise.

“Sounds like you’re at a party.”

“I am, Mama, and you wouldn’t believe it.” I described the scene. “A complete stranger bought me a drink.”

“Was he trying to pick you up?”

“Hardly. He was just being nice.”

“What are you doing in Milwaukee?”

“Judging a flower show,” I said. “I told you about it weeks ago.”

“I know, darlin’, I forgot. Did you enter?”

“Yeah, a class called ‘Energy’.” I described my entry, along with the statement of intent. “It won three awards!”

“Why, that’s wonderful!” she said. “I declare, Mary, you are something else.”

There it was, the supreme compliment: You are something else. She hadn’t said it about me since I’d won my first blue ribbon in “Daffodil Time.” And while she had paid me plenty of compliments over the years, “You are something else” was not among them.

“Thanks, Mama.” I choked up. “That means a lot.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just exhausted.” I teared up. “I didn’t realize how much the oil spill had gotten to me.”

“I know. It makes me sick to think what it’s done to the Gulf. Tell me more about your arrangement.” I wandered away from the bar and found a seat in a less-crowded corner.

“I got the idea from this dumb tree. I thought it was a good concept, but when you do this sort of thing, you never know how the judges are gonna react. Once it was finished, I figured I had a good chance of winning, but I never dreamed it would have this sort of impact. It actually made people cry.”

“Your arrangement?”

“Yeah.” I told her about the judge from Louisiana.“ It never occurred to me that a flower arrangement could make a social statement about an environmental disaster.” The lump in my throat was back, and I could hardly swallow.

“Send me a picture.”

“I will. Oh, and when I got to the airport, I found out the oil spill had been capped a couple of hours after my arrangement was judged. Don’t you think that’s uncanny?”

“More like divine providence,” Mama said. “Gives me goose bumps.”

“Me, too.”

“Art moves people, Mary. It’s a powerful tool. Remember that painting of Yellowstone?”

“The one with the waterfall?”

“Yeah.” A print had hung in our playroom, along with the one of Gauguin’s Tahitian women.

“Thomas Moran painted it,” she said. “And when it was unveiled before Congress in 1872, they voted unanimously to declare Yellowstone a national park. Moran showed them something they couldn’t have imagined otherwise.”

“I’ve never heard that story.”

“But your arrangement obviously had a profound effect, too, Mary, and that’s powerful.”

“Powerful enough to cap an oil spill?”

“Why not,” she said. “Anything’s possible.”

“You can’t!” Kit said. “You’ve come too far to quit now.”

My file, according to, Susan, my new Zone VIII Judging Rep, was a train wreck, and she couldn’t understand how it got that way. I gave her the short version: sabotage.

After my file’s first mishap with Judging Rep #3, I started saving every scrap of paper pertaining to this painstaking process, but short of forgery, there was no way to reproduce my Judge Evaluation Forms—those oh-so-important questionnaires only a GCA Approved Judge could complete. I figured the number to be over forty.

🤓 A Judge’s Evaluation Form is basically a list of questions designed to rate one’s judging ability, or lack thereof.

• Is she familiar with principals and elements of design?

• Able to distinguish between the ordinary and the distinctive?

• Considerate and respectful of each exhibit?

• Pleasant to work with?

• Did she talk too much?

• Would you like to judge with her again? And so on.

Some required a “Yes” or “No,” others were multiple choice ranging from “Excellent” to “Poor.”

The evaluation form, like your Judging Rep, can make or break you. Occasionally, a judge might forget to send in one, but forty?

“Why would they all be missing?” Susan asked.

“Good question,” I said. “Perhaps it’s a sign.”

“A sign?”

“Telling me to get out of the program—that I should be doing something else.”

“What are you saying?”

“I want to resign.”

“You can’t!” she shrieked. Was she in cahoots with Kit?

Shortly thereafter, I received a call from Lee LaPointe, the new Chairman of the GCA Flower Show Committee (a really big deal). “Mary, you have never entered a flower show outside your zone?”

“Was I supposed to?” How had I missed that technicality. It wasn’t in the Yellow Book.

Traveling is hard enough. I couldn’t imagine flying somewhere to enter a flower show with clippers, nippers, and other sharp objects in tow. I can barely manage a sandwich bag of three-ounce liquids, never mind the accoutrements of an anxiety-ridden flower arranger. What if my flowers got lost? What if my container arrived broken? Way too many “what ifs” for me. Stress like that is in a league of its own.

Seeing an arranger crying over a box of crushed flowers at baggage claim was all the warning I needed. Earlier that spring, I had commiserated with a traveling arranger in a bar in an airport, waiting for her lost flowers to show up. By the time they arrived, we’d done a couple of tequila shots and could barely remember what we were even doing in Dallas.

“Well, if you want to be taken seriously,” Lee said, “you should be showing all over the country.” At this point in the conversation, I groaned; it wasn’t a lady-like groan—more like a primal scream. “Come on, Mary. It’s fun. I do it all the time.”

And indeed, she does. Lee has won over twenty-five Best-in-Show’s and heaven only knows how many other awards. She thinks nothing of flying to Japan to enter a flower show.

Japan!

Holy Kuso! You’ve got to have some major kintama to compete with the Japanese, who were arranging flowers before Columbus discovered America.

“Lee, I’m just not cut out for the judging program. I think I need to resign.”

“You can’t resign!” she shouted. What was it, I wondered, about threatening mutiny that got these women so worked up?

“Why not?”

“You just can’t. Besides, I’ve signed you up to judge Art en Fleurs.”

“Art en what?”

“Art en Fleurs. Surely you’ve heard of it.”

“Can’t say as I have.”

“It’s a Major Show in Milwaukee presented by four garden clubs.”

“And this is when? Next year?”

“Oh, no, no, it’s this summer—in about six weeks.” I felt a surge of stomach acid. “I also signed you up to do a flower arrangement.” The nerve of her! “Since you’ve never entered a Major Show, you technically qualify for the novice class.”

I couldn’t imagine leaving Montana and traveling to Milwaukee in the middle of July to judge and enter a flower show. I was speechless and needed to lie down. Holding the phone to my ear, I stretched out on the floor and silently sobbed while Lee enthusiastically continued. “You’ll be an approved judge after this show. Trust me.”

Trust her? How could I trust anyone who wanted disrupt my summer and send me to Milwaukee? Furthermore, I’d heard that before. Kit swore I’d be approved after showing up to judge Jupiter Island three days after surgery.

An hour later, my fax machine started regurgitating forms: entry forms, judge acceptance forms, hotel forms, lunch and dinner forms, workshop forms, travel forms, along with a jolly note from Lee.

I spent the rest of the day filling out the damn forms.

When I told Joe what I had agreed to do, he, of course, said I’d lost my mind, which I already knew. “I couldn’t help it—they ganged up on me.”

“Who?”

“Kit, Susan, and now Lee LaPointe. They’re all trying to keep me from quitting.”

“Do you wanna quit?”

“I kinda do, but I’ve come all this way and spent years working on this. Besides, I hate being a quitter.”

“Then don’t quit.” Did I hear him correctly? “But I know how you are. You can’t eat, sleep, or breathe while developing an idea. The next six weeks are gonna be pure hell.”

“Whatever. It’ll all be over mid-July.”

I’d never been to Milwaukee; I wasn’t even sure where it was. Ever since coming to the New World, my ancestors had spent the last three hundred years hugging the East Coast. The only thing I knew about Milwaukee was what I’d seen in beer commercials and on Laverne & Shirley.

“Isn’t Milwaukee near Lake Michigan?”

“It’s on Lake Michigan,” Joe said. “About ninety miles north of Chicago.”

Armed with this new geographic information, I started making plans to get there.

The Spirit of the Earth was the name of the show, and the class in which Lee had (WITHOUT ASKING) entered me was entitled “Bounty Harvested From the Earth.” It was a novice class. I didn’t think of myself as a novice; I was doing workshops for the garden club on a regular basis in an effort to share what I knew. In this show, a novice, Lee said, was anyone who hadn’t won a blue ribbon in a GCA Major Flower Show. Still feeling uncomfortable about entering as such, I called the Entries Chairman and told her I had won several blue ribbons and awards in GCA flower shows.

“But none in a Major?”

“No ma’am.”

“No problem.” (They have since changed the designation “novice” to mean anyone who has never won a blue ribbon in any GCA flower show.)

“Bounty Harvested From the Earth” could be anything from diamonds to potatoes. I combed all my flower-arranging and art books, but nothing inspired me. I needed to get going, but there were other, more pressing things on my plate—like getting myself to Montana for the next six months.

“We’ve been here two days, and Milwaukee is already spoiling your summer,” Joe said. I wanted to smack him.

“It’s only June sixth,” I said. “Summer doesn’t officially begin for two more weeks, so bug off.” I was madder at myself than him.

Assuming “Bounty Harvested From the Earth” didn’t necessarily mean food, my first idea was to do an abstract oil well, which necessitated finding a welder. Fred, my new best friend at Gallatin Metal Works, created a container based on a rough sketch I’d given him. It was a tall stand on seven skinny legs—think anorexic octopus missing a limb.

In lieu of a head, a small vessel to hold the Oasis®, out of which would spring black tulips, in varying degrees of droopiness, simulating oil spurts. One thing about a tulip, you can always count on it to droop. But according to the official flower show florist in Milwaukee, there would be no black tulips available in July. No dark purple, either. There went that idea.

Driving back to the ranch—my freshly welded, three-hundred-dollar container strapped in the seat beside me and bummed over the lack of tulips—I noticed a large field of wheat divided into sections.

It was the most beautiful wheat I’d ever seen. The field, according to a sign hanging on the fence, was owned by Montana State University. I knew Dave Sands, head of the Plant Pathology Department, so I called him.

“Talk to me about wheat,” I said, and he did, giving me more information than you can possibly imagine.

“Take all you need,” he said.

I Googled “wheat,” and up popped a picture of a sheaf, which is the symbol of several things—not the least of which is fertility—but more importantly, a ‘bountiful harvest.’ Bingo! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I read it again. A sheaf is the symbol of a bountiful harvest. The “Hallelujah Chorus” suddenly went off in my head. With no black tulips to be had, and a field of wheat at my disposal, how could I not do a sheaf.

Wheat, unlike tulips, doesn’t droop—it doesn’t even wilt. If you pick it when it’s green, it stays green; if you pick it when it’s gold, it stays gold. I picked a carload of each. Some of their heads were erect, while others were bowed. Some had beards—those little bristles surrounding the kernels—others did not. Fortunately, each variety was tagged and identified, which made quick work of finding botanical names—a must on a GCA flower show entry card.

With a sheaf, there is no container, giving me one less thing to haul to Milwaukee—one less thing to get broken. The plant material, when properly arranged, stands up all by itself—at least it’s supposed to. Easier said than done. I read dozens of articles on sheaf making: hold a few stems in one hand while adding more with the other, twisting as you go. Once your sheaf is the size you want, you tie it off. With what, pray tell? If you let it go, it falls apart.

Martha Stewart just grabs a bunch of wheat, ties it in the middle with a rubber band, snips the bottom, and, presto! A sheaf for her Thanksgiving table. But her sheaf was only about ten inches tall, whereas mine, in order to be in proportion to the pedestal, had to be at least twenty-four. After dozens of failed attempts, I knew I needed an extra pair of hands, but a partner in this class was not allowed—I was on my own. Furthermore, the arrangement had to be done on site. My first few tries looked more like tired tepees than sheafs.

I divided the wheat by color, head position, beard and no beard. Clustering the shafts by color gave the sheaf a striped effect, the various head positions kept it from looking static and greatly added to the overall rhythm.

Knowing I had to have this thing figured out and in Milwaukee in less than a week, my family had scattered. None of them wanted to be anywhere near me.

Walking out to my studio, I noticed the sprinkler man’s truck parked in front of the barn. It was loaded with PVC pipe, the sight of which gave me an idea.

“Can I have a piece of that pipe?” I figured he’d say, “Sure, help yourself.” We had certainly given him enough business.

“Take what you want,” he said. “I’ll add it to your bill.” Not exactly the answer I was looking for, but it saved me a trip to town.

“How would you suggest I cut it?”

“You gotta saw?”

Unfortunately, I grew up in the days before girls were allowed to take shop; my experience with tools is trial and error. I’ve been playing with saws for years and own several—jig, skill, band. It’s a miracle I still have ten fingers.

Cutting PVC pipe—no matter what kind of saw you use—is messy. If you ever find yourself so inclined, call me immediately, and I will talk you down. Not only is the dust this activity generates toxic, but the bits and pieces of polyvinyl flying off the saw blade stick to everything. Protective eyewear is a must. I cut the two-inch pipe into twelve eight-inch pieces. It looked as though it had snowed in my studio.

I glued the pieces together with purple plumbers’ glue the sprinkler man actually gave me, forming a circular cluster of tubes. I strapped them together just in case the glue didn’t hold.

Once again, I divided the wheat according to color, height, head position, etc. until I had twelve piles containing twenty to twenty-five stalks. This was still an experiment, mind you, and I had no idea whether it would work. I placed a bundle of wheat into each tube until all the tubes were filled. Now all I had to do was lift it all out of my sheaf-making gizmo, twist it slightly, and tie it off in the middle, which I did by holding one end of a large rubber band between my teeth, and the other end around my index finger. I set it on the counter.

The sheaf stood for about ten seconds, then pancaked into a pile. It was going to take two ties, a few inches apart, to guarantee the thing didn’t do a spread eagle. After a few more tries, I got one to stand up all by itself. I was ecstatic.

I added poppy pods (Papaver somniferum), trumpet pitcher plants (Sarracenia), miniature cattails (Typha domingensis), some oats (Avena sativa), spelt (Triticum spelta), and a bit of canary grass (Phalaris canariensis). I stood back and studied it. “Yes!” I shouted. It was well-after midnight, and I was dancing around the barn like a woman possessed, grateful my family was out of town.

Lee had suggested I arrive in Milwaukee on Tuesday, as the judging was Wednesday morning, but that was too close for comfort, so I planned to be there by Monday afternoon. The Thursday before, I packed everything in two boxes and shipped them to Milwaukee.

I called Joe. We’d been on radio silence for almost a week.

“You’re alive,” he said. “When do you leave?”

“Monday. I shipped everything off today.”

“Why didn’t you just check it with your luggage?”

“And have it end up in Topeka?”

“What’d that cost?”

“I have no idea. You can’t put a price on peace of mind.” Joe will go to his grave not knowing what I had spent on this project.

Armed with maps, I drove over several bridges into the city from the airport. I had a feeling I was going to like Milwaukee.

My packages had arrived and were brought to my room as soon as I checked in. Relieved, and with nothing else to do, I went for a walk. The Milwaukee Art Museum, which resembles a giant white bird, sits on the shore of Lake Michigan and was designed by Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish architect and sculptor, whose inspiration comes primarily from plants and animals. From another angle, the bird’s wings looked like a whale’s tail. The museum alone is worth a trip to Milwaukee.

I called Mama the next morning and told her I was in Milwaukee. “Maribeth Price is the only person I know in Milwaukee,” she said. Maribeth Price was also my class advisor. The world doesn’t get much smaller.

“I thought your voice sounded familiar,” said Mrs. Price when I met her later that morning. She’s not the first person to say I sound just like my mother.

Little red wagons were made available to transport plants, flowers, and containers from the parking lot to the exhibition hall. The first thing I did was place my sheaf-making aid—a contraption I dubbed my little “cluster-o-tubes”—upon my pedestal.

“Is that your container?” the lady working next to me asked. There was nothing pretty about it, with all the dried purple plumbers’ glue glopped all over it. None of the tubes were same height and still bore remnants of white plastic shavings. I couldn’t tell whether she was impressed or horrified.

“Not exactly,” I said, unable to think of anything more creative.

Filling the tubes with the wheat took less than ten minutes, finding someone to take my ‘cluster-o-tubes’ off the pedestal, once I lifted everything out of it, took a bit longer. I stood in front of my pedestal, hands around the sheaf, until a maintenance man came to my aid.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, yes, thank you. Would you mind taking this thing off my pedestal.”

“This thing here?”

I nodded. “Just put it on the floor. Thanks.”

“What is this thing, anyway?”

“Long story. Now would you mind handing me the little wire thingy sitting on top of my tool box?” The “little wire thingy” was a strap I designed to fit around the middle of the sheaf. It was some sort of vine-covered wire and worked like a mini corset, minus the elastic. The sheaf would be held together by a more organic component—one that looked like it had grown there—instead of some tacky rubber band.

When I placed it on the pedestal, it stood perfectly. I tapped it a couple of times, gently at first, then harder, and it stood firm. From where it was tied off to the bottom, the sheaf stuck out like a 50s prom dress, which is what allowed it to stand up. Unfortunately, there was a pie-shaped gap in the wheat, and you could see the inside of it, which made it look unfinished. I tried moving it around, facing the gap toward the back, it still didn’t look right. In the twenty-plus times I had practiced arranging this bundle of grain, this had never happened.

The wedge in the sheaf was unacceptable. I couldn’t fix it without starting over, and there was no way I was starting over, or any guarantee it would look any better if I did.

“Where is the nearest grocery store?” I asked the arranger next to me.

I bought a three tomatillos and stuffed them inside the gap, along with a half a dozen pearl onions, which trickled out onto the pedestal. The tomatillos were the same color as the green wheat, and the pearl onions perfectly matched the gold wheat. This “problem” and the subsequent solution boosted the design from ordinary to unique.

The arrangement took First Place and won the Town and Country Garden Club’s Novice Award. The judges’ comment read, “A bountiful harvest with hidden surprises!” If they only knew.

Six weeks later, I was an approved judge.

Some flowers are better suited for competitive arranging than others. I love hydrangea, delphinium, and lilac, but I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them (which, upon occasion, I have.) No matter how well conditioned they are, sometimes you get one that kicks the bucket for no reason.

A competitive arrangement is expected to be in “prime show condition” at all times—in other words, fresh. I’ve never read a schedule that didn’t threaten, in some way or another, to take away your ribbon if any part of your design droops—or, heaven forbid, dies—before the end of a show. These threats, however, tend to be somewhat idle as I’ve seen plenty of droopy arrangements but never known one to have its ribbon yanked.

This being the case, I’m always on the lookout for plant material that’s able to spend a day or two in drought conditions and still appear hale and hearty. Protea and her Leucadendron cousins—along with Brunia and Anthuriums—are all so inclined. There is nothing like a flower that, after lying around on the floor all day covered in verdurous trash, can rise to the occasion come showtime.

Lost Worlds…Paradise Regained was the name of the garden club’s flower show in 2009. The class titles included a selection of weird places—real and imagined—everything from the “Lost City of Atlantis” to “Easter Island.” The schedule didn’t particularly inspire me, but since Brantley Knowles was the Flower Show Chairman and a friend (and knowing what a pain it is to get people to sign up), I promised to enter.

“Why don’t you do ‘Atlantis’,” she suggested. “I can’t get anyone to sign up for that one.”

It wasn’t hard to see why: she had staged the class on the museum’s largest pedestals, which are a yard wide, two feet deep, and forty-two inches tall. Those pedestals are usually reserved for grandiose mass arrangements. To be in proportion, any underwater design displayed on a pedestal that big would need a tank the size of a suitcase. The thought of filling and un-filling a vessel that big—not to mention keeping the water gin clear for the duration of the show—gave me indigestion. I decided to do “Easter Island.”

As lost worlds go, Easter Island certainly qualifies. I love remote, but this place is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2300 miles off the southeast coast of Chile. The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen stumbled upon it on Easter Sunday in 1722. The original inhabitants called the island Rapa Nui.

The Moai, those monolithic, more-head-than-body-and-not-particularly-friendly-looking stone statues are huge, ranging from six to thirty feet in height and weighing more than two tons. There are nearly nine hundred of them on the island, and no two are alike.

There’s a lot of speculation about who carved these figures, and even more about how they moved them. The island was completely denuded at some point, leading some to hypothesize that the natives chopped down all the trees and rolled the Moai into place atop logs. Some say extraterrestrials visited Easter Island and moved them. Somehow, I don’t see aliens being that accommodating.

But when deciding how to interpret Easter Island, I chose to ignore the Moai—and the aliens—and concentrate on the island itself, which is about the size of Hilton Head, that overdeveloped golf destination in South Carolina shaped like a shoe.

Easter Island was formed by three volcanoes and is the color of lava rock, with a coastline that is steep, rocky, and uninviting. Should you happen to be cruising the area, it’s not the sort of island paradise like, say, Bali Hai, where one might hear, “Come to me! Come to me!” More like, “Stay away! Stay away!”

I wanted my arrangement to be an amalgamation of lonely, isolated, and foreboding, which would necessitate finding plant material the color of lava rock. It was about this time that I discovered Brunia (Brunia laevis).

“Mama, what does laevis mean in Latin?” I could have looked it up, but figured as long as I had her on the phone, I’d ask.

“Well, it all depends on how it’s used.”

“It’s a plant.”

“In that case, I don’t think it’s ‘left-handed’,” she said.

“Probably not.”

“Smooth, it probably means ‘smooth’.”

Brunia is an evergreen with small needle-like leaves reminiscent of a Douglas fir, America’s preferred species of Christmas tree. The inflorescence, which includes all parts of a flower head—stems, stalks, bracts, and flowers—is a cluster of silver-gray balls about the size of chickpeas. They reminded me of dusty lava bubbles, not that I’d ever seen any.

“Is Brunia available in April?” I asked the clerk at the local floral supply.

“Silver-gray or green?”

“Silver-gray,” I said. “I didn’t know it came in green.”

“And white,” he said. “Yeah, I can get you some in April.”

I ordered twenty bunches, each containing about ten stems. I had no idea how I would arrange them, but the answer came about a week later while browsing the vendors’ stalls at the Philadelphia Flower Show. I was with the aforementioned Lost Worlds—Paradise Regained Flower Show Chairman, who was still on my case about entering the underwater arrangement class.

“I’m not entering the ‘Atlantis’ class,” I said. “I’m doing ‘Easter Island,’ and nothing else.”

But with me, you never know. I’m famous for caving under pressure and agreeing to do arrangements I had no intention of doing. So, to be on the safe side, I purchased a small cracked column from one of the vendors, thinking it looked like a relic one might stumble upon should one ever find the Lost City of Atlantis. Right.

Five minutes later, after shelling out fifty dollars for the stupid cracked column, I found my Easter Island container. Handcrafted out of grayish-green clay, it was about fourteen inches tall and equally as wide, randomly pleated, if you can imagine, with ins and outs that immediately brought to mind the island’s craggy coastline. I had to have it. Three hundred and ninety-five dollars later, it was mine.

“What’s this?” asked the TSA agent at the Philadelphia airport as I struggled through security, new container in tow. It, of course, had to be unwrapped and inspected.

“It’s a vase,” I said. She instructed me to follow as she carried the costly container over to a table and set it down. With one of those cloths on the end of a stick designed to detect bomb-making residue, she gave it a wipe.

“Well, there’s nothing pretty about it,” she said, handing it back to me, along with a wad of bubble wrap. “You can go.”

It’s ‘may,’ I thought, but fearing a full cavity search, I kept my mouth shut. My mother, on the other hand, would’ve corrected her in a heartbeat, cavity search or not.

The Brunia, which I pavéd across the top and down one side of my new Easter Island container, appeared to ooze like lava. To break the textural monotony, I added dried lotus pods (Nelumbo spp.) here and there—their holes were almost the same size as the Brunia buds and repeated the overall bubble pattern, a serendipitous detail.

I placed dried, finger-shaped Bismarkia (Bismarckia nobilis) palm panicles in the back of the arrangement, with the tips of one or two poking through the Brunia, creating points of emergence.

According to one club member, it looked like a wooly mammoth. I didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered, but it did seem to have a life of its own. Except for “Alien Invasion,” it was, quite possibly, the most unorthodox flower arrangement I’d ever done.

“Are you ready to have it passed?” someone asked.

“No, it’s still not quite right.”

It looked as though it might, at any minute, levitate off the pedestal. It needed an anchor, something to weight it down visually. But what?

With an hour to kill, I headed up the bike path behind the Four Arts Gallery, where I found a big banyan tree. I had strolled past it hundreds of times with my girls over the years, never failing to notice the wispy vines hanging from its branches. Once these vines reach the ground, they take root, forming vertical limbs, which secure the tree against high winds. I whacked off a few—which is probably illegal—and headed back to the gallery, where I gave them a good wash; bugs are an automatic disqualifier. I tucked a small skein into the container, allowing it to spill down the right side and onto the pedestal. This simple addition settled the design.

It won Best in Show and the Puckett Creativity Award. Having done it alone, I was pretty proud of myself, until a woman standing next to me at the Preview Party loudly exclaimed, “How the hell did that thing win? That’s the ugliest arrangement I’ve ever seen.”

“Blind luck,” I said, and headed toward the bar.

By mid-October, I start losing sleep thinking about my tropical reentry. It reminds me of my childhood, standing beside the roundabout, watching it spin, trying to muster the courage to grab hold of a bar and hop on; knowing if I didn’t time it just right, I’d hit the dirt.

But in the fall of 2006, for the first time in five years, my flower show job was minimal—I was a Passing Chairman with Pat Cook.

🤓 Floral Design Passer: Should be—but isn’t always—a Floral Design Judge who reviews an entry before the judging begins to make sure it meets all schedule and staging requirements.

At this point, I wasn’t just thinking about dropping out of the judging program, but the garden club as well. I made the mistake of sharing this with Pat, who immediately told Kit.

“You can’t!” Kit was adamant.

“I can.”

“You’ll be sorry.”

“I bet I won’t.”

With less on our respective plates, Joe and I decided to slip out of town in February.

“What’d you have in mind?” I was thinking Napa.

He wanted to go skiing.

“Napa?”

“Montana.” He wouldn’t budge.

Winter in Montana is a rare treat—the snow, the soup, the woolies, a crackling fire—if only Joe didn’t feel the need to roust me out of bed before dawn.

“There’s eight inches of fresh powder. Let’s go.” It was still dark. I should’ve pushed harder for Napa.

“You go.” I rolled over. “I’ll meet you up there later.”

“No way. Wanna be first tracks. Now get up and get dressed.”

After two runs, we decided to ski down Calamity Jane—a wide, usually groomed blue slope. Without warning, the track turned into an icy mogul field, a problem Joe noticed just in time, turned, and headed safely down the right side close to the trees. Skiing too fast for my age—and on a new pair of high-performance skis—I hit the bumps wide open, overcorrected, and left the ground, spinning like the aforementioned roundabout. That’s the last thing I remember.

“Dude? Can you hear me, dude?”

Dude? I opened my eyes, unsure of where I was or how I got there. “Are you all right?” A face came into view. It was the snowboarder in a bright orange hat I’d seen on the lift. I was flat on my back in the snow, and he was kneeling over me looking quite concerned—which was somewhat alarming, since snowboarders rarely, if ever, look concerned about anything.

“I don’t know,” I said. I was in pain, especially in my left arm. “How long have I been lying here?”

“Not long,” he said, leaving me to wonder how long his definition of not long was.

“One minute? Five?” Now I was concerned.

“No, no, dude,” he said. “One at the most.”

“Would you please reach into my side pocket and hand me my cell phone. And, I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop calling me ‘dude’.”

The snowboarder got me up and into a standing position. I could see Joe a couple a hundred yards downhill waiting for me. I was still in my skis, but had lost a pole. With the help of the snowboarder, I managed to work my way down to Joe, then I collapsed.

Overhearing an X-ray technician speculate as to whether you will regain the use of your left arm is a bone-chilling experience (no pun intended). I had a crushed radius, into which my trapezium, trapezoid, and scaphoid—three of the eight bones in my wrist—had been forcibly relocated. Two metacarpals were broken, and my thumb was sort of dangling. Oh, and my elbow was out of joint, as was my shoulder.

When I removed my glove, my palm was facing up when my arm was most definitely facing down. Every time I looked at it, I swooned. When the snowboarder saw it, he fainted.

“You’re lucky it didn’t twist clean off,” said the less-than-sensitive X-ray technician.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Just lay here a minute, the doc will be right in.”

“It’s lie.”

“I’m not lying, lady, he’s on his way.”

“It’s ‘lie here a minute, you ding-dong. The only thing I can lay on this gurney is you or an egg.” Thanks, Mama.

He looked somewhat taken aback, then laughed. “You’re funny.”

“Yeah, I’m a laugh riot. Now where’s the doctor? I really need something for this pain.”

“He’ll be right in.”

“Has anybody seen my husband?”

Joe, figuring this might take a while, was probably trying to squeeze in a few extra runs before he had to deal with whatever I’d done to myself. I hadn’t seen him since being whisked away on a toboggan.

“He called a half hour ago. He should be here any minute.”

When Joe arrived, he found me in tears, unable to speak.

“So, what’s the deal?” he said.

“No use in trying to set it,” said the orthopod. “She’s definitely going to need surgery.”

The next day—injury immobilized—with enough painkillers in my pocket to put down a buffalo, we flew back to Palm Beach.

One plate, seven screws, and fifteen stitches later, everything was back in place, more or less. At least my palm was facing the right direction. However, the jury was still out as to future mobility; that would depend on how well I responded to therapy.

My surgery was on a Friday; the following Tuesday, I was on my way to Jupiter Island, Florida, to judge their flower show. Once again, you have to be dead or in a coma to get out of anything in this organization.

Two years earlier, I woke up with a high fever the day of their show and had withdrawn from judging—the Jupiter Island Judges’ Chairman was still mad at me. Begging off again was out of the question.

“They will definitely make you an Approved Judge after this,” Kit said.

“They damn well better.”

Kit—who was judging horticulture—offered to chauffeur me to and from the show, as I was forbidden to drive.

“Did you bring your pain pills?”

“I quit taking them; they turn my intestines into concrete.”

“Thanks for sharing. What are you currently taking?”

“In addition to laxatives?” She gave me a disapproving look. “Advil,” I said. “I hope I’m up for this.”

“All you have to do is stand there and look at arrangements. One of the clerks will carry your stuff.”

“I may have to sit.”

“Look, you know as well as I do how hard it is to get someone to judge at the last minute. They’re thrilled you didn’t cancel—that you’re coming three days after surgery. They’ll probably give you a medal.”

“You know what’s been the hardest thing about all this?”

“What? And please don’t say ‘constipation’.”

“Well, there’s that, but it’s my hair. I hate not being able to wash my hair.”

“Go to a salon.”

“I did—Saturday and again this morning—but I can’t put it in a ponytail, and it’s driving me nuts.”

“Get Joe to do it.”

“He tried, and I ended up looking like Pippi Longstocking on crack.”

Two daughters and a wife, and Joe Webster still can’t manage a simple ponytail.

One arm and a handful of painkillers short, I managed to judge the flower show without passing out.

House and Garden Day was the following Sunday, and I was Flower Chairman of a house on Everglades Island. I had ordered the flowers, selected the containers, and decided which arrangements would go where back in January, but with my left arm out of commission, there was no way I could arrange. I called the House Chairman and suggested she find someone else to take charge. Under the circumstances, I thought this was a perfectly reasonable request. She wouldn’t hear of it.

“No other flower arrangers have been assigned to this house,” she said.

“And how is that my fault?”

“Because every year you’re assigned a committee to help you, and every year you do all the arrangements yourself. Why would any House and Garden Day Chairman waste good arrangers on this house? If you can’t arrange,” she said, “you will instruct.”

“You mean, like delegate?”

“No, I mean like teach,” she said. “Your committee is basically made up of novices. If they don’t know how to arrange, you will teach them.”

“Who’s going to condition all the flowers?” I had ordered enough to stock a small florist shop.

“Your committee.”

“But they’re all novices.”

“They are, but they’re willing to learn. See you Friday.” Click.

I burst into tears, knowing full well I’d brought this all on myself. I was such a control freak—unwilling to let anyone to do anything lest they not do it just like I wanted. This was not only true for House and Garden Day, but the rest of my life as well.

“You’re not doing that right,” I said the first time Joe offered to make lasagna. Needless to say, he hasn’t made it since. What difference does it make whether the sauce or the noodles go in the pan first? I criticized how he made the bed, and how he strung Christmas tree lights; those jobs landed in my lap as well. Joe is a very competent man, and if I weren’t such an asshole sometimes a militant perfectionist, he might be cooking for me every now and then.

As for House and Garden Day, the first year I was in charge of a house, I let my flower committee do their own thing, and the place ended up looking like an Irish wake. I thanked everyone, shooed them out the door, then took every arrangement apart and redid it. I was, after all, the House Flower Chairman; if the arrangements sucked, it would reflect poorly on me—and I couldn’t have that, now could I?

Asking for help was clearly a life skill I didn’t possess, but since the skiing accident and subsequent surgery, I needed help—a lot of it. I didn’t take this revelation about myself lightly. It was a rude awakening and very humbling.

I arrived at my assigned house Friday afternoon to find my committee—five fresh-faced young women—ready to do whatever it took to get the place ready for Sunday’s tour. They were busily setting up tables in the garage and filling buckets with water.

“Do any of you know anything about conditioning?” One did, another sort of did, and the other three knew nothing.

After a short tutorial on leaf and thorn removal, along with stem trimming, they got it and made quick work of an otherwise tedious job.

The style of the house was very English; therefore, I thought the arrangements should follow suit. So I brought along a one of my favorite books, Elegance in Flowers: Classic Arrangements for All Seasons, with photos of exquisite traditional flower arrangements in a residential setting. The photos were taken in some of the most beautiful homes in Birmingham, Alabama, and for a group of novices, traditional arranging was the perfect place to start.

I explained my ideas for each room, showed them which containers went where, and told them to work in pairs if that made them more comfortable.

I gave them illustrated directions on how to construct a traditional mass design.

At the end of the day, with more positive reinforcement than instruction, they all outdid themselves—executing the arrangements brilliantly.

“Oh, Mary, thank you so much.”

“This was such fun. Thank you!”

They all kept thanking me. Their enthusiasm—not to mention their gratitude—made me realize how utterly selfish I’d been: hoarding my knowledge and, more importantly, depriving them of opportunities to arrange and learn. Why hadn’t I done this years ago? I was no longer a novice; I knew a thing or two about flower arranging. But for whatever reason—aside from one little workshop on miniatures in 2000—I had never felt obliged to share what I knew.

Having just turned sixty, I was officially part of the older generation—one of those women I’d found so intimidating fifteen years earlier. But there had been no one to mentor me in those days—no flower-arranging judges, no workshops, no nothing.

Fortunately, things had begun to change, but flower arrangers were still second-class citizens in the Garden Club, and it was time for us to get on equal footing with the horticulture crowd. My resignation from the club would have to wait. As for the judging program, I still had no idea what to do about that.

The Flower Show, entitled School Days, was in late March, less than three weeks after House and Garden Day. I don’t know who was in charge of scheduling that year, but she should’ve been shot (metaphorically). For a variety of reasons, my injury being the least, I had no plans to enter.

Due to another scheduling glitch, the club couldn’t stage the show in the gallery and was moved to the gymnasium of an abandoned school the Society of the Four Arts had purchased to house the Dixon Educational Building. But in 2007, the place was a filthy dump.

Members were busy sprucing up the gym, while I was having lunch with friends, going to the beach, getting my nails done. Then Pat called.

“I entered us in the ‘Extracurriculars’ class,” she said.

“You WHAT?”

“Oh, come on, Mary. It’ll be fun.”

“Fun my ass. I’m still in a cast, Pat. There’s no way.”

“I’ll do all the heavy lifting, I promise.”

“Since when?”

I could hear her dirty look through the phone. “Carol’s in a panic.”

“Carol who?”

“Flanagan.”

“Carol Flanagan is the president of the club.”

“I know, but she’s also the Entries Chairman.”

“She must be a glutton for punishment. Doesn’t she have enough on her plate?”

“Well, I’m trying to help her out, and she really needs one more entry in ‘Extracurriculars’.”

Knowing there was no getting out of this—I asked, “Is Home-Ec taken?”

“Yeah, and there can’t be any duplications.”

“What about Shop?”

“As in Saks?” Pat snickered.

“No, you numb nut, as in girls take Home-ec, boys take Shop?”

After I explained the woodworking, welding, metalworking, and auto mechanical aspects of Shop, I suggested we head over to Home Depot. Pat had never darkened the door of the place and was somewhat surprised that not only did I know my way around but was on a first name basis with some of the orange aproned employees as well.

“What are we looking for?” she asked.

“Our container.”

“Here?”

One hack saw, a hammer, a miter box, and circular saw blade later, we left the store—container in tow. Driving back to the island, we discussed how we might craft our design.

“It’s got to be a guy thing,” I said. “No flowers—too girly.”

“Well, according to the schedule, the background is school bus yellow.”

“Then it should be all green.”

“Guy thing, huh.” Pat didn’t say anything for a while. “What about stag horn fern?”

I almost wrecked the car. “That’s it! Holy S@#$! That’s it!”

We glued all of the tools together then sprayed the whole thing a bronzy brown.

Kit had three large stag horn ferns in her garden and said we could cut a few fronds and harvest a couple of “pups”—whatever that meant. (I have since learned that the pup is a small, new plantlet or offset that grows from the rhizome underground stem of the mature, “mother” plant. This is a natural form of propagation for most staghorn ferns.)

But our greatest find was a tiger striped bromeliad—a hybrid plant called Neoregelia ‘Hannibal Lecter.’ We were beside ourselves—high-fiving each other like we’d just won the lottery.

To inject a bit of humor, we found a long Moth Orchid (Phalaenopsis) root (root, get it?) to which we glued the male end of an extension cord (GET IT?)

I didn’t know this would be the last arrangement Pat and I would do together, but if I had, I can’t say I’d have done anything differently.

We fought like sisters and laughed like hyenas. Her strengths were my weaknesses and vice versa. I saw the big picture; she had an eye for detail. I made sure we followed the rules; she loved to break them. I often burst into tears; Pat always burst into song.

Had we not escaped that infamous garden club cookie meeting when we did, we might never have teamed up. Sometimes we drove each other nuts, but in the end, we always had a blast. God knows I miss her.

“You don’t want the Judge Selection Committee to think you only know how to arrange with Pat Cook, do you?”

Certainly not, but it wasn’t as though I’d never won anything on my own. This judge, unlike my reps of late, seemed genuinely interested in helping me make it to the next level—after which, she said, I could arrange with whomever. Together, Pat and I had won seven blue ribbons, three Puckett Creativity Awards, three Best in Shows, and two Dorothy Vietor Munger Awards.

“Until you are an approved judge, you need to show them you can win ribbons and awards without a partner,” she said.

A wave of insecurity washed over me. For the last five years, I had done dozens of arrangements for The Society of the Four Arts Gallery openings and House and Garden Day, but I had only done one competitively on my own, leading me to wonder if I could still win by myself. Unsure—but willing to find out—I called the entries chairman of our upcoming Mother Goose show, secretly hoping all the classes were full.

“I have one spot left in the free-style class,” she said, excitedly.

“I’ll take it.” The show was less than a week away.

“Oh, Mary, thank you so, so much!” she gushed. “I could kiss you!” I knew the feeling.

I explained the situation to Pat. “Well, damn,” she said. “Are you divorcing me?”

“Hell no. It’s not forever—just ‘til I’m sworn in.”

“Are we still doing the Creature Class together, your honor?”

“Funny, Pat. Real funny. The only thing I’m doing on my own is one free-style arrangement.”

“What are you doing?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

Having had so much fun—and success—doing our turtle in 2002, Pat and I had entered the three-dimensional creature class again. We went back and forth debating whether to do “Hickory, Dickory, Dock,” or “Three Blind Mice,” both of which involved rodents.

I argued on behalf of the visually impaired, while Pat was more interested in doing a grandfather clock, fleurs du pavé. But since she was out of town during these negotiations, I started without her.

Upon her return, Pat stopped by and stared disbelievingly at the square block of thick maple into which I had stabbed a large chef’s knife at a forty-five degree angle.

“Is that it?”

“Yep. All we have to do is add mice.”

“How are we gonna make mice?”

“We’re gonna find a picture of some and copy it.”

Once I found a picture of cute rodents—which sounds somewhat incongruous—and convinced Pat we were not doing “Hickory, Dickory, Dock,” we agreed our mice had to be life-sized, anatomically correct, and whimsical enough to make people smile instead of scream.

I found a mouse-shaped cat toy in a pet store that looked so real, I jumped out of my skin every time I found it somewhere you never want to find a mouse, like the kitchen counter.

Our murine creatures were copied from the cat toy and constructed from coconut hair (Cocos nucifera), peeled off coconuts we scavenged from yard trash all over town. You haven’t lived until you’ve been caught knee-deep in a trash pile in front of a beachfront mansion owned by someone you actually know.

“What the hell are you two doing?” the owner asked.

What could we say—“Looking for mouse hair?”

But finding coconuts in Palm Beach was the easy part. Once harvested—and I use the term loosely—we had to crack them open to get to the hair, or, technically speaking, the coir.

“These coconuts are green,” Pat said. “We need the hairy ones.”

“These are the hairy ones. The hair’s on the inside.”

“How do we get them open?” I handed her a hatchet. The look she gave me is permanently debossed on my brain. “Why do you even own one of those—and how the hell do you know so much about coconuts?”

“I used to have coconut trees.”

“So do I, but…” Pat had staff.

“Shut up, Pat.”

So I wielded the hatchet and Pat scraped out the coconut hair, swearing like a sailor. “f#@! you, Mary. You’re paying for my next manicure.”

She was much happier (and nicer) creating their spectacles—which she painstakingly crafted out of copper wire, hooked behind round leaf boxwood (Buxus sempervirens ‘Roundifolia‘) ears, covering peppercorn (Piper nigrum) eyes.

The tails, two of which had been chopped clean off—thanks to the farmer’s wife in this rather violent rhyme, which I came to realize was somewhat inappropriate for a nursery—were fashioned out of Confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides). Blood courtesy of Revlon’s “Love that Red,” a color rarely found in nail salons these days, but one that had graced my mother’s toes for as long as I could remember.

“Damn,” I said.

“What?”

“Does the schedule say 'fresh and dried plant material’ or fresh and/or dried plant material’?

Pat frantically flipped through the schedule. “Fresh and/or dried.”

“Whew. For a minute there I thought we were gonna have to add something we’d have to keep watered.”

We added a small porcelain container of unshelled peanuts behind the knife to anchor and balance the design, which was undoubtedly what the mice were going for when they got their tails chopped off.

The show was looming and I hadn’t started my solo free-style arrangement. The class was entitled “There Was a Crooked Man.”

There was a crooked man
And he walked a crooked mile
He found crooked sixpence
And a crooked stile

He bought a crooked cat
Which caught a crooked mouse
And they all lived together
In a crooked little house

I stumbled across an illustration in an old Mother Goose book that inspired me. I especially liked the fact it was monochromatic.

After reading the nursery rhyme, it was rather obvious—to me, at least—that everything about the arrangement had to be crooked, and he had to be walking.

Earlier that year, while visiting my sister Dorothy, we were cruising along Woodburn Road in Spartanburg when I saw this bush in the side yard of a house on the corner of Andrews Road. I’d only ever seen the plant in sprigs. The thing was huge.

“Stop the car!” I screamed.

“Damn, Mary! You scared the s@#! outta me. What?”

“Look at that bush!” I could hardly contain myself. “Do you know these people?”

“I think so, why?”

I was half-way across their yard. “I have got to have some of this.” It was Corkscrew hazel—AKA Harry Lauder’s walking stick—(Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’).

Fifteen minutes later—with the owner’s permission—I had enough to fill a box the size of a steamer trunk. I shipped it to Palm Beach, even though, at the time, I had no plans to use it. It had been stashed in my garage ever since.

You can’t get more crooked than Corkscrew hazel, but how could I make it look like a crooked man—a crooked man who was walking. I had been laboring over the damn thing for days, when Joe suggested we run up to the club and play golf.

“Golf? Are you out of your #@!*&^?! mind?”

“You need a break, Mary. Now quit messing with that thing and get dressed.” I was still in my nightgown, and the last thing I wanted to do was play golf.

After about eight holes, I hit my second shot into a cypress hammock. That’s when I saw it.

“JOE! CALL SOMEONE OVER IN MAINTENANCE AND ASK THEM TO BRING ME A SAW!”

Once we got home—Joe was still not speaking to me—I set the cypress knee (Taxodium distichum) on the kitchen counter. I had to whittle here and there, but it had the look I wanted and became my container. But what I loved the most was it looked like it was walking. I added my old friend Protea banksia, the same flower I had used in “Alien Invasion,” some blue thistle (Eryngium planum), and a bit of Leucadendron ‘Wilson’s Wonder.’ And damn if it didn’t win First Place.

Our mice design was awarded, in addition to First Place, the coveted Harriet DeWaele Puckett Creativity Award and Best in Show.

Our entry was a huge hit with the visiting public, but “too cutesy” for the club’s most radical horticulturist, whose constant pooh-poohing of flower arranging was really starting to piss me off.

“All you flower arrangers do...”

“I know, I know: kill plants.”

Once again, Pat and I had a blast; I proved I could still win on my own; and I made it through another Flower Show without slapping anyone.

After the 2003 Zone Meeting and Flower Show, Kit became president of our garden club. I thought she was nuts.

“Who’s chairing the next show?” I asked.

“Peggy Moore,” Kit said. “But we want you to write the schedule.”

“Okay, but if you ask me to do anything else, you know I can’t—I’m up to my eyeballs getting this golf club finished.”

“Well, I was gonna ask you to be my first vice president, but…”

“But no.”

“I figured.”

Over the summer, I came up with a great idea, which I presented to Kit and Peggy in the fall.

“Genesis: Back to the Beginning!” I said with the enthusiasm of a sideshow barker.

“Genesis?” they asked in unison.

“Can’t you just see it? The Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Joseph and his coat of many colors! It could be fabulous!” Kit didn’t look so sure—Peggy even less so. “Come on, y’all, let’s do something different. Genesis is full of fabulous imagery.”

They looked at each other, then at me. “What’s your other idea?” Peggy asked.

“Mother Goose.”

They went with Mother Goose.

I was disappointed, but Mother Goose has great images too, and writing a schedule based on nursery rhymes was a piece of cake. For the creature class, your favorite nursery rhyme character(s); for the small arrangement, “Wee Willie Winky”—all I had to do was open the book. I finished it in a day. They liked it and sent it to the GCA Flower Show Committee for approval.

The following week, Kit asked me to stop by before I drove up to Jupiter. Upon my arrival, I found her managing a clean-up crew in her garden. There had been back-to-back hurricanes (Frances and Jeanne) earlier that fall, and the place was still a mess.

“You’re lucky you didn’t lose that tree.” I nodded toward a giant banyan, the focal point of her north garden.

“I’m lucky I didn’t lose the whole damn house!”

“You can replace a house, Kit. We lost twenty-four hundred trees at the golf club—most were cypress—and part of the new roof.”

“Oh, no!”

“Joe bought the last chipper in the state of Florida—we now have enough mulch for the next ten years.”

“Are you gonna open on time?”

“Between the storms and new fire codes, we’ll be lucky to open by next spring.”

We headed upstairs to her office, the scene of many flower show meetings, countless gossip sessions, and a few crying jags.

She got straight to the point. “I want you and Pat to be my delegates at the 2005 Zone VIII Meeting in Atlanta this spring.” She didn’t exactly ask, but it wasn’t her usual assumptive close. I had judged a couple of zone meeting shows but had never been a delegate. As a judge, all I had to do was show up and judge. Being a delegate, I feared, would require going to meetings. I have a problem with meetings. “Do you think Joe can do without you for a couple of days?”

“I’ll handle Joe. What does being a delegate entail?”

“Here’s the schedule. The registration forms are in the back. Make your hotel reservations and send in your flower arrangement requests.”

“Flower arrangement requests?”

“The ones you’re doing with Pat.” Once again, the assumptive close. “Each club is responsible for two arrangements, and delegates usually do them.”

“Does Pat know about this?”

“Not yet. She hasn’t called me back. Why don’t you give her a call.”

“I think I’ll let you have that pleasure. You do realize this meeting is one week before the Mother Goose show.”

“I know it’s gonna be tight, but we’re flying up on our plane.” That was of some comfort. At least I didn’t have to check containers and clippers, and worry about flowers on a commercial carrier. “When you make your hotel reservations, tell them to put us on the same floor. You and Pat will probably want adjoining rooms. Just put me next door or across the hall.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

When on the road, judges, committee chairmen, and delegates often share hotel rooms to reduce expenses. As a delegate, your club usually picks up the costs, but a trip to judge an out-of-town show—depending on how far you have to fly and what sort of hotel arrangements the host club has made—can cost upwards of two thousand dollars.

The first time Kit and I traveled together was, without question, the most memorable. Upon learning that I, too, had been invited to judge the 2002 Southeastern Flower Show, Kit suggested we fly to Atlanta together but made it clear that we would not be sharing a room.

“No problem,” I said. “I don’t want to room with you either.”

It was a so-so downtown hotel with tacky flowered bedspreads. We hadn’t been in our adjoining rooms two minutes when Kit called housekeeping and asked for an extra top sheet, an extra blanket, and five extra bath towels.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“The blanket’s to replace the bedspread, the top sheet’s to cover it, and the towels are to go between the bed and the bathroom when I’m not wearing shoes. You’ll see. Now help me get this spread off the bed.”

“Why?”

“Because heaven only knows who’s been doing what on top of it. Fold it inside out.”

“Damn, Kit, I didn’t know you were so anal.”

“Didn’t you see that 60 Minutes segment where they went into hotel rooms with a UV black light?”

“Obviously not. What do you want me to do with this?” I was holding the heavy, folded bedspread.

“Put it over there in the corner, and remind me to leave a note for the maid so she doesn’t put it back on the bed.”

“So what about these black lights?”

“They use them when investigating crime scenes to detect blood and other body fluids.” Kit sniffed her pillowcase. “Apparently somebody died in a hotel, and when they shined the UV black light, in addition to the victim’s blood, they found all this other stuff. After that, someone had the bright idea to randomly test hotel rooms.”

“And?”

“You wouldn’t believe what they found.”

“What?” I couldn’t imagine—and this was long before the bedbug brouhaha. Kit’s eyes widened; she arched her brows and gave me this wouldn’t-you-like-to-know look.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What?”

“Semen,” she whispered.

“Semen?”

“Yeah. On the bedspreads, the rugs—even on the walls.”

I let that sink in, then turned toward my room.

“Where are you going?”

“You have to ask? I’m calling housekeeping. Now get your ass in here and help me get that nasty thing off my bed.”

The Atlanta zone show schedule was beautifully designed, but only two of the six flower-arranging classes were related to the show’s title, Greener Visions.

Classes I and III were in honor of two local parks, Piedmont and Centennial, while the others were based on famous Atlanta institutions: Cable News Network, Coca-Cola, Margaret Mitchell, and Joel Chandler Harris, who collected, compiled, and published the Uncle Remus stories.

A better title for the show might have been simply Visions—the founders of CNN and Coca-Cola certainly had “vision”—but since there’s a movement afoot in GCA to “Go Green,” the race is on between member clubs, each vying for the title “Greenest Garden Club in America.”

Going green is not without its merits—we do, after all, want to take care of the planet—but injecting the word “green” into a schedule title just to gain a few “greenie” points is a bit disingenuous, if you ask me (which, of course, no one did.) Once I got past the disparity of the schedule’s title, I got down to the business of deciding which classes Pat and I would enter—which she usually left up to me.

“There’s a challenge class incorporating a hula hoop,” I said. “It has a $35 entry fee.”

“For a hula hoop?”

“Yeah.”

“Forget it.”

I agreed.

“A miniature based on Uncle Remus. Wanna do an iddy-biddy briar patch with an iddy-biddy Tar Baby?” Pat and I didn’t have enough elbowroom when doing big arrangements, so we nixed the miniature.

“What’s the CNN class?” she asked.

“A contemporary arrangement interpreting ‘mass’ communication, not to be confused with the Margaret Mitchell class, which is a ‘mass’ arrangement interpreting the antebellum era.”

“That’s it!” Of course, I thought. A mass—my old friend and Pat’s greatest area of expertise. “If a couple of southern girls can’t knock that one out of the park, I don’t know who can.”

“Piedmont or Centennial?”

“Cute, Mary.” We both laughed.

I checked the schedule. “We have to do one more, and we’re running out of options.”

“Read me the one about Coca-Cola.”

“The Coca-Cola class calls for a design of fresh and/or dried plant material, incorporating an article relating to Coca-Cola.”

“What sort of design?”

“It just says ‘a design,’ so it’s our call. And the article relating to Coca-Cola must be something with their trademark or logo.”

“Let’s do that one.”

“I’ll fill out the forms. I hope they aren’t full.”

“The show’s six months away.”

“You never know, Pat. We could end up doing the one with the damn hula hoop.”

Most zone flower shows are held in hotel ballrooms, which typically have bad lighting, flashy carpet, and gaudy wallpaper. Too bad all flower shows can’t be presented in museums like the Four Arts, with great lighting and neutral backgrounds.

“Where’s the show?”

“At the Hyatt in Buckhead. Pray there are no windows. I set up an entry in a hotel ballroom once, and my pedestal was in front of one, which rendered my arrangement a silhouette.”

“In that case, our form better be good.”

“Holy cow!” I said when I saw the boxes. They were stacked on a cart the size of a small car on the loading dock of the local floral supply.

“You said you were flying with them, so I had them packed in ice.”

“No, you did the right thing. Thanks. I just hope it all fits on the plane.”

Knowing Kit was hauling a collection of horticulture, I thought I’d better give her a heads-up. “I hope there’s room for all this stuff. I just picked up our cut flowers, and the entire cargo section of my Suburban is jam-packed.”

Kit laughed. “Where are you now?”

“On my way to pick up Pat.”

“Well, don’t tarry; we want to be wheels up by ten.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Pulling into Pat’s driveway, it wasn’t hard to miss the abundance of luggage piled on her front steps.

“Hey!” She bounded through her front door.

“What’s all this?”

“What?”

“These bags. Do you have any idea what we’ve got to get on that plane?”

“It’s not that much.” She looked all innocent and wide-eyed.

“Not much? You look like you’re going to Europe for a year.”

“I do not.”

“Whatever, get in; we don’t wanna be late.” What didn’t fit on the back seat was piled on Pat’s lap.

My fears were not unfounded. As I drove onto the tarmac, Kit and crew were busy unloading her plants. When she saw the stuff bulging out of my car, she visibly blanched; when she saw Pat’s luggage, she pitched a fit.

“Okay, everybody calm down. Let’s get everything out of the cars and see what we’ve got,” said Tiger, Kit’s pilot. It took about five minutes to sort it all out, after which I was instructed to board.

“Go all the way to the back,” Tiger said.

“All the way? To the jump seat?”

“That’s right.”

“Isn’t the john under there?”

“It is.”

“And that’s where you want me to sit?”

“Roger that. If you want to get all this stuff on board, one of you will have to sit back there.”

“Fine.” I headed toward the rear of the plane. “I hope everybody’s been to the bathroom.” The flight, I learned, would take about two hours.

Meanwhile, boxes of flowers were stacked on the seats and in the aisle in front of me. I was basically buried, and as one who has a hard time in elevators, I was not happy.

Kit and Pat were seated somewhere in front of me, while the pilots and ground crew formed a bucket brigade, loading boxes, containers, and plants back to front. The only way I would be getting off that plane was when we got to Atlanta and someone unpacked it front to back. I felt trapped. I could hear Kit and Pat chatting away in front of me.

“How’d I get stuck back here?” I shouted as we took off.

“You’re younger than we are!” Kit hollered back.

By the time we disembarked, I was a basket case. It was the longest two hours of my life.

Our precious cargo was transferred into a van Kit had hired to take us to the hotel where, once again, it was unloaded, placed on luggage trolleys, and rolled up to our rooms. The beds were made up with crisp, white, washable coverlets. Kit was thrilled.

“May we keep this trolley?” I asked the bellman, knowing we would need it to transport our stuff down to the exhibition hall. He hesitated, said it wasn’t allowed. Kit gave him ten dollars, and he acquiesced. Everyone has their price.

I suggested we run down and check out the show space. Pat agreed.

We headed toward the lobby. It wasn’t hard to spot the Greener Visions registration table. As with most zone meetings, all you have to do is look for ladies wearing aprons and scarves. Pick up any issue of The Bulletin, a newsy GCA publication printed six times a year, and I defy you to find one page without a photo of someone wearing an apron or a scarf.

After registering, we ate a quick lunch, then set out to find the Azalea Room—a name most befitting a flower show, I thought. Expecting a ballroom, I was pleasantly surprised to find a large meeting room with relatively good lighting.

“I guess we need to ask someone which pedestals are ours,” Pat said.

“Definitely.” I scanned the room. “Oh, no.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Tell you later.”

“Tell me now.”

“Too late.”

“Well, well, well. Look who’s here.” It was Lila Fowler.

“Hello, Lila.” I tried to smile. “How are you?”

“Fine. Heard you girls flew up in a private plane.” She sounded falsely impressed.

“We did. Do you know Pat Cook?”

“Only by reputation.” She smiled, cracking her pancake makeup.

“Pat, this is Lila Fowler.”

“So good to meet you, Lila. I’ve heard so many nice things about you from Mary,” Pat shamelessly gushed. I almost gagged. “Looove your scarf.”

“Ah, thank you—nice to meet you, too.” Pat’s obsequious flattery caught Lila by surprise. “Ah, well, I’d better get back to my job and let you girls get to work. Harriet here will show you where to set up.”

“See you later,” I said as she walked away.

“Yeah, see you later, Lila,” Pat added, honey dripping from her lips.

“What are you doing?” I asked once Lila was safely out of earshot.

“Who, me?” Pat batted her eyelashes. “Well, from the look on your face, I knew she was some sort of trouble.”

“Trust me, she is.”

“Well, she looks like a bitch.”

“That’s putting mildly.” I promised to fill her in later.

Our Margaret Mitchell antebellum mass, arranged in the top of a distressed Doric column, was made up of white, lavender, and purple flowers, with a bit of Spanish moss dripping here and there. When finished, it had the impoverished, aristocratic look of a post–Civil War plantation—one that hadn’t been burned to the ground. Our statement of intent read, “Too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash.” Pleased with the result, we set about cleaning up. As it was close to the cocktail hour, we decided to start our Coca-Cola arrangement in our room after dinner.

“Is there any place to stash extra flowers?” Pat was holding a bunch of leftover lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum).

I checked, and there was—a large storage room just off the show floor, right behind our arrangement. We loaded our extra flowers into a couple of buckets and were about to leave when I heard Lila Fowler’s voice.

“Are Mary Webster and Pat Cook still here?”

Pat was about to show herself when I yanked her back behind a screen, one of those folding things used to divide meeting rooms.

“What?” Pat whispered.

“Shh…”

“You mean those two ladies from Palm Beach?”

“Yeah, the ones who did this mass arrangement,” Lila said.

“They left.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, they cleaned up and left. Why?”

“They’re the ones I was telling you about. Kit Pannill’s got some nerve showing up with those two.” Eyes wide, Pat’s jaw dropped. I put my finger to my lips and hunkered down behind the screen. “Here we are trying to give our novices experience by making them delegates and entering this show, and Kit comes flying into town—in a private plane, no less—with a couple of ringers. She oughta be ashamed of herself.”

“Isn’t Mary Webster a judge?”

“Trying to be.” I could almost see the smirk on Lila’s face.

We stayed hidden behind the screen for five long minutes, afraid to breathe, until the coast was clear, then slipped away—undetected and incredulous.

Kit was unfazed. “Based on what happened at our zone meeting show, Mary, I’m surprised you didn’t punch her in the nose.”

“Trust me, I wanted to.”

“Well, you two had better win.”

“From what I saw of the competition,” Pat said, “our mass will definitely win.”

“If Lila doesn’t kick it over.” I was joking when I said it, but based on her tirade, I wouldn’t put anything past her. “Should we hire a guard?”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Kit said. “Let’s go get a drink.”

Our mass won First Place, and our Coca-Cola arrangement took Second, but was awarded the Dorothy Vietor Munger Award, given to an arrangement of outstanding beauty using predominantly fresh plant material.

The arrangement that beat us didn’t use one thing related to the soft drink company—just a couple of red plastic pipes. Ours was similar in concept to our “Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” We used a glass tank the color of a Coke bottle, about the size of a large paper grocery bag, filled with water. Propped on top was an all-green arrangement of ferns and dewy foliage reminiscent of a rainforest, with orchid roots trailing down the sides of the tank. Nestled in the arrangement were three cola nuts, and lying at the bottom of the tank, highlighted by a tiny flashlight hidden in the bottom of the Oasis, was a red, slightly bent Coca-Cola bottle cap. “From the rainforest—the cola nut. From the cola nut—Coca-Cola,” read our statement of intent. The judges gave it nothing but praise.

“A high second,” said one. I was unfamiliar with the term but have since learned it means “almost first.” They couldn’t find a damn thing wrong with it—they just liked the other one better. It’s a very subjective discipline.

Pat thought the winner’s entry shouldn’t have been passed, and she was right. There was nothing in it remotely recognizable as an article relating to Coca-Cola, leading me to wonder if some passers and judges even bother reading the fine print. I have encountered one or two who simply pick the one they like best—never mind what it says in the class schedule.

Kit’s plants won blue ribbons in every class they were entered, giving us even more reason to celebrate.

Flying home, unburdened by fifteen boxes, I had a real seat, under which sat Kit’s prized crested blue flame cactus (Myrtillocactus geometrizans f. cristatus), but I hardly noticed.

By the time we landed in Palm Beach, I had decided this organization was like a large sorority, and a zone meeting was, for the most part, a social event with a little business on the side.

There is, in all likelihood, a more efficient way to do what these garden club members do, but in many ways they are like sheep—and sheep, by their very nature, like to congregate. Unlike sheep, however, these scarf-clad women have minds of their own—some sharper than others—and at the end of the day, in spite of a few harridans, they do a lot of good.

They did, after all, lead the charge to save the giant redwoods in 1931.

If you think co-chairing Shakespeare in Bloom—and the calamities that came with it—was my flower-show-chairing swan song, you don’t know the persuasive powers of Kit Pannill. That show was barely out of my rearview mirror when she casually mentioned we would be co-chairing the club’s 2002 show.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.” It wasn’t the sort of thing that would’ve slipped my mind.

“You don’t?” Kit feigned ignorance. “I’m sure I told you.”

“You most certainly did not.”

“Well, don’t worry, it’s just a dress rehearsal.”

“A dress rehearsal for what?”

“The Zone VIII Meeting and Flower Show we’re co-chairing in 2003.”

My head nearly exploded. “Kit, what are you smoking? I would’ve never knowingly signed on for that.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

🤓 A Zone Meeting is held once a year in each of GCA’s twelve zones. It’s part convention, part pep rally, and part endurance test. Delegates gather from all over the zone, draped in commemorative scarves and toting gift bags stuffed with schedules, name tags, committee reports, and mints (no bad breath at a zone meeting!) The gathering is a marathon of meetings, reports, and speeches ad nauseam, seasoned with luncheons, garden tours, an awards banquet, and a flower show. Members stagger home with new names to remember and fresh directives to carry out, while the host club breathes a sigh of relief that another club gets to do it next year. Whew!

Other than the turtle hitting Pat Cook’s kitchen floor, the 2002 Gardens by the Sea show went off without a hitch, and it, too, won a slew of Judges’ Commendations. So when we chaired the 2003 Zone Meeting show by the same name, we were confident things would go swimmingly.

We were wrong.

The judging was underway, and I was sitting in the maintenance room in the back of the museum, glad to be off my feet, when a clerk stuck her head in the door.

“Mary, you need to get to the floor—and fast.”

“What now?”

“One of the judges is having a hissy fit,” the clerk said. “She’s standing in front of Class Two.”

Class Two was “A Sea Creature,” the class Pat and I had won the year before with our resurrected turtle.

As co-chairmen, Kit and I were obliged to be on-hand during the judging in case something came up. Occasionally, judges had questions clerks were unable to answer.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Kit asked.

“I think I can handle it.”

I arrived on the scene to find three grown women squabbling like barnyard chickens—one close to tears.

“Good morning, ladies,” I said. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Just look at this class,” Lila Fowler snapped. Lila was the panel’s Coordinating Judge; she was also my Zone Judging Rep. Jenny Johnstone, one of the other judges, looked ready to explode, while Mimi Ott mumbled an obscenity under her breath. The clerks stood wide-eyed.

“What about it?” I asked

“It’s the biggest mishmash of exhibits I’ve ever seen. There should’ve been height restrictions,” Lila groused.

“I tried to tell her they’ve all been passed, and...”

“I’ll handle this, Mimi. I am, after all, the Lead Judge and the most experienced,” Lila crowed. Excuse me? I thought. You are the Coordinating Judge. Turning back to me, she continued. “As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted, these should not have been passed.” Mimi Ott rolled her eyes.

I didn’t like her tone. “I see. Anything else?”

“There should’ve been specifics in the schedule about height, which would’ve made the class more harmonious. Look at this one.” She pointed to an exquisite interpretation of a blowfish, created with baby’s breath (Gypsophylia paniculata). “It’s barely nine inches high, while that one,” she gestured toward a floral rendition of a Portuguese Man of War, “is over three feet tall. There should’ve been…”

I thought if she said “should’ve been” one more time, I was going to grab her by her crepey neck and shake her.

“Excuse me, Lila, may I speak with you privately?” I steered her away from the others. Struggling to sound calm, I lowered my voice. “You were invited to judge this show, right?”

“Yes, but…”

I held up my hand. “Hear me out. You were invited to judge the show, and we are truly grateful, but now is not the time to pick it apart. You can do that during the Judges’ Evaluation Meeting after the show. Right now, you need to judge the exhibits as passed.”

“But there should’ve been…” She said it again. A voice in my head reiterated the need for a crepey neck shaking. I ignored it.

“At this point, Lila, there are no ‘should’ve beens’, there are only arrangements waiting to be judged.” Lila rolled her eyes and began tapping her foot. “Every arrangement has been passed based on a GCA Flower Show Committee approved schedule.”

“How dare you!” she hissed, sending a bit of spittle toward my dress.

“How dare I what?” I took a step back.

“Speak to me like I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Out of respect for her age, and in spite of her arrogance, I keep a civil tongue in my head; I couldn’t imagine what she was getting so worked up about. “I am the Zone VIII Judging Representative,” she reminded me.

“Yes, Lila, I know.” As previously mentioned, she was my Zone VIII Judging Representative—my third. Remember her?

“I’ve been a Floral Design Judge for over twenty-five years.” The implication being she knew a lot more than I did—probably true—but I was the Flower Show Chairman, and as such, I had the last word.

I wish Kit could see this.

“I know, Lila. But right now, none of that matters. Right now your panel has three classes to judge, so you can either rejoin them and judge the entries as passed, or I can call an alternate to replace you.”

She stood stone still, lips pursed, eyes blazing. I held her gaze. After a long minute, she turned without a word and stomped back to where the others were waiting. Mimi Ott mouthed a silent thank you over her shoulder as I left the floor.

I described the incident to Kit.

“Well, I think you handled it the only way you could, but I shudder to think what she’ll say in the Judges’ Evaluation Meeting.”

🤓 Judges’ Evaluation Meeting: a closed door session where judges gather to discuss a flower show after it has been judged. At this time, the Judges decide what was good about the show, what, if anything, could’ve been done differently, and award Judges Commendations.

Lila wasn’t our only problem.

As noted earlier, Kit and I had co-chaired the same show the year before as a trial run for the one currently underway, and everything had gone off without a hitch. But because this was a Zone Show, a certain member of the GCA Flower Show Committee—namely the Zone VIII Flower Show Rep—felt compelled to put her mark on (i.e. mess with) our schedule, ignoring the old adage, if it ain’t broke…

The Rep asked us to change the wording of Class Five: A Beach Picnic. The new wording, which was imprecise and vague, caused three entrants to interpret the space and size requirements one way, and three another. This being the case, I divided the class into Five A and Five B, allowing them to be judged separately, based on two well-founded interpretations.

🤓 Charging the Judges is essentially an orientation session before a flower show. The Flower Show Chairmen run through anything the judges need to know—oddities in the schedule, unusual staging, or last-minute disasters. For example, if a gale-force wind sweeps through the exhibition hall, and the committee is scrambling to put things back together, Judges need to know and take it into account. That’s an extreme scenario, but flower shows are famous for throwing curveballs.

So, when all hell broke loose in Class Five, it was my job to inform the Floral Design Judges of the situation and how I handled it. Reading from the schedule, I pointed out the ambiguities of the new wording. I also took the opportunity to opine on the hazards of messing with tried-and-true schedules, forever garnering the love and affection of the woman who had insisted on the change. During the evaluation meeting, I understand she called me an “upstart”—accused me of not knowing my place. I’m sure Lila Fowler wholeheartedly agreed.

The Philadelphia Flower Show is the largest indoor show in the world. Today it encompasses 33 acres under roof, eleven of which are dedicated to horticulture and floral exhibits.

An invitation to judge the show is a big deal. Mine came from a member of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society I’d met at a flower-arranging workshop. Normally, your Zone Judging Rep recommends you, but after the showdown at our Zone Show, Lila Fowler didn’t feel so inclined.

Imagine my surprise when an invitation to judge Philadelphia arrived, and further imagine Lila Fowler’s surprise when we bumped into each other in the ladies’ room of the Convention Center.

“Why, Mary Webster. What are you doing here?”

I’m here to judge the show, no thanks to you, you insufferable hag!

“Hello, Lila.” My smile belying any hint of that fantasized response. “I’m here for the same reason you are, I would assume. How are you?”

“Fine.” Powdering her nose, she gave me a sideways glance in the mirror. “Which classes are you judging?”

“Pressed Plants and Rooms.”

“Hmm? I’ve judged Pressed Plants. They’re all done by Orientals, you know.”

I did a spit take. “I beg your pardon?”

“Pressed Plants,” she said, applying an unflattering shade of lipstick that perfectly matched her scarf but made her skin look like wallpaper paste. “Most of ‘em are done by Orientals.”

“Don’t you mean Asians?”

“What?”

“Well, since we’re talking about people and not rugs or food, I think you mean Asians.”

“Whatever, who else could manage that level of detail?” It was hard to tell whether Lila respected or resented said Asians for this skill, though I suspect it was the latter.

“Well, good to see you.” I reached behind her for a paper towel, her eyes followed me in the mirror. “Have a nice day.”

“Hmm.” She pressed her oxblood lips together. “You, too.”

I headed back to the judges’ lounge to find my panel.

A fresh faced young girl wearing a clerk’s badge approached me. “Are you Mary Webster?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Amy—one of your clerks.” She instructed me to follow her.

There were three judges on the panel, and experience notwithstanding, all judges at the Philadelphia show are on equal footing. First was Bonny Martin, a GCA judge from Memphis—a formidable woman who had coordinated the publication of The Fine Art of Flower Arranging: a Garden Club of America Book, by Nancy O’Dench.

She knew her stuff, and I learned a great deal judging alongside her.

The second was Alma Somebody—her last name escapes me—a Federated judge who, like Bonny Martin—was old enough to be my mother and every bit as formidable. Federated Garden Clubs of America is bigger and bolder and a force to be reckoned with at any non-GCA show.

Then there was me—a Prospective—five years into the GCA Judging Program with no end in sight.

Near the show’s main entrance, I was overcome by a scent so intoxicating, I almost fainted. It was the indisputable smell of nature—flowers, ferns, wet moss, peat, earth—all rolled into one.

And what stood on the other side of that door left me speechless. Gardens as far as I could see—formal and informal—vine covered trellises thirty-feet tall, topiaries shaped like everything from lollipops to dogs, and fountains bubbling in lily ponds stocked with Japanese koi. There were stone walls, window boxes, brick pathways, and trees towering toward a ceiling so high it seemed to disappear. The profusion of patterns and textures, plants and flowers, miniature rooms and arrangements, doorways and window boxes, put me in sensory overload, and I burst into tears.

“Are you all right?” Amy asked.

I pulled a tissue out of my purse and blew my nose. “I’ve just never seen anything like it.”

“It is quite amazing, isn’t it.”

“Quite.”

It was a little before nine; the public was being held back to give us room to evaluate the entries unencumbered by curious crowds. One of the biggest complaints about the show is the mass of people, making it difficult to get an unobstructed view of the exhibits.

We proceeded across the floor toward our first judging assignment. Being easily distracted, I stopped several times to admire something, and Amy had to be dispatched to find me.

“I’m so sorry, it’s my first time and I…”

“Not to worry, it happens all the time.”

Standing in front of the Pressed Plant Classes, my jaw dropped.

🤓 Pressed Plant Classes: These entries are less about fresh flowers and more about discipline, patience, and a steady pair of tweezers. Exhibitors create designs using dried plant material—leaves, petals, stems—pavé on paper or board. Pieces may be no larger than a postcard or as expansive as a framed picture. The result can be anything from a landscape to a portrait.

The level of detail was like nothing I’d ever seen. After judging, I flipped the entry cards. Contrary to what Lila Fowler said, not all were done by Asians.

🤓 Rooms Classes: Four entries, each a 12 x 12 feet. Exhibitors are given a theme and all surfaces, furnishings, and accessories must be designed accordingly and contain one major floral arrangement. The room should translate the theme into a believable livable space.

While deliberating rooms—all of which interpreted a Sanctuary of some sort—Alma pulled me aside and whispered, “Don’t listen to Bonny Martin. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. It takes a lot more study to become a Federated Judge than a GCA Judge.”

I wasn’t sure what to do with that information, but the two older judges had been sniping at each other all morning. As a Prospective, I was expected to weigh in, but there was no way I was getting in the middle of that catfight.

“What do you think of this Sanctuary?” I asked, in an effort to change the subject. It obviously belonged to an artist; the room included an unfinished painting propped on an easel, along with the usual paraphernalia found in a studio. However, the accompanying flower arrangement—a large mass with a fan of gladioli (Gladiolus spp.)—looked out of place.

“Possible second,” Alma said.

“Second?” Bonny Martin laughed. “Honorable mention maybe, but that arrangement belongs on a casket, not in a studio.” I chuckled and Alma seethed— you could’ve cut the air between them with a knife.

I tried to lighten the mood. “Maybe the artist died?”

Bonny cracked up, and without warning, Alma snapped at her, “Just who do you think you are?”

It’s whom, I thought, but unlike my mother, I let it go.

Bonny Martin straightened her shoulders. “Why, I know exactly who I am, and I’m rather surprised that you don’t.”

Before Alma could fire back, I fished a bag of peanut M&Ms out of my purse. “Chocolate?”

After placing the ribbons, I headed to the judges’ lounge and inhaled a soggy Caesar salad. Dying to see the rest of the show, I headed back to the exhibition floor, where I bumped into Bonny Martin. “That was a stroke of genius, young lady.”

“What was?”

“Proffering chocolate. Heaven only knows what might’ve happened had you not.” She laughed. “When judging, you should always carry chocolate.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You are a fine judge, Mary, and I have said as much on your evaluation sheet.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Martin, that’s very nice of you.”

“Nice? Honey, I’m not that nice, trust me, but I recognize talent when I see it.”

I was speechless. “Oh, Mrs. Martin...”

“Call me Bonny.”

Shortly thereafter, I received the following.

My mother-in-law had warned me about Lila Fowler—that she could be difficult. But this was beyond difficult. This was vandalism!

On the phone with my mother, she asked how the judging was going, and the next thing I knew, I was sobbing hysterically.

“I’m sorry, Mama, I didn’t mean to unload on you, but my Zone Judging Rep sabotaged my file.”

“What do you mean she sabotaged your file?” I gave her an earful. “She sounds like a real piece of work.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Mary, listen to me. You do know this isn’t about you, don’t you?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Darlin’, there are women in this world who aren’t gonna like you for reasons you can’t even imagine, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. That woman could dislike you for being younger, taller, skinnier, more talented—who knows. She’s probably threatened by a quality in you she feels is lacking in herself.”

“What should I do about my file?”

“Go back through all your awards and any stuff you have from flower shows you’ve judged, and reconstruct all your missing paperwork. If you can’t remember certain things, give it your best guess, or—what the hell—make it up. It’s only a garden club, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like they’re curing cancer.”

“Thanks, Mama.”

“You’re welcome, honey. Hang in there.”

My new Judging Rep seemed nice enough, but during her tenure, she managed to get me exactly two judging assignments and lose my entire file. Even though it probably had more to do with slow-wittedness than sabotage—it was the last straw.

On Wednesday, the forecast threatened snow. We were heading out of town for the weekend, so I took a break from writing about flower arranging and went into triage mode, desperate to save what I could in my Montana garden. I cut all of my zinnias (Zinnia elegans), picked dozens of cherry tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme), and whacked all the lettuce (Lactuca sativa var. crispa) and arugula (Eruca vesicaria)—most of which had gone to seed anyway.

And speaking of arugula, while it might not appear on the U.S. invasive plant list, it should. That stuff has taken over my garden like kudzu. It slipped under the veggie garden fence and basically colonized a flower bed.

And while their yellow blossoms are quite charming, it choked the life out of my bachelor’s buttons (Centaurea cyanus), and they were not amused.

To forestall the marauding mule deer—and the occasional moose—who treat our property like a salad bar, I had a fence built around the zinnias and the edibles—herbs, lettuces, beans—not the ones laced with THC, though Lord knows I could use some. The hoofed animals were stymied; the rabbits were not. They squeeze through the gate just to prove they can, so I planted everything in horse troughs, which elevated the beds—saving my back—and baffled the bunnies. A win-win!

I put the zinnias in a bucket of water, and I pray they’ll still be hale and hearty when I get home.

I did a little zinnia research and learned the following:

Cut them in the morning: I didn’t, but it was cool.

Use sharp tools: Cut the stems at an angle with sharp shears or a knife.

Remove lower leaves: Strip off any foliage that will be below the waterline to prevent bacterial growth.

Provide fresh water: Immediately place the cut stems into a bucket of clean water.

Use flower food: Add a floral preservative, a drop of bleach, or a mixture of sugar and hydrogen peroxide to the water to inhibit bacteria and nourish the flowers.

Keep cool: Store the bouquets in a cool, shaded location.

I was so busy picking tomatoes and cutting zinnias, I forgot to cover my mums. If the snow arrives as predicted, they’re doomed.

The weather in Montana, like an attention-seeking child, can throw a ninety-degree tantrum in May that melts the snow pack and floods the rivers—only to follow it up with a blizzard twenty-four hours later.

One such storm in early July knocked my delphiniums to their knees, their hollow stems unable to withstand a five-knot wind, let alone four inches of snow. They never recovered and spent the rest of the short summer looking less than proud.

Montana doesn’t really have seasons, it has mood swings—snow one day, sunburn the next. Unreliable, yes, but it certainly keeps things interesting.

House & Garden Day is the Garden Club of Palm Beach’s major fundraiser. As a member, jobs range from flower arranging to supply and maintenance, and only a life-threatening illness—or death—can get you out of it.

Since joining, I had only been tasked with arranging flowers. I don’t know how I missed out on supply and maintenance—a janitorial job required for provisionals—but the chairman this particular year must’ve thought I’d gotten off light and put me in charge of buses. Buses?

It was, quite possibly, the dumbest decision she could’ve made. Even after reading the forty-page journal the previous Bus Chairman had compiled—geared significantly toward the left side of the brain, I might add—I still had no clue what the job entailed.

Usually tour goers are encouraged to walk, but that year the houses were miles apart (exhausting), and along Highway AIA (downright dangerous!) I shared my concerns with the chairman and suggested the logistics of coordinating transportation for the tour might be a job for a professional—someone who understood the intricacies of scheduling, the interplay of time and motion, and basic principles of safety—someone like the Chief of Police?

“Poppycock,” she said—which should give you an idea of her mindset, not to mention her age. “Do your job and don’t rock the boat.”

Well, I did my job, but in the process created the biggest traffic fiasco in the club’s bus-leasing history. Hundreds of tour-goers were left stranded on Blossom Way for over an hour. When a bus finally showed up—one seating a mere thirty passengers—a fight broke out over who could board and who could not that rivaled the scramble for lifeboats on the Titanic.

At the next meeting, a member suggested we serve homemade cookies at House & Garden Day.

“Would someone like to make a motion?” said the club president.

“I move that we serve homemade cookies at House and Garden Day next year,” I hastily proposed, in an effort to get things moving and prevent any future bus chairman from suffering the same misfortune I had—my rationale being that the unpleasantness on Blossom Way might have been avoided if tour goers hadn’t been suffering from dangerously low levels of blood sugar.

“Is there a second?”

“Second!”

“All in favor, please say, ‘Aye’.”

“Aye!” It sounded unanimous.

“Opposed?”

“I’m vehemently opposed!” It was the imperious and unmistakable voice of Didi Ballinger, one of our older members and a former club president. “This is a ridiculous idea!” She was on her feet, both of which had seen better days. Didi suffered from fallen arches, the result (she claimed) of jogging around Madison Square Garden for forty years showing her prized Pekinese. “Give them water. Give them fruit. But the last thing that crowd needs is more sugar!”

“Well, Didi, I disagree,” said Fiona Lester, her voice barely audible. “Sometimes people need a little pick-me-up in the afternoon, and I think homemade cookies would be a nice touch.” From everything I’d heard about Fiona, her idea of a ‘little pick-me-up in the afternoon’ was a far cry from a chocolate chip cookie.

“Nice touch? You are out of touch!” Didi shrieked. “Open your eyes. Forty percent of the people in this country are obese! Sugar, in addition to being the largest cause of weight gain, feeds cancer cells, and if that’s not bad enough, it’s the leading cause of diabetes!” She had reached the ranting stage. “I’m a doctor! I know these things!”

The room erupted—the cookie crowd far outweighing (pun intended) those agreeing with Didi, who was indeed a doctor, but no one seems to remember when or what she practiced.

“Fruit’s too perishable!”

“Give ‘em cookies!”

“Order!” The club president said, banging her gavel. “Order!”

“I’m outta here.” I picked up my purse.

“You can’t leave,” said the officious little member sitting next to me. “You have a motion on the floor.”

“I beg your pardon?” Had I heard her correctly? “I have a what?”

“You have a motion on the floor. It’s your duty to see it through.” It wasn’t so much what she said as the pompous way in which she said it.

“My duty to what?” I removed my glasses.

“See it through ‘til the end,” she said, avoiding my eyes.

“At this rate, that could be days from now.” I stood and took my leave.

When I got to the porte cochere, I breathed a sigh of relief. Blasting through the door right behind me came Pat Cook.

“Good, lord!” she exclaimed. “What was that about?”

Pat was someone I only knew casually, but her much older, recently deceased husband had been a friend of my father’s. She was a talented flower arranger in a go-big-or-go-home sort of way, leaning more toward over-the-top mass arrangements than anything contemporary. Her Christmas and Easter flowers at the local Episcopal Church were a sight to behold. A native of Mississippi, she was an accomplished musician and singer, with an abundance of theatrical flare. Her wardrobe was the envy of half the women in town, and on this particular afternoon, she was resplendent in a pale pink wool crepe suit with an impressive ruby-encrusted brooch pinned on her lapel.

“Have you ever?”

“Never,” Pat said. “Never in my life.”

“Arguing over cookies?” I shook my head. “It usually takes something like the Equal Rights Amendment to get women that riled up.”

“Or a 75% off sale at Saks.” We both laughed.

“Hello, Mrs. Cook.” It was the valet. “You in the BMW?”

“Yeah Troy, thanks.” Turning back to me, she asked, “How’s the flower show coming?” I was chairing the 2002 flower show with Kit, and once again, she didn’t ask. I’ll elaborate later.

“It’s coming along. Schedule’s written, graphics are done, all I have to do now is get people to sign up.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Are you kidding? It’s like pulling teeth. I did three classes in the Shakespeare in Bloom show and nearly lost my mind.”

“But it was a great show.” Coming from Pat, that was a compliment.

“Thanks, it was a great show, but it nearly did me in.”

“How’s the judging going?”

“Okay, I guess.” I was surprised Pat knew I was in the judging program. “I judged Sarasota this past fall, I’m going to Houston next week.”

“Are you entering our show? ”

“Hell, no! I’ve learned my lesson. Plus I’ve got this job up in Jupiter helping Joe get his new golf club built.”

“I shudder to think what that entails.”

“More than I bargained for,” I said. “It was only supposed to be for a year, but it’s been two with no end in sight.”

“I don’t know how you do it.”

“Me neither.”

Pat had entered shows in the past, but never one on my watch. Knowing she was alone, and not as busy as when Ned was alive, I suggested she enter Gardens by the Sea.

“I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “Why don’t we do an arrangement together?”

And so it began—a flower arranging alliance that would last five years. The partnership worked primarily because Pat never looked at me like I was crazy—something I gave her plenty of opportunities to do. She also respected the fact that I knew the rules—those pesky little particulars for which she had little or no regard.

“You can’t do that,” I had to say from time to time.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s against the rules.”

Pat was self-taught, and it worked; her arranging style was fresh and spontaneous. Quite often people attend workshops and learn a new design technique only to incorporate it verbatim into their next competitive arrangement. When judging, it’s not hard to spot who’s been to what workshop, and while the design might be exquisitely crafted, if the new technique isn’t used in an innovative way, it borders on plagiarism.

Pat had natural talent, but I found myself having to reel her in from time to time.

“I think it should be bigger,” she’d say, sticking a thirty-inch branch into the side of an arrangement, when the schedule clearly stated it could only extend fifteen inches in any direction.

“Dammit, Pat, I’m not going to let us get disqualified because you want it bigger. Now either cut that thing down, or don’t use it.”

Our first collaboration was doing flowers for House and Garden Day. We agonized over details, argued like sisters, and laughed our faces off. When we signed up for “Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,” a free style class, we only sort of knew what we were getting into. I say “sort of” because arranging for House & Garden Day is a cakewalk when compared to arranging competitively.

In Houston, I saw my first underwater arrangement. The way the water magnified the flowers fascinated me, so I suggested we try submerging part of our design for “Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.”

We used Curly Willow (Salix matsudana) branches, with their waves and swirls, to represent the ocean. After painting them blue, we glued them across the top and down the side of a large glass container that held fifteen gallons of water. Blue Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla) were added around the opening at the top, through which we submerged a King Protea (Protea cynaroides), the water magnifying it to the point it looked quite menacing.

“Are you sure we can paint plant material?” Pat asked.

“As long as the schedule doesn’t say we can’t, we can.”

“In that case, I think that King Protea needs a little perking up.” Pat fished the flower out of the water, dried it off, and painted it bright red.

She was absolutely right; more red intensified the sinister look of the bloom and added some much-needed contrast.

“Make sure it’s dry before you stick it back in the water,” I said, unable to curb my inner control freak.

Pat’s look was incredulous. “Mary, please.”

“I’m sorry.” I knew she knew better.

The only things we didn’t paint in that arrangement were the hydrangea.

After dismantling our “Devil” design, everything but the curly willow, which was permanently attached to the container, we siphoned off the water with the help of a small hose. We would reassemble the arrangement the next morning at the show.

“Okay, let’s get going on the sea turtle,” Pat said.

Sea turtle? you ask. Yes, I not only co-chaired the show, but I let Pat sweet-talk me into doing the “Sea Creature” class, taking me, yet again, out of my comfort zone and into my nerve-wracking, car-wrecking zone. But this flower-show-near-nervous-breakdown wasn’t due to a lack of entrants or exhibitors falling prey to medical emergencies, but was the result of a mechanical failure I never saw coming.

We used the oval-shaped top to a turkey-roasting pan, covered in moss, as the turtle’s underbelly. A fifteen-inch iron rod was welded to the top’s handle on one end and a heavy square metal base on the other. The rod and base were painted the same color as the pedestal and designed to elevate the turtle, giving it the illusion of swimming.

Sometime after midnight, while putting the final touches on the turtle’s shell, the handle broke off the turkey roaster’s top, sending the giant reptile crashing to the floor. The weight of plant material and wet Oasis obviously required a helluva lot more structural integrity than we’d anticipated.

Neither of us moved; we just stood there, staring at the mess on the floor. Then I collapsed next to the turtle’s remains and burst into tears. “Whyyyyyyy did I let you talk me into entering this class?” Pat burst into song—some Rogers and Hammerstein number about a girl who can’t say no.

“Pat, stop,” I begged. “Please, just stop.”

She sang even louder. 🎶 “I’m in a horrible fix!” 🎶

“You’re killin’ me!” Finally, she stopped, and joined me on the floor. “We have to withdraw,” I said, wiping my tears. “I’ll pull our pedestal in the morning.”

“Oh, no you won’t! You will not pull our pedestal, Mary Webster. Do you hear me?” I’d never seen this side of her. “We’re gonna fix this damn turtle if we have to stay here all night.”

🤓 I guess this is as good a place as any to talk about glue. Glue Products is a store in West Palm Beach that sells stuff that holds boats together. It’s the strongest two-part epoxy on the planet, will glue anything to anything, and cures in about thirty minutes. It’ll also get you high off your rocker if you’re not paying attention.

Fortunately, that night, I had such a product in my tool kit and glued the handle, which miraculously, was still attached to the pole, back to the bottom of the pan. The moss was intact, but the turtle’s shell, feet, and tail were destroyed, necessitating a midnight raid into Pat’s neighbor’s garden. Armed with clippers, we trespassed onto a well-known billionaire’s property and proceeded to snip.

“Shit!”

“What?” Pat whispered

“Something creepy just crawled across my face.” I slapped my forehead.

“Well, get it off.”

“I’m trying, dammit. But I think it’s in my hair.”

“Keep cutting.” Pat disappeared into a clusia hedge.

“Are you sure this guy doesn’t have motion detectors? Or dogs?”

“I’ve never seen any.” Pat didn’t sound so sure, which gave me no comfort.

It was pitch-dark, making it hard to tell what I was cutting, so I whacked everything I could feel, denuding a small sea grape in the process.

Safely back in her kitchen, Pat looked up at me. “It’s dead,” she said.

“I know, but you’re the one who said we have to resurrect it.”

“I’m not talking about the turtle.” She was eyeing my face. “I’m talking about the huge spider in the middle of your forehead.” I ran to the sink screaming, stuck my head under the faucet, and watched as bits and pieces of the spider swirled around and down the drain. I had the heebie-jeebies for the next ten minutes, sending Pat into fits of laughter.

“It’s not funny! I feel like things are crawling all over me.”

“Let’s take a break.” Pat opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of Pouilly Fuissé.

After twenty minutes, and several glasses of wine, I felt a little better, but not much. I checked the glue. It felt hard, but to be on the safe side, we propped the whole thing up on two stacks of cookbooks and left it overnight. I couldn’t handle another mechanical meltdown. By the time we had the turtle back together, albeit headless, it was well after two.

We studied our sea creature, trying to decide how to craft its head. We tried all manner of fruits and vegetables, but nothing looked as good as the pepper before it hit the floor and broke into three pieces.

“I’ll go to Publix in the morning and see what they have,” I said, knowing if I didn’t get home soon, I was going spend the night on her kitchen floor.

“Well, if you don’t find anything, we can always cut a lime or a green pepper.”

“No we can’t.” I picked up our wine glasses and placed them in the sink.

“What do you mean?”

“No cut fruits or veggies in GCA flower shows.”

“My lord, they are strict.”

“Pat, it’s after three. I’m going home.”

After a three-hour nap, I stumbled out of bed and into the shower.

“What time did you get home?” Joe was standing at his sink, shaving.

“You don’t wanna know.”

“Where are you off to now?”

“Publix”

“Oh, good, ‘cause we’re outta milk.” Poor Joe. He was clueless. I didn’t dare tell him I was only going to look for a turtlehead.

“Are you coming up to the club today? I need you to read some documents.” What was he thinking? I looked at him like he was out of his mind. “I guess that’s a no?”

“That’s a definite ‘no’.”

“Well, check your email. I may have some things for you to edit.”

“Right.”

“Do we have anything going on tonight?”

“The flower show preview party. Are you living in a vacuum?”

“Right. I’ll be there. What time?”

“Six.”

I was drying off when he stuck his head back in the door. “Good luck.”

Fifteen minutes later, bereft of sleep, I found myself in the produce section of Publix.

“Good mornin’. You’re up mighty early.” It was Jerry, the stock manager. “Can I help you find something?”

“No thanks, Jer,” I said, trying to imagine what he would say if I’d responded, Got anything around here that smacks of a turtlehead?

After pawing every pepper in the store, I reached into a stack and found one that felt different. It was somewhat deformed. When I turned it around, I gasped and dropped it on the floor. I bent down and picked it up, relieved to find it still in one piece.

“You okay?” Jerry appeared at my side.

“Yeah.” I was almost in a trance. “Is it me, Jerry, or does this pepper look like a turtle’s head?” I knew I was running the risk of getting “the look,” but I had to know.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “It sure does. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

With the pepper safely on the seat beside me, I headed over to Pat’s.

“Amazing.” Pat held the pepper like a baby bird. “It looks so real.”

“Complete with a snap-your-finger-off upper lip!”

Miraculously, we managed to get both arrangements to The Society of the Four Arts Gallery without incident. When we placed the turtle on the pedestal, the epoxy held and the creature did, indeed, appear to be swimming. I placed some pigmy date palm (Phoenix robellini) florescence under the turtle to camouflage the pole.

“It looks like coral,” Pat said.

“That’s the idea.” I was relieved to have it placed and passed.

Our biggest problem with the Devil was filling the container. They wouldn’t let us use the hose we brought along, and in hindsight, I can’t believe we asked to run it through a museum. Twenty-two buckets of water later, the container was filled.

Our first shot at co-arranging was a home run, no one more surprised than I was.

In addition to First Place, our turtle was awarded the Puckett Creativity Award, and the Devil took Best in Show.

As co-chairman, I had to hang around until everything was judged, but at some point, I ran out of gas. Physically and emotionally drained, I went home and took a nap.

After the preview party, Joe treated Pat and me to dinner.

“Congratulations, ladies. Well done.”

“I still don’t believe it,” I said, remembering the mayhem the night before.

“Well, I do,” Pat said.

We were trying to decide whether to have dessert when Joe said, “Tell me again what happened with the turtle?” He had only heard bits and pieces—no pun intended. I started, then Pat chimed in, giving a detailed, animated account of the saga.

“I think it was around midnight, wasn’t it?” Pat said. “We had almost finished the damn thing when something snapped, and the turtle hit the deck. It was in pieces all over my kitchen floor, Mary in a heap beside it, bawling like a baby, threatening to quit.” She laughed. “It looked like a bomb had gone off in there.”

Joe smiled knowingly; he knew all too well what that looked like. “A botanical Hiroshima?”

“Exactly!” Pat said. “How’d you guess.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere and completely out of character, Joe ordered a bottle of champagne. I knew him well enough that it wasn’t to toast our flower show triumph. He was celebrating a little victory of his own.

“You have no idea how happy I am,” he said, once we were home and in bed.

“About what?” I was slathering cream on my hands.

“That the turtle mess happened in Pat’s kitchen and not ours.”

“I’m glad that makes you happy. Is that what the champagne was about?”

“Yeah, that and the end of flower show season. Now you can get back to work.”

Too tired to kick him, I turned out the light and slept like the dead.

When I entered the judging program in 1999, there were no Floral Design Judges in the Garden Club of Palm Beach—a club that had been in existence for over seventy-five years.

There were, however, at least four Horticulture Judges. The club was, and basically still is, a grower’s club, and with a 365-day growing season, it’s not hard to see why. A seed sown in Palm Beach in September is well on its way to becoming a full-grown plant by Thanksgiving. The only thing in South Carolina that grows faster than plants in South Florida is kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata), which has been known to grow twenty inches or more in a single dog day of summer. The Japanese brought it over for their pavilion at the New Orleans Exposition in 1876, and it has held the South hostage ever since.

Becoming a judge was a problematic process for me, due in large part to the preponderance of paperwork. As one who dwells in the right side of her brain—a point I cannot overemphasize—I can barely manage my daily mail, the volume of which doubled after my acceptance into the GCA Judging Program. Today, all of the forms are online, but in 1999, this was not the case.

The welcome letters went to great lengths explaining the duties of a Judge Candidate, which is step one to becoming an Approved Judge, Prospective is step two.

One letter encouraged me to enter as many flower shows as possible, attend workshops regularly, and buy the latest edition of the Yellow Book—which, thankfully, I already owned. I also received two missives on judging etiquette. Both emphasized the importance of being respectful, prompt, and polite. This struck me as odd—were these really problem areas? As it turned out, they are. Like any large organization, there are a few bad apples, and all it took was judging with a couple of them to get my attention. They were living, breathing cautionary tales of how not to behave.

Typically, one spends at least three or four years as a Prospective before moving up to an Approved Judge, and fortunately—or unfortunately—just like the Supreme Court, it’s a lifetime appointment, even if you lose your marbles.

You must attend the required number of workshops, judge, enter, and win ribbons in enough shows—the definition of “enough” being somewhat ambiguous—and have good comments on your evaluation sheets.

🤓 Evaluation sheets are filled out by the Approved Judges with whom you judge. They are then mailed to your Zone Judging Rep, who is responsible for keeping your file organized and up to date—a file, which in my case, suffered a few slings and arrows along the way.

According to one breezy how-to-become-a-judge letter, I was informed that the Zone VIII Judging Representative was my new best friend, or mother hen. “She is there to help you navigate the program” one said. I saw five such Reps come and go during this process, and when I say not all Judging Zone Reps are created equal, I mean just that. Like any organization, there are those who use such a position as a rung on their ladder to wherever they’re trying to get—never mind whether they are qualified or not—and Judging Reps are no exception.

• The first Rep was the epitome of a lady, who gently introduced me to the program.

• The second was all business and did a first-rate job of getting me judging assignments and keeping me organized.

• As for the third, she was a mean-spirited saboteur. And while I know it’s not right to speak ill of the dead (she died several years ago), she was no mother hen—more like a fighting cock with a jealous streak a mile wide and a tongue that could cut glass. (You have not heard the last of her.)

• The fourth was a hapless woman who had more trouble keeping up with the paperwork than I did, bless her heart.

• And the fifth? A real trooper, hell-bent on keeping me on task, who refused to let me quit when I’d had it with the rules, the regulations, the politics, and the lost paperwork. “I’m gonna get you across the finish line if I have to drag you kicking and screaming,” she said. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As a Candidate, I was invited to join a panel of Approved Judges as a Clerk and observe them in action. And when they say “observe,” they mean observe; unless a Candidate is asked a direct question, she should keep her ears open and her mouth shut.

The job of a Clerk is to record everything the Judges say as they deliberate the strengths and weaknesses of an arrangement. Some judges talk faster than others, making it hard to get every word. This is when a smidgen of stenography comes in handy. I developed my own form of shorthand, and over time, learned to leave out words like “lovely,” “beautiful,” and, heaven forbid, “nice,” because no Judge worth her salt would ever allow them to be inscribed on an arranger’s entry card. Words like that are unimaginative and don’t tell you anything.

🤓 Judges’ comments should commend, instruct, and incorporate at least one element or principle of design. (The elements: color, form, light, line, pattern, size, and texture. The principles: balance, contrast, dominance, proportion, rhythm, and scale.) A blue ribbon winner gets nothing but praise, but if there is a design flaw in an entry, the comment should politely covey this.

Listening to judges try and come up with tactful ways to communicate this to an arranger can be quite amusing.

“Could you please read back to me what I just said,” asked a Judge at the first show where I performed such a task. Let’s call her Ethel. She was friendly and old enough to be my mother.

“Ah, yes, ma’am. You said, ‘The arrangement is static and appears to lack depth’,” I said, referring to my notes.

“Did I really say that?” I wasn’t sure whether she was questioning me or herself.

“Yes, ma’am, you did.” The other Clerk nodded in agreement.

“What do you mean by ‘appears to lack depth,’ Ethel?” asked Madge, one of the other judges. “It either lacks depth or it doesn’t.”

“I was trying to be nice,” said Ethel.

“Well, don’t try so hard.” Madge laughed, Ethel didn’t. “It definitely lacks depth, and is static to the point of being frozen—it has no movement whatsoever. None!” Turning to me, she said, “Did you get that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Static to the point of being frozen—no movement whatsoever. None!”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit harsh?” asked Betty, the most mild mannered of the three.

“Saying what, that it’s static?” said Madge, a battle ax of a woman, who clearly wasn’t used to being questioned.

“No, ‘to the point of being frozen’,” said Betty. “I don’t think you should say it like that.”

“I don’t either,” Ethel chimed in.

“Well, ladies, we’re only discussing. Nothing’s been decided. How would you say it, Betty?”

“I think I’d say it lacks movement and needs more rhythm.”

“Oh, for god’s sake. Look at it. There is no rhythm! How, pray tell, can it need more?” Madge’s frustration was obvious. “If anything, it needs some, but not more. Now let’s find something positive to say about it.”

“The arranger obviously went to a lot of trouble,” Betty said.

“Too much,” said Madge.

And back and forth they went, while I scribbled like mad.

Turning to me, Betty whispered, “Are we making any sense?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I lied, but thinking, how nice of you to ask.

Madge took charge, Betty got shot down every time she opened her mouth, and Ethel, arms folded, spent the rest of the deliberations in a huff.

The arrangement placed third, and the judges’ comment ended up saying, “Artful use of color, but static placement of plant material disrupts rhythm,” leaving me to wonder how the “static placement of plant material” could disrupt rhythm if there were no rhythm to begin with. I obviously had a lot to learn.

🤓 Judging panels are usually made up of two or three Approved Judges, one Prospective, and two or three Clerks who may or may not be Candidates in the judging program. There used to be a “Lead” Judge on every panel, which led some judges to get carried away with the title and take charge to the dismay of the others. Today there are only “Coordinating'“ Judges whose job is just to keep the things moving. At the Philadelphia Flower Show all Judges, no matter how experienced, are on equal footing. There are no Lead or Coordinating Judges.

As a Candidate/Clerk, I was also advised to familiarize myself with the venue, to have a clear knowledge of where my panel’s classes were located in the exhibition hall, and be able to guide them there lest they wander off, and you may rest assured, every now and then, they did. I remember feeling like a border collie at Atlanta’s Southeastern Flower Show.

“This way, Mrs. Howard. This way.” I said, herding her back into the fold, after she had drifted into a panel judging hats and began to opine. “You’re judging mantles, remember?” From the look on her face, she obviously didn’t, which was of some concern, as this was toward the end of my stint as a Candidate, and I needed her evaluation form and letter in my file in order to graduate to Prospective. It would be a miracle if she even remembered being at the Southeastern Flower Show.

While I was learning to critique arrangements, my own garden—or perhaps I should say “yard”—told a very different story. All I ever did was prune. With over four hundred feet of ficus hedge, six citrus trees, two large mangoes, a couple of banyans, a variety of palms, added to four overgrown gardenias, eight leggy hibiscus, a large swath of skimpy azaleas that, according to my mother, had no business being any part of a tropical landscape, and a yard full of grass to cut, I think it’s safe to say I sort of bit off more than I could chew. The place could have kept two gardeners busy eight hours a day, five days a week. There was just one problem: I couldn’t afford to pay two gardeners eight hours a day, five days a week. With the exception of trimming the hedges, pruning the large trees, and cutting the grass, I was the yardman, and it wore me out. With a husband in the golf business—we should’ve had the best-looking lawn in town, but we didn’t—not by a long shot.

Memphis was my first judging assignment, and it was a rude awakening—one of those hair-raising moments that told me this show was in a league of its own. Neither Daffodil Time nor any Garden Club of Palm Beach flower show had prepared me for what I saw there. The arrangers were incredibly talented, and the idea that I could compete with any of them was laughable. I left that show with my tail between my legs, convinced I didn’t know diddly-squat, wondering whether I had the right stuff to be a competitive flower arranger, let alone a Judge.

Every time I thought about getting out of the judging program, a Greek chorus in my head started harping on about what a big deal it was. The status, the prestige. Here comes the judge. Your mother will be so proud.

But then there was the solitary voice—clearly exiled from the chorus for dissent—shouting, Run, Mary, run!

I was asked to be on several committees and conduct a workshop on miniatures—a genre of flower arranging I had only done once—and I was proposed for Garden Club of America’s judging program. I could’ve said “no, thank you,” but that’s not easy when people are blowing sunshine up your skirt. Call it vanity; call it pride; call it whatever you want—I obviously ate it up, because in spite of the voices in my head screaming Stop! Stop! Stop!, it was Damn the torpedos! Full steam ahead!

“I’ve been accepted into the GCA judging program,” I said to my mother, knowing this would impress her.

“Why, Mary darlin’, that’s wonderful!” She sounded almost dazzled. “You know, Catherine Beattie is a judge.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know.” Was there anyone in the whole of GCA who didn’t know that?

“GCA is her life,” she said, in a tone—more like a warning—that it not become mine.

I was juggling more balls than I thought humanly possible when Kit Pannill, a friend and fellow garden club member, tossed up another one.

“You’re co-chairing next year’s flower show with me.” The assumptive close has always worked for her, and this was no exception. “You’ll be in charge of the floral design division; I’ll handle horticulture.” Before I had a chance to ask what the job entailed—or better still, respectfully decline—she continued. “Since you’re now in the judging program, co-chairing a flower show will look good on your Annual Record Sheet.”

“My what?”

“Annual Record Sheet. That form you have to fill out at the end of the year and send to the Zone Judging Rep.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” I said.

“Well, don’t worry about it now. As for the show, I want you to choose the theme, write the schedule and design its cover, get it printed, make new signs, compile the judges’ notebooks, and design their name badges. And,” she went on to say, “I want it to be the best damn flower show this club has ever seen.”

“Is that all?” My head was spinning.

“Are you being facetious?”

“Who, me?” I was on the verge of a panic attack and frantically taking notes.

“That about covers it,” Kit said. “But if I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.” Please don’t, I wanted to say, but she had already hung up. Five minutes later, she called back. “Oh and by the way, I want it to win as many Judges’ Commendations as possible.”

“Judges’ what?”

“Commendations. Look it up in the Yellow Book.” Click.

🤓 Judges’ Commendations are given to an entry, class, division, special exhibit, or other aspect of a flower show of exceptional merit. Winning two or three used to be reason to celebrate, but I knew Kit wouldn’t be satisfied with less than five.

All of this plus being flower chairman of House and Garden Day, chairman of the Garden History and Design committee, and having my first short story published—the noise in my head went from the din of a cocktail party to the roar of a super bowl. The job sounded, for the most part, creative, but there were certain left-brained aspects—the organizational, managerial, and time-consuming kind—I never anticipated.

Kit has one of the most photographed gardens in town. A fellow southerner, she has been married to two of the most successful men in Virginia. In addition to being exquisitely beautiful and habitually well-groomed, she is a GCA Horticulture Judge, who has won six Beattie Medals and enough blue ribbons to fill her slat house, which contains hundreds of award-winning plants. And, she likes to win. I’ve seen her fly to a show in Houston with a plant in her suitcase, unpack it, pop it in a container, and win a blue ribbon. She had given me an ultimatum; this flower show had to be a cut above the rest, and I knew she wouldn’t settle for anything less.

The 2000 show, of which she had made me co-chairman, was the end of a long run of yearly shows for the Garden Club of Palm Beach. Today, like most GCA clubs, they only present a show every two years; it’s an enormous undertaking and very expensive. Furthermore, it takes nearly two years to wade through all of the new rules and regulations, all of which is spelled out in great detail in the latest edition of the Yellow Book. Then there is the vetting process—a flower show schedule travels through many hands before being approved, and, as I was about to find out, some hands are heavier than others.

“What about Shakespeare?” I suggested off the top of my head at our first planning session.

“What about him?”

“For the show title.”

“Sounds fine,” Kit said. “Just make it good.”

She had given me full rein, but as this was my first rodeo on many fronts, I felt compelled to run everything by her before making any major decisions, and choosing the theme, in my inexperienced opinion, was a major decision. I decided the title should be Shakespeare in Bloom. Kit loved it.

Shakespeare had something to say about everything, and there is a concordance to his work divided by subject, word, and phase. Creating a schedule based on Shakespeare was relatively simple; the choices were infinite. Furthermore, Shakespeare in Love had won a slew of academy awards recently and was all the rage.

It was suggested that I contact the Zone VIII Flower Show Representative before starting the schedule, a decision I would come to regret, as she insisted that I add an abstract class to our show.

In spite of my background, I barely understood abstract art, never mind abstract flower arranging, which the Yellow Book describes as “pure design.”

The dictionary defines abstract as “existing in thought without having a concrete existence.” Say what? But since the Flower Show Zone Rep had the power to approve or reject my schedule, I honored her request.

🤓 In Garden Club of America structure, Zone Representatives (AKA Zone Reps) are liaisons between the national organization and the member clubs within a geographic zone. They’re not exactly “bosses,” but they carry influence. There are over 40 GCA committees—flower show, horticulture, floral design, conservation, judging, etc. Zone Reps serve two-year terms.

I chose “Brevity is the soul of wit,” from Hamlet as the title for the abstract class. Concise, to the point, no frills—sounded reasonably abstract to me. As clever as it sounded, I had no idea how “brevity is the soul of wit” would translate into a flower arrangement. Maybe that was the point?

“What do you think of As You Like It for the free style class?” Joe and I were having dinner on the porch at Testa’s. When he didn’t immediately respond, I further explained, “As You Like It? You know, any way you want it. Free style? Get it?”

“I got it, Mary. I got it,” he said. “And I like it.” I did too, because as I had learned when doing “Alien Invasion,” you could do anything, as long as it wasn’t traditional.

For the mass class, I chose “Oh, beware my lord of jealousy, it is the green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on,” from Othello—it would have to be an all green arrangement. I could think of several ideas for this one, which is very important for a schedule writer to keep in mind. The abstract class, however, continued to confound me.

The challenge class is geared toward novice arrangers. All materials are provided—container, flowers, accessories—arrangers just have to show up with a pair of clippers and a good attitude. I found a line in A Midsummer’s Night Dream about violets, thyme, and honeysuckle—all things that are simple to find and would easily translate into an arrangement.

Measure for Measure for the small/miniature class would require entrants to create two identical designs.

Then I remembered the table class.

“Should this be a functional or an exhibition table?” I was standing in Kit’s office. There were stacks of papers in piles all over the floor, and she was head down over her desk.

“What’s the damn difference?”

“Well, according to the Yellow Book, the functional table implies the service of food, the exhibition table is artfully arranged plates, napkins—stuff like that.

“I think those exhibition tables are weird,” Kit said. “But do what you want.”

“So, you don’t care?”

“No. Just make it good.”

I found a line from The Comedy of Errors I thought could be quite humorous: “Unquiet meals make for ill digestions,” especially if the table were prepared for an unlikely pair. I could just imagine one set for Sitting Bull and George Custer, or Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots—the possibilities were endless. I decided it had to be a functional table.

I went to work on the graphics.

Holding division and directional signs, life-size cutouts of Shakespearean characters were created and placed around the gallery.

The schedule’s cover featured a pen and ink caricature of William Shakespeare.

Everything was looking good, and I could hardly contain my enthusiasm for the schedule, which Kit asked me to read to the members at the January meeting. The membership, however, was less than enthusiastic and, as evidenced by their blank stares, you’d have thought I’d based the schedule on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. No one signed up. No one!

“You should’ve seen them, Joe.” I was beside myself. “They just sat there.”

“What are you gonna do?”

I had no idea, but the reaction to my schedule was humbling. Was I out of touch? I had studied every Garden Club of Palm Beach flower-show schedule ever written, and Shakespeare in Bloom, in my very biased opinion, was better than most; it was lyrical, it was visual, and it was whimsical.

With less than eight weeks to go, out of a possible thirty-two spots, only twelve people had signed up. I was, again, beside myself. Chairing this show had pushed me out of my comfort zone and required a form of creativity I had no idea how to tap into.

A well-known abstract arranger from Birmingham was coming to speak to our club in March; I figured members might get inspired after her talk and sign up. I was wrong. Other than the four members she put to sleep, she scared us to death.

“Why don’t you do a miniature arranging workshop,” suggested our club president, assuming, of course, I had nothing else to do. And like a good soldier, I complied with her request. It was well attended, and I gave away all of my secrets, including the mini floral tubes made out of cocktail straws. Three people signed up. It was a start.

I contacted the floral design chairmen of all the clubs in Zone VIII and “invited” their members to enter our show. Then I called every member who had ever done an arrangement in the past and offered to make a donation to her favorite charity if she would enter the flower show. Last year’s chairman was indebted to me for at least two entries. She volunteered to do one. So much for “owing me big time.”

The mass class was an easy sell, as was the challenge class; very few members wanted to do a free style, and nobody—and I do mean nobody—wanted to touch the abstract class.

A member tried to back out claiming she couldn’t think of a single flower arrangement that had anything to do with Shakespeare. I lost it. “Just do an arrangement—any arrangement!” I snapped. “I’ll find a quote or something from Shakespeare to go with it.” Like my predecessor, I was shameless, but by being so, I managed to fill most of the free style class and all of the tables.

A week before the show, there were only three spots left. I signed up for two, which left one, and—no surprise—it was in the abstract class, which had become the proverbial thorn in my side. I had managed to get only four of the five spots filled and I could live with that. I’d pull a pedestal off the floor before volunteering to do an abstract—a subject I knew even less about after the “expert’s” presentation than before.

I stopped by Kit’s to snip some stuff for my miniature—she had given me cutting privileges—then hurried home to soak them in plant food. My free style arrangement was more or less finished, thanks to a small melaleuca stump I found in a pile of yard trash on Barton Avenue. It looked exactly like a dried up old bone, which was perfect for the quotation I was interpreting.

The next day, I had two wrecks: one in Kit’s driveway and one in my own. It was the last straw. I sat in my cracked up car and cried. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t sleep, I was wearing too many hats, and the noise in my head was out of control. Kit called Joe and suggested he hire a car and driver until after the show. “She’s gonna kill herself,” she said.

“I’m not a member of any clubs that cause me this much stress,” Joe said, prompting me to hurl a piece of wet Oasis® at him.

The next morning, I was up at dawn. My free style was finished but I needed to fluff my miniatures—two mini masses in matching mini watering cans. They looked a bit overstuffed, but I figured I could pluck and prune once they were in the niche.

Co-chairing the show, and the stress that came with it, had my creative juices running several quarts low, and it was about to get worse. At 6:22AM, the phone rang. What now?

“Jinkie Blake has been rushed to the hospital,” said Jojo Walton, Jinkie’s neighbor and one of the entries chairmen. “The EMS people just left her house.”

Jinkie was the last to sign up for the abstract class; she was well into her eighties, and not too steady on her feet. I knew she was a long shot, but this?

My first response should have been, “Poor Jinkie. Is she all right?” But before I could show even a modicum of concern, I let a four letter expletive fly. Jinkie was my fourth abstract entry, if I pulled her pedestal, the class would be down to three, and as I had learned from the previous chairman, you can’t have a class with only three entries. I mean you can, but it can’t be judged, and would be marked “For Display Only.” Furthermore, it would make the club look bad—like we couldn’t get anybody to sign up, which we couldn’t. But rules are rules, and the show must go on.

“Thanks.” I hung up. “Damn!”

When I got to the show, Kit was already there. I told her about Jinkie.

“What are you gonna do? If you take away another pedestal…”

“I know, the class will be disqualified,” I snapped. “I need to think, which I’m finding damn near impossible at the moment.”

“Is there anyone you can call? Anyone who would do a last-minute arrangement?”

“Probably not.” I suddenly had a thought. “You don’t suppose Jinkie finished her arrangement, do you?”

“Finished it?”

“Yeah, you know, before she...?”

“Mary, really.” It was all Kit could do to keep a straight face.

“I know it sounds heartless, but what if her arrangement is sitting in her house, finished and ready to go. She’s old, Kit. She probably did it last night.” Kit smiled and shook her head. “Well, desperate times call for desperate measures,” I said.

“Shakespeare?”

“No, I think it’s Hippocrates. Come on, Kit, why don’t I just tootle on over to her house and see if it’s there.”

“And what’re you gonna do if is and her house is locked?”

“Break in?”

“Forget it. You’ve already wrecked your car, I can’t have you getting arrested.”

“Good morning, ladies.” It was Nannette Wendel, our club president; she sounded so cheery, I wanted to smack her.

“We have a problem,” I said. “And I must warn you, Nan, I’ve had very little sleep, and I’m down to my last nerve.” I brought her up to speed.

“Is Jinkie okay?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “All I know is it happened sometime before dawn.”

“Where is she now?”

“Good Sam.”

“What’s your plan for her pedestal?”

I floated my idea to swing by Jinkie’s on the off chance she had completed her arrangement before her “recent unpleasantness.”

“I don’t think so, Mary.” Nan’s tone was tinged with disapproval. “Can’t you just put a little something on the pedestal?”

“Like what?”

Nan folded her arms and thought a minute. “Something abstract?”

Kit and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was the best laugh I’d had in a month.

“I fail to see the humor in this situation,” the club president said.

“Nan, you’re a flower arranger, do you even know what an abstract arrangement is?” She said she did but she didn’t. “Well, we have to come up with something or I’m hauling Jinkie’s pedestal outta here. I don’t care how it makes the club look.”

“You two figure something out. I’ve got to go deal with the cut specimens.” Kit beat a hasty retreat to the back of the gallery. Chicken.

“Let’s think about this a minute,” Nan said, her voice the epitome of calm. “The class title is ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, I guess if I were doing the arrangement, which, of course, I’m not, I’d make it witty and brief.” I don’t think she was trying to be funny, but once again, I lost it. I collapsed onto the floor of the gallery and laughed hysterically. But my laughter quickly turned into tears; I knew Nan wasn’t going to let me pull Jinkie’s pedestal, nor was she planning to do an abstract arrangement. Therefore, it was up to me to come up with something “witty and brief.”

I found three red and yellow parrot tulips in a bucket in the back of the gallery. Waving them over my head, I yelled, “Whose are these?” No one seemed to know, so I helped myself. They were somewhat limp so I bound them together with some black electrical tape I found in the maintenance closet, along with a piece of black pipe. I stuffed the tulips into the pipe and placed the atrocity on Jinkie Blake’s pedestal.

“Whose name are you putting on the entry card?” Nan knew if she didn’t ask, in my current state, I might write “Lady Macbeth” and be done with it.

“Yours.”

“Now, Mary…”

“Jinkie’s?” I was punch drunk and about to cry. “Okay, dammit! I’ll put mine on it, but I’m never doing this again, you understand? Never! Not for you, not for Kit, not for the club—nobody!”

Shakespeare in Bloom won a half dozen Judges’ Commendations—a record at the time for the Garden Club of Palm Beach. The staging, the schedule, the graphics, the table class, and a couple of hort classes were all honored. Kit was over the moon; it was, as she had demanded, “The best damn flower show this club’s ever seen.”

My little watering cans, which I never got around to fixing, took third—the judges suggesting they were overstuffed, which I already knew, and could use a bit of “judicious pruning.” Meanwhile, two of my miniature workshop attendees took first and second. I should’ve never told them about the cocktail straws. My Julius Caesar free style arrangement—the one I did in the melaleuca stump—took second. “An exquisite interpretation, but more of a line mass than a free style,” was noted on my entry card. As for the “witty and brief” abstract?

Let’s just say, I should have removed the pedestal. It got an honorable mention even though there was nothing “honorable” about it. And while Jinkie Blake made a full recovery, her abstract arrangement died a slow death on her kitchen counter.

"Creativity will sometimes flow into new and frightening fields." - Timothy Leary

The designation “Free Style”, according to several sources, allows the arranger to choose any contemporary style that will appropriately interpret the class.

Based on that definition, I was screwed. As previously mentioned, I had only ever done mass arrangements, and mass by definition is a traditional style. Even the Pisces miniature sitting on my kitchen counter—the one I’d done as a favor to the show chairman—was technically a mass arrangement. I didn’t think I could do anything else.

The description of ‘free style’ in The Encyclopedia of Judging and Exhibiting Floriculture and Floral Artistry, by Esther Veramae Hamél—another book someone suggested I add to my rapidly-growing collection—was even more confusing. Free style, it said, served for a time as a floral transitional period.

Served for a time? Transitional? What did that mean?

“Are we sure there’s even such a thing as ‘free style’ anymore?”

When I put this question to the stressed out show chairman—a woman dangerously close to the end of her rope—all she could muster was a hollow-eyed stare. “Never mind,” I said, backing away as though she had a bomb strapped to her chest. “Forget I mentioned it.”

After pouring over dozens of books, it hit me: I was looking for a pattern, but there was none because no two free style arrangements are alike—they can be similar, but never alike.

There is a formula for doing a mass. Follow the formula, and you have a design you can point to and say, “That’s a mass arrangement.” But free style—free being the operative word here—meant I was ‘free’ to do anything as long as it wasn’t traditional. This arrangement, unlike the ones I’d done in the past, had to be completely original—something nobody had ever seen before. After chewing on that, I worried if I was free spirited enough to do a free style; as a child, I kept my crayons sharp and colored inside the lines.

The class title, ‘Alien Invasion,’ conjured up all sorts of images, none of which were particularly pleasant. Could I do a grotesque arrangement? Was that allowed? I had seen ugly arrangements over the years, assuming, of course, they were ugly by mistake, not ugly on purpose.

When the movie Alien came out in 1979, I was pregnant with my daughter Catie. After watching the previews, I made a mental note not to see the movie. Observing people being stalked by an alien, within the confines of a stranded space ship light years from earth, is not my idea of entertainment. But the worst part, especially for one gestating, was a scene where the alien gnawed its way out of an astronaut’s stomach.

How it got there is anybody’s guess, but I was thoroughly grossed out. These and other apparitions were making regular appearances in my head as I tried to come up with an idea for “Alien Invasion.”

Five days before the show, I remembered why I had been so reluctant to enter; my girls were coming home for spring break. Between making the signs, doing the small arrangement, and now a free style, their imminent arrival had completely slipped my mind. Now, I love my children, I really do, but of all weeks…I wanted to cry.

As soon as they arrived, it was straight to Blockbuster, where I loaded up on movies to keep them entertained while I tended to my flower show commitments, in other words, ignored them. Browsing the video store, I saw an old movie poster for Alien.

On Alien’s cassette rental box was another photo, which was obviously the extraterrestrial himself—I assume it was a man, when it comes to aliens, it’s hard to tell.

It was horrifying. I rented the movie.

“Oh, Mom, I don’t want to watch that,” said Frances, who still closes her eyes during the scary parts of Disney movies. (I didn’t think there were any.)

“Oo, I do,” said Catie, who can look at anything and had seen Poltergeist twice by the time she was six.

“This one’s for me,” I said.

After watching as much as I could stand—including the alien munching his way out of the man’s stomach—an idea began to emerge.

“Girls, I’ve gotta run an errand. I’ll be right back.”

“Where you going?” Frances sounded frantic. She knew “right back” could mean anything from fifteen minutes to fifteen hours.

“To look for an orb.” I was out the door before she could ask to tag along.

After an exhaustive search, I hadn’t found anything remotely resembling an orb. I didn’t care what color it was; like my mother, I could always spray paint it. Home Depot was my last stop. My expectation level at an all-time low, I was about to give up and go home when I saw it sitting on a shelf above the potting soil. A silver-colored, orb-shaped clay pot, slightly bigger than a football.

“Do you have another one of these?” I set the pot down on the counter.

“Haven’t seen one in this store,” said the friendly sales clerk. “But there might be one at our Northlake store. I’ll be happy to check for ya.” She did and there was. I asked that they hold it for me. “You need a pair, huh?”

“No, not really. I just need an extra in case I don’t break this one in the right place.” (I realized I might sound crazy and probably should’ve left it at no.)

I visited several florists, but only found roses, tulips, carnations, lilies—all the pretty stuff you send people who are sick, celebrating something, or dead.

Kit Pannill, a friend and fellow garden club member, suggested I come over and check out a flower growing on a vine behind her slat house. “If you’re looking for ugly, trust me, this is ugly,” she said. “It’s Aristolochia ringens. Looks like a meerschaum pipe, don’t you think?”

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a vagina, but even in water, it wilted ten minutes after I picked it. I kept looking.

“Is this a good time?” I asked, sticking my head in the door of the local floral wholesaler. It was after two o’clock, the place was dead.

“Sure, come on in.” The owner was sitting behind the counter tallying the day’s receipts. “Whatcha need?”

“I have no idea, but I’ll know it when I see it.” I donned one of the complimentary jackets hanging outside the cold storage and went in. I couldn’t stay long before I started to shiver, so I had to look fast. I didn’t see anything but the usual stuff and headed toward the door, which sticks from time to time, sending me into a panic, and that’s when I saw it. A flower so ugly it was beautiful, standing in a black bucket behind a bunch of sunny forsythia. If I’d seen one before, I didn’t remember. I lifted it out of the water. “What’s this?” I asked an employee culling Casablanca lilies in the corner.

“Protea banksia,” he said, his breath like smoke in the cold.

I was familiar with protea, but I had never seen one like this.

The oval head was bigger than my hand and covered in gray tentacles. The zig-zag shaped leaves resembled arms (or worse), ready to choke the life out of its prey. Perhaps it was my overactive imagination—or maybe I was in the early stages of hypothermia—but standing there in the cold, that Protea banksia was a dead ringer for the alien in Alien.

“You okay?” It was the manager.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I said, coming out of the fridge. “How long will this last?”

“In water?” I nodded. “Ten days, maybe longer.”

I bought three, just in case, along with a bunch of galax leaves and some mood moss, then headed home.

“Those are the ugliest flowers I’ve ever seen,” said Frances.

“Thank you. Ugly is exactly what they are supposed to be.”

“What’re you gonna do with them?”

“I’m going to put one in this pot, but first I have to break it,” I said, only to have her look at me like I had a screw loose. Twice in one day, I was on a roll. During the creative process, some things are better left unsaid. “Go see what your father’s doing,” I suggested.

I nestled the silver-colored pot in a terry cloth towel and tapped it with a hammer—not a hard tap; a medium tap, which didn’t phase it. I hit it again, and again. Nothing.

“Daddy wants to know what the hell you’re doing,” Frances said, popping back in the kitchen. “He’s trying to take a nap.”

“First of all, don’t say hell,” I said, knowing she had delivered Joe’s message verbatim. “Go tell Daddy…never mind. Tell Daddy I’ll be done in a minute.” I hit the pot again, a bit harder this time, and heard it break. My heart was beating so fast, I almost fainted.

Frances gasped. “You broke it.”

“I know I broke it.”

“Did you mean to?” She was standing beside me, eyes wide.

“I have a hammer in my hand. What do you think? Now get out of here before I use it on you.” She fled.

Hands shaking, I unwrapped the pot and, much to my delight, discovered it had broken perfectly. The fracture started at the top left and ran diagonally across the front to the bottom right, and up the back. I was so thrilled, I almost cried.

“Did you really tell Frances you were gonna hit her in the head with a hammer?” It was Catie.

“Not really, but sorta.”

She looked at the broken pot lying on the counter, then up at me.

“What are you doing, Mom?”

“I’m making a container for ‘Alien Invasion’.”

“Like the one on the poster?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. Can I watch?”

“It’s may,” I said.

“May? It’s April, Mom.”

“No, it’s ‘may’ I watch.” Lord, I sounded just like Mama. “And you may if you stay out of my way and promise not to talk.” I rearranged pieces on the towel, until I had the crack about two inches wide at the top, coming together at the bottom. Tongue depressor in hand, I smeared a noxious fast-drying glue over a six-inch piece of metal screen. “You gotta work fast when you use this stuff.”

“Need help?”

“Hold these two pieces steady while I put this in place.” Wearing a pair of rubber gloves, I pressed a piece of glue-smeared screen into the back of the broken pot. I repeated this process until I had the crack up the back patched, and the one in the front held permanently ajar. When I tried to remove my hands, both rubber gloves were stuck to the inside.

“Oops.” Catie laughed. “What are you gonna do?”

“Well, I think I’d better slip my hands out of these gloves.” It was no small task. I felt like a gynecologist. Once the whole thing dried, I cut the gloves open, slathered them with glue, and used them to line the container, making it more or less waterproof. It tilted a little to one side when I stood it up, but a bit of modeling clay attached to the bottom solved that problem. I stepped back to take a look.

It was perfect.

“Ooohee!” I high-fived Catie, then danced around the kitchen.

After a few twists and twirls, I turned to find Joe standing in the door.

“I should know better than to ask this question, but what in the hell are you doing?”

“Come look at this.” I showed him the orb. “Isn’t it amazing, I mean, look at that crack!” Unable to contain myself, I did a modified cheerleader jump.

“Calm down. What is it?”

“She lined it with her rubber gloves,” Catie said. Joe looked at her like she, too, was crazy.

“It’s an alien orb,” I said in earnest. “My container for ‘Alien Invasion’.”

“I thought you were doing that little thing over there.” He nodded toward the niche on the counter.

“I am, but I also got sucked into doing ‘Alien Invasion’.”

“And that’s your container—that thing with the crack in it?”

“Yeah, isn’t it great?” I couldn’t quit squirming. “Hallelujah!”

“You really are nuts,” he said, opening the fridge. “We got any pimento cheese?”

The morning of the show, Joe helped me transport my arrangements to The Society of the Four Arts Gallery.

“This is a piece of cake compared to moving those mass arrangements,” he said.

I agreed. The little bronze boy was sitting on my lap in my practice niche, while the alien was wedged between two pieces of foam rubber on the floor of the backseat.

Everything had to be passed by noon, and once an entry is passed, it may not be touched; if it keels over, you can brush it off and put it back on the pedestal, but it may not be judged and will be marked with the dreaded “For Display Only” sign. Perish the thought. I arrived a little after nine, figuring if the unthinkable happened, I’d have time to fix it. The judging started at one.

“Be back in a minute to get the alien,” I said.

“I’ll get it.” Joe reached into the backseat.

“No! Let me do it. If it gets bumped, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.”

“Fine. I’ll wait right here.” He folded his arms across his chest. He wasn’t looking for trouble.

“Look, I know I’m being a bitch, but it’ll all be over in a couple of hours.”

“I’m good,” Joe said, turning on the radio.

I placed the bronze boy with the miniature mass arrangement in his bucket into its assigned niche, stepped back and studied it.

A passer appeared out of nowhere, clipboard in hand. “Ready to be passed?”

“No, not yet.” It wasn’t quite right, but I couldn’t decide why. I left it and headed back to the parking lot.

I found Joe leaning against his car, commiserating with other husbands. Without acknowledging any of them, I carefully lifted my alien out of the backseat and returned to the gallery.

“Ah, Mary?”

“Yeah,” I said without turning around.

“Good luck,” Joe said.

I was a nervous wreck, and he knew it.

“Call me. Win, lose, or draw?”

“I will.”

“Love you,” he said.

“Love you, too.”

Back inside, I navigated the crowd of committee members and others gathered around the gallery’s loading dock. Holding my arrangement high above my head, I weaved my way through the throng toward the main gallery.

“Surely you didn’t grow that?” It was one of the more high and mighty members of the horticulture committee.

“Of course I did,” I deadpanned. I may be a lowly flower arranger in the opinion of the horticulture snobs, but even I knew you couldn’t grow Protea banksia in south Florida.

“How sad,” she said.

“Sad?”

“That flowers have to die to be arranged.”

Had I not been protecting my alien, I’d have whacked her.

“You eat salads, don’t you?” Let her chew on that.

With my alien safely positioned on its pedestal and passed, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I knew I had given it my best shot. There is nothing pretty about an alien invasion, and I wanted my arrangement to convey that. The ugliest flower my daughter had ever seen had to look like it was breaking out of the orb-shaped pot with the same savage intensity as the alien who ate its way out of the space traveller’s stomach. Now it was up to the judges.

The judges were either going to get it or throw up. Even without a statement of intent, they got it, and awarded it, in addition to a blue ribbon, the Harriet DeWaele Puckett Creativity Award. I was, needless to say, stunned.

As for the little bronze boy with the miniature mass in his bucket, I finally figured out what was bothering me about him. When I placed him in the niche, he was facing forward, everything about the design looked static and contrived. I turned him slightly toward the back left corner, walking away from the viewer; this simple adjustment made all the difference. It not only added more interest, but gave the two fish hanging off the end of his pole greater visibility. After all, the entry was supposed to interpret Pisces—heaven forbid the judges miss that detail.

They didn’t. It, too, won a blue ribbon, and, to my utter amazement, Best in Show.

At the year-end meeting in May, I was presented with the Garden Club of Palm Beach’s Flower Arranging Award. I gave the flower show chairman all the credit, for without her shameless begging, I’d have never entered either class. Like my mother, she had forced me to do what I didn’t think I could, and had she not, I’d probably still be doing mass arrangements, or maybe none at all.

What ended up on the pedestal in “Alien Invasion,” was exactly what I’d seen in my head and represented a major breakthrough in my perception of flower arranging as an art form. It also changed how I viewed the vase, which in this case, was every bit as important as the plant material. Without that carefully crafted crack, oozing moss and galax leaves, it would have been just Protea banksia in a pot.

The boundaries as I knew them had changed, and it wasn’t about putting pretty flowers in a pretty vase anymore.