On Friday, March 15 Hills and Dales and other exhibitors covered the space inside the Cobb Galleria Centre's Hall A and B for the opening day of the 2013 Southeastern Flower Show and Antiques event, according to the LaGrange News, but several garden clubs around the Peach state were the ones wowing attendees with juried hat entries comprised of a multitude of different floral items.
This particular judged event included submissions from Ellen Wilkins Wiley and Diane Festa of Atlanta's Peachtree Garden Club, who named their entry the "Silver Anniversary," as a salute to the Southeast Flower Show's 25th anniversary.
Jeaneal Enterkin of Roswell, a member of the Green Thumb Garden Club, chose a cocktail hat as her Interpretive Design, dubbing it "Make Mine A Double...Darling," as she wanted to pay tribute to the Tom Cruise movie from two decades ago called "Cocktail."
The Camellia Garden Club of Marietta was also represented, with their design entry titled "The Faerie Queene," which they stated was inspired by a poem of the same name by Edmund Spenser and shared a common theme with the flower show: For "delight" and not for "profit."
The Piedmont Garden Club's Interpretive Design entry "What's Old is New Again--Hats Off to Our Founders," was designed with the group's first president, Mrs. Hugh Richardson, in mind, as they sought to imagine what she might have worn to garden club meetings during the era in which she presided.
Interestingly, this particular entry's simplicity is explained with a reminder to look to America's bleak past: the depression era. Mrs. Richardson and her fellow garden club members "strove to bring beauty into their lives through gardening during one of our nation's most bleak and uncertain times," the entry's statement of purpose proclaims.
And the women in the Piedmont Garden Club today seek to also create floral beauty with a similar "simple elegance" they feel is more suitable in today's equally uncertain economic climate.
In addition, there was also the "Paper White Narcissus to Silver Dusty," Interpretive Design entry for the 2013 Southeastern Flower Show. This particular design had a plethora of items, bountiful and colorful and very robust in presentation. And where the Piedmont Garden Club sought to highlight a frugality borne of necessity and the times; this entry seemed to remind gardeners of the joy in living in times of plenty.
For a glimpse of each club's entry, check out the slideshow here.
The 2013 Southeastern Flower Show and Antiques event will be ongoing throughout this weekend, with featured guests appearing every half-hour or hour on the main stage, demo stage and/or lecture rooms within the Cobb Galleria Centre.
The March 15-17 event is drawing a large crowd, but there is no charge for parking, and the volunteers and Southeastern Horticultural Society's staff is doing a great job about moving ticket sale lines quickly.
For a complete listing of all the speakers and the topics being covered at no charge during the event click here. However, admittance to the Room 103 lecture topic guest events (like the P. Allen Smith lecture at 2 p.m. on Saturday), will command a $10 fee on top of the $18 one-day entry cost to the flower show.
Read the interviews with guest lecturers Tara Guerard of Tara Guerard Soiree, a leading southeastern wedding planner, and James Farmer, the author of "A Time to Plant," by clicking here.
Lastly, antiques are being featured at this year's Atlanta flower show for the first time, and there are over 30 dealers giving visitors to the event a peek at jewelry, flatware, hollow ware, and rugs as well as French and other antique furniture at no additional cost.
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