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Flowers ‘Do the Twist’ at Mill Creek
Photo
Sister Mary Cunningham of Youngstown looks at floral arrangements Sunday at the Garden Forum Spring Flower Show in Fellows Riverside Gardens in Mill Creek MetroParks. The center also hosted a dahlia show Sunday.
By SEAN BARRON
The Garden Forum Spring Flower Show
Gallery
The Garden Forum Spring Flower show Sunday, May 16 at Fellows Riverside Gardens in Youngstown.
YOUNGSTOWN
If you think that “Do the Twist” and “Sixteen Tons” are popular oldies tunes, you’re right.
But those songs by Chubby Checker and Tennessee Ernie Ford, respectively, are colorful in more ways than one: The titles also are two of five categories that made up the two-day Garden Forum Spring Flower Show on Saturday and Sunday in Mill Creek Park.
The other three were “All that Jazz,” “Charleston” and “Stars & Stripes.”
Participants submitted flower-themed entries in the design and horticulture portions of the annual show in the D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor Center at Fellows Riverside Gardens, 123 McKinley Way.
Many were awarded first-, second- and third-place ribbons as well as ones for honorable mention, noted Beverly Italiano, a volunteer coordinator and receptionist at the center. First-place finishes in each category also were to receive a special award, Italiano said.
Sponsoring the show was the Garden Forum of the Greater Youngstown Area Inc., which makes up about 42 garden clubs in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.
A red second-place ribbon was given to Rose Marie Roth in the “Stars & Stripes” portion for a piece she designed that contained a vase with an etching of the Liberty Bell, as well as several flowers such as baby’s breath and a star made from velvet — all in red, white and blue.
“I accumulated things over a period of time,” said Roth, a retail assistant with Fellows and president of the garden forum.
Roth added that the category’s title reminded her of the flag and other symbols denoting patriotism and built her creation around that theme.
The entries remained on display Sunday at the center, and samples from the “Twist” portion included a decorative stand with iron shapes that wrapped around one another that was complemented with alium, a purple flower in the onion family.
One participant received a ribbon in the “Sixteen Tons” category for coming up with an interpretation of a building under construction. That piece featured cardboard tubes painted silver, a block of wood, a spice rack, plastic foam and leaves from a house plant called sanseveria.
In another area, numerous bottles in the horticulture category were filled with colorful flowers that included columbine, pansies, bright pink bleeding hearts, leaves from hosta plants, azaleas, white viburnum and euphorbia.
At the same time, several members of the 7-year-old Mahoning Valley Dahlia Society were selling numerous types of the popular daisylike flower for $3 and $4.
Dahlias originated mainly in southern Mexico and Guatemala and come in more than 1,000 varieties, noted Carl Chuey, a member of the society, which lists as part of its mission encouraging interest in cultivating and increasing awareness of the beauty of the flowers .
“Once people have seen them, people become entranced with them, but you have to see them,” Chuey said of the odorless flowers’ countless color combinations and shapes.
The same might be said of their height and width. Some grow to 12 feet and can reach 16 inches wide, Chuey noted, adding that they come in all colors except blue.
“There’s so many varieties, [at least] one everyone likes,” said Dave Habeger, the society’s treasurer. “You can’t see a dahlia show and not see something you love.”