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Mill Creek MetroParks abloom in flowers at annual exhibition
By Sean Barron
YOUNGSTOWN
Many people are familiar with the appealing beauty and color that define Fellows Riverside Gardens. This weekend, though, a taste of those qualities and fragrances can be found inside.
That’s because the nearby D.D. and Velma Davis Educational and Visitors Center is the setting for the Garden Forum of the Greater Youngstown Area’s annual June flower show.
The free, two-day event continues from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today in the visitors center, 123 McKinley Ave.
Among the people who likely will enjoy the flower show are those about to get hitched, because it offers entries from four classifications under the heading, “Wedding bells are ringing.”
Several tables in the wedding portion have as a theme designs that feature various white-lily arrangements with creative backdrops, most of which received first,- second- and third-place ribbons as well as honorable mention.
Examples include a vertical row of six stacked lilies, and a light-brown cylindrical tube with openings in the middle and at the top from which white lilies with small purple splotches protrude.
The show also has a horticulture portion that contains 98 entries that were judged similarly to their wedding-style counterparts.
Those flowers had to have been in a garden at least three months to be considered, noted Rose Marie Roth, the garden forum’s past president and one of three event judges. That prevents people from simply buying, then entering flowers, she said.
For her part, Roth received several ribbons for entries that included pansies and a vinca vine.
“Once you get it started, it grows pretty well,” she said of the vine.
Roth’s choices weren’t restricted to those two, however. Others for which she received ribbons or recognition were a wild geranium with a purple-pink hue; a yarrow (a small flower that comes in several colors that can be dried and used in arrangements); a deutzia, which comes from a bush and has small purple-and-white blooms on each stem; and a potentilla, a flower from a small bush with yellow blooms about 1 inch in diameter.
Other eye-catching offerings at the show include a set of large red lilies, red coral bells, roses of varying sizes and colors, and hosta leaves, one of which is about 10 inches in diameter.
The unusually wet spring affected the show mainly because the continual rain threw off many flowers’ regular blooming cycles, Roth explained.
“Some things came out earlier, and other things came out later than normal,” she added.
The Garden Forum of the Greater Youngstown Area hosts about five flower shows each year, including a late-summer one at the Canfield Fairgrounds, noted Millie Campean, one of two event organizers. The other was Esther Bertch.
The garden club has been putting on such shows since the 1960s, Campean added.