Sunday, August 26, 2012
By ELISE McKEOWN SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
Visitors to Mill Creek MetroParks Fellows Riverside Gardens are being treated to a colorful display of flowers, fruits and vegetables this weekend.
Included are well-known varieties of each, such as roses, tomatoes and grapes. But other less-familiar plants, such as fuzzy wuzzy cucumbers, are on display, as well.
They all are entries in the Men’s Garden Club of Youngstown’s 48th annual horticultural show.
Georgia Schinker of Boardman stopped by Saturday to see the entries of people she knew.
“I love dahlias, so I will go anywhere just to look at the beautiful dahlias,” Schinker said.
The show is outstanding, she said.
“It’s beautiful, a lot of nice stuff. They’re showing professionalism here.”
Schinker was happy to see that her granddaughter, Cameron Kuharich, took first place in her category with an entry of three candy onions.
Stephanie Gyomber of Youngstown has attended the dahlia show at Fellows in the past, but not the annual horticultural show.
“It’s just beautiful,” she said. “They’re growing things we don’t even know we can grow. They’re really gorgeous.”
Her favorite entry was a deep-red cockscomb flower.
“They don’t even look real,” she said. “These fascinate me. Those, I have to say, are my favorite. You have to touch, because they don’t even look like they’re real. Gorgeous.”
Anyone may participate in the show. Members of the Men’s Garden Club are available to help participants with their displays, said Dan Miller, member. They offer advice such as the plant’s stem is too long so it won’t fit in the display bottle, or to remove some leaves.
“They will help you display as best they can,” Miller said.
The show is meant to be educational, he added.
“It’s basically to learn from the people that get all the blue ribbons. Why are they getting the ribbons? How are they getting the ribbons? Some of us have black thumbs, and some people have green thumbs,” he said. “So we tend to go to the people with green thumbs to find out what they know. The primary goal is to teach people, so they can move up into the blue ribbons.”
The show continues from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.