Flower design is more than a pretty vase
By Susan Nienow CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Page Dowdy/Chesterfield Observer Flower design judge Jean Stanton (left) gives Leslie Dobson some tips on how to improve her arrangement during a workshop given by the Salisbury Garden Club. The finished arrangements were judged at the club's meeting the following day.

If you've ever bought a bunch of flowers, put them in a vase and then stood back and wondered what was wrong with them, you know why classes in flower arranging are called "design" classes. When the mums droop the afternoon your company arrives, you learn the importance of choosing "fresh" flowers and conditioning greens and flowers cut from your yard.

These are a few of the basics taught through garden clubs and continuing education classes in the county's schools and community colleges, and at local horticultural centers. But for some, learning a little isn't enough.

Julia Clevett, master judge, moved to the United States from England with her husband and two sons 30 years ago. She couldn't get a work permit, was asked to join a garden club and "took a red" ribbon with her first floral design.

Her early success eventually led her to achieve the highest level of accreditation for floral judges and designers.

In 2002, she was chosen to represent the United States at the Royal Horticulture Society Chelsea Flower Show in London. Her arrangement had a seven-foot high background, and she needed a taxi and her own car to transport her supplies. The arrangement was assembled onsite.

"Became addicted, didn't I?" Clevett joked dryly with her still evident English accent.

Surprisingly, among the addicted, floral design can get pretty competitive. Sometimes the competition is trying to complete the design before the petals fall off the flowers, and other times it is to walk across the parking lot carrying the design without dropping it.

Technically, designers don't compete against each other; but rather, judges evaluate each design according to the rules set forth for that flower show and the design division. Local garden clubs accept designs and horticulture exhibits for judging at many of their meetings. This is where it all starts.

Ellen Pinnow, a relatively new member of Salisbury Garden Club, discovered when she takes a design class, "I revert back to about age 10 so I make sure I follow all of the rules. I think that's the wrong thing for me."

There are plenty of rules for her to follow. The Handbook for Flower Shows by National Garden Clubs is nearly 300 pages with no pictures or drawings. It covers growing, staging, exhibiting and judging. The section devoted to exhibiting is less than 50 pages, but is all about rules. Even the designs termed "creative" or "abstract creative" have boundaries.

Clevett is on the National Garden Club's committee to rewrite the handbook on design to incorporate changes. Published every 10 years, a new one takes effect July 1. In the intervening years, the committee works on annual updates.

As a master judge, Clevett teaches judging as well as design. The symposiums are two and a half days, and Clevett is booked through June 2008 with some dates already filled for 2009. She travels throughout the country and has even taught in South America. Her expenses are met, and there is usually an honorarium.

Pinnow is hoping to take the Flower Show School that Clevett is teaching at the Bon Air Community Center on March 19-21.

"I love to teach," Clevett said, and added that teaching "thrills you in different ways." She also observed that the wonderful thing about garden clubs is the diversity of the people. "But you'll never get skinny in a garden club," she says, since they're all good cooks.

However, not all designers are interested in entering flower shows. Bonnie McKeever "makes arrangements when I need to," and adds, "I'm just not a competitive person."

But she enjoys design enough to have taken three six-week design classes from John Tyler Community College. "We had a ball," she said. She has also taken four design classes from Judy Binns through the Salisbury Garden Club.

When McKeever designs, she doesn't have a picture in her head of what it should look like; she "just goes somewhere" in her mind.