Pick your Floral Arrangement and Design at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s Adult Education courses or Virginia Museum – “Fine Arts and Flowers“ this week.

As the season winds down I look for ways to balance my life after 10 months of garden development and have a different kind of fun. So where do I turn?

The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden of course! www.lewisginter.org. On Tuesday nights for 5 weeks I grab my pruners and join Mimi Cassick a real profession and fun teacher for an hour and a half of play. I have also learned that floral design

• Is a meticulous exacting art form,
• That I am used to wider sweeps and bigger scales of pruning and design, and
• That I don’t have much patience.

While I cut and wire and stab flowers stems into floral block, it’s fun to talk with other classmates and learn about what more is happening with flowers in Richmond.

The Virginia Museums “Fine Arts and Flowers” week www.VMFA.museum runs thru this Sunday. Garden Clubs of Virginia create and display 76 floral arrangements throughout the museum along with seminars and luncheons.

Participants have explicit guidelines for the size, shape and style of their arrangements. Each design must translate and imitating a piece of museum art, which is displayed nearby.

Think of it…. As you walk inside, 76 vases filled with red, pink, yellow, blue, and orange flowers and stems contorted in all manner of shapes, greet you; while outside the leaves fall and plants go to sleep.

Floral Gallery

Mimi Cassick

Christie lives in Manakin Sabot , Virginia where she manages a 3 acre garden. Her blogs are written from her 35 years as a personal and professional gardener.