Canton Garden Club: April immersive curriculum

By Guest Columnist Jessica Stein

The Canton Garden Club has been blessed this season with an immersive curriculum in flower arrangement, ultimately culminating in the display of mother and daughter team Mostly Martha’s Linda Sowell and Elizabeth Williams. 

You must expect us all to be masters now, and here we’ll try to relay what Mostly Martha’s and others taught us: Classic floral arranging always advises a few maxims regarding height, shape and color. Color is fairly obvious and quite subjective; give in to your aesthetic preferences. 

When it comes to height, reach for the visual value of thirds. Three simple heights (low, middle, high) please the eye, and those three divided to three again (nine total) scream abundance. At last the shape, like color, can depend on the beholder, but remember you can bend, break, snap, twist, staple, tape, spray or simply adjust at an angle. Green fronds and brown sticks create background for more vibrant hues and contours.

Adjusting flowers to stay at a certain height and angle has driven more than one of us to madness. While past teachers introduced us to the spiked frogs of yore, Elizabeth demonstrated a woven willow disc set atop a bowl. She explained nearly any flexible branch can be used – then deck your floral load according to the previous advice. 

These home-woven discs set the garden club ablaze with enthusiasm; vintage frogs are hard to come by. Mostly Martha’s exhorted again: use what you have. Beauty comes from the flowers in your yard, whether wild or cultivated, on trees or in bushes. But, if you’d like a little boost, Mostly Martha’s storefront has persisted off Highway 51 in Ridgeland for almost forty years.

This month’s presentation was hosted by Labonne Corcoran, Cheyenne Stewart and Brenda Hyde. They provided a wonderful assortment of goodies, and afterwards, down to business. We hope to have seen you all out at the Keep Canton Beautiful community clean up Saturday, March 23! If you missed it and still want to help, please reach out for member make-up days!