By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
The holidays are the perfect time to display beautiful winter floral arrangements for friends and family to see. They make for the loveliest additions to any room of the house to add a touch of nature indoors. For Sherborn’s Boggestow Garden Club, this time of year means dozens of opportunities to practice their arrangement skills. And what better way to inspire the community’s gardeners than to invite Lifetime Master Gardener and flower show judge, Betty Sanders, to create five different arrangements for the group?
With a huge storage bin and table full of greens, Sanders showed the Garden Club how to make the slightest adjustments to any arrangement to suit Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year, and how to ensure the floral and greens last nearly two months.
As she carefully crafts an indoor/outdoor floral arrangement, Betty Sanders, a nationally accredited flower show judge, discusses her career as a gardener with Sherborn’s Garden Club.
As she stuck small branches of a cedar and pine trees into a chunk of wet floral foam, Sanders told the audience about her degree and work in chemistry, which eventually led to a career in gardening. Admitting that she never intended to have a career as a floral designer, Betty revealed that she was just one course away from becoming a master flower show judge.
One of Sanders’ first lessons to the audience was that so many of her materials come from her own garden. Even in colder months, nature in New England is bountiful, and flora from one’s backyard can and should be incorporated into arrangements.
Sanders also taught the group what healthy floral foam looks like. Healthy foam is green and placed – not submerged – in water, whereas floral foam that is somewhat brown and discolored suggests that the petroleum in it is breaking down and will kill any flowers or greens.
As she chatted about her experiences in horticulture and floral school, her husband’s career change to become a mystery novelist, and some of her arrangement mishaps, Sanders created five different winter arrangements, including one using a pair of old ice skates to hold the greenery.
“I firmly believe that people come to garden club for an education, whether it’s this education,” Sanders said, holding up the arrangement she was working on, “or an education about soil or anything like that. You all stay, though, for the friendship. You stay for the friends you make, the people you meet, and the fact that you get to have these wonderful relationships that you may not have had otherwise.”
The Boggestow Garden Club always welcomes new members – even those who have little to no experience gardening. The only thing the club requires is a desire to learn and meet new people.
After finishing her demonstration, Sherborn’s Boggestow Garden Club members asked Lifetime Master Gardener Betty Sanders questions about their own gardens.
