VAN WERT — Colorful flowers and other meticulously grown plants adorned the showroom at the Wassenberg Art Center Saturday and Sunday as the 56th annual Peony Festival Jubilee Flower Show was held.
“It’s a judged and juried show,” said Linda Hoffman, treasurer and publicity executive committee member for the show.
That means there are a lot of rules and regulations contestants must follow such as house plants are required to be grown by the contestant for at least three months, horticulture entries such as flowers, fruit and shrubs have to be grown by the exhibitor, and plants entered into different categories might be required to be cut to specific sizes.
There are many different divisions and plants species contestants may enter including peonies, roses, irises and even garden produce. An entry of strawberries won blue ribbon in the garden produce category this year.
There is a special category for children ages 11 to 16, Fairy Gardens. The contestants take a container and make diorama, using different plants and decorations, depicting whatever scenes their imaginations conjure.
Each year the show has a special invitational category that challenges exhibitors artistically. This year the category was interpretation of a painting through flowers and decoration.
Colleen Snyder and Kim Owens won first prize in the invitational category for taking a painting of a lighthouse, seaside scene and using a white and green flower arrangement set in a pot resembling a boat to match the painting.
“I checked out the painting from the Decatur, Indiana, library,” Snyder said. “People get tired of paintings, bring them to the library and you can check them out for three months.”
She chose the painting because it had a specific line design elements.
“Your focal point of the painting is the lighthouse,” Snyder said. “Then it drops to the floral [the bottom of the painting] and that’s what the flowers do, too.”
The entry was a challenge to make because the flowers have to meet certain height requirements or points will be deducted, she said.
The overall best in show for the 56th annual Jubilee Flower Show was a display of lilies set in the base and top of a piece of driftwood titled “Up, Up and Away.”
The Peony Festival Jubilee Flower Show is sponsored by the Evergreen Garden Club, Gardeners of Van Wert County and the Wren Garden Club. Anyone can enter the show.
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