- December 14, 2025
Members used napkins, ice skates and beer pitchers in their pieces.
Carla Topper was the center of a group of cheering women, all eagerly asking her the same question — “How did you do it?”
Set up behind her was a her blue-ribbon winning piece for the “Horrah for the USA” category at the Ormond Beach Garden Club’s Sweetheart Tea and Garden Show. Napkins decorated with American flags, red-painted dry palmetto leaves and patriotic paper plates were a part of her first place display.
“I was poking around one evening, and I found those napkins from a party we had five years ago,” Topper said. “We’re not allowed to alter plant material in any way, unless it’s dried. So I went to my neighbor’s yard, picked a palmetto and dried it.”
Five total categories of plant displays crowded the center of The Casements, where the club holds its shows and meetings. Throughout the rest of the historic house were plants for sale from The Florida Garden Pit, tea and cookies to eat and an area where single-plants were judged. Some of the same plants had been around for 15 years.
“I’m really good with single plants, but not with arrangements,” OBGC Member Virginia Suater said. “I want to put more and more stuff in there, and it ends up looking like an old-fashioned floral arrangement.”
