As part of their community outreach program, members of the Twin Valleys Garden Club conducted a “Michaelmas Celebration” for residents and counselors at Camphill Soltane on Sept. 24.
Camphill Soltane, Glenmoore, is a vibrant community made up of young adults and adults with special needs and full-time residential volunteers and families who live, learn and work together.
Garden club members conducted workshops at five different stations throughout the event. The goal was to share basic flower arranging techniques. Work stations were manned by club members. The most ambitious endeavor of the day was having every student participate in creating a large grapevine four-season wreath. The wreath was fashioned with preserved seed pods and herbs and flowers with additional ribbon and yarn enhancements.
The completed wreath was given a place of honor at the new Soltane Store. Located on Bridge Street in Phoenixville, near Soltane’s popular Breads and Spreads Bakery and Cafe, Soltane Store offers organic dry goods and handcrafted, locally-made gifts.
Other work stations at the fall event included instruction in table arrangements using fresh flowers from Soltane’s garden and those of garden club members. These are being used on the dinner tables of Soltane’s residential homes.
A third station was devoted to arranging in the Ikebana style to encourage students in self-expression using few branches or flowers in accordance with time-honored techniques. To encourage creativity individual spice bouquets were created by weaving dried fall materials into flower shapes for display.
The final station was assembling potpourri sachets to create scented bags of dried herbs, flowers, fruit and essential oils as take away mementoes of the day’s activities. Garden club members stitched small potpourri bags for this purpose.
Events ran from 10 a.m. to noon with more than two hours of hands-on activities for the participants. During the morning, garden club members photographed each step at every station to create picture tutorials so that participants could recreate the projects in the future with the tutorials as guides.
Twin Valleys Garden Club members who had been collecting and drying plant materials from their home gardens for weeks also supplied the various non-floral materials such as ribbons, twine, sachet bags, containers and floral tape and wire. Each station had member consultants who worked behind the scenes prior to the event to coordinate fellow club members in their respective duties and assemble all materials needed for any particular station.
Approximately 20 active Twin Valleys Garden Club members were involved and 40 Soltane residents, graduates and staff participated.
For more information on Twin Valleys Garden Club, including its mission, community outreach projects, and membership, readers may email twinvalleys@aol.com. Current members hail from Chester Springs and the surrounding areas.
