GREENVILLE — The Darke County Association of Garden Clubs held a Garden Highlights at the 163rd Great Darke County Fair on Sunday. It featured three presentations to help those who may be interested in entering the flower show in the future. The presentations included a how-to on design, tips on exhibits, and edible animal displays.
Sisters Eliza Wysong and Olivia Wysong-Kauffman, Butterflies Junior Garden Club members past and present, created an “edible animal” using fruits and vegetables. The latter consisted of watermelon, cabbage, cucumbers, kiwi, grapes, and carrots with skewers and toothpicks as part of the mechanics.
For the presentation, Wysong and Wysong-Kauffman created a peacock utilizing a small watermelon as the body, cucumber for the neck and head, along with cucumber slices for feathers, a carrot for the beak, with kiwi, grapes, and cabbage also feathers.
The sisters showed those in the audience how a lot of the work is trial and error. For example, they soon learned over various projects to use the pointed end of the skewer to poke a hole in the watermelon. The skewer is then turned around, the rounded end poked into the previously created hole, and the spike now used to secure cucumbers and grapes along the back of the body.
Toothpicks were used to secure cabbage for wings along the side of the body and to secure the eyes and head feathers. Scissors were used as aids to push the toothpicks fully into the body.
The cabbage was also used to hide the mechanics of the design.
For Wysong-Kauffman, the biggest challenge is transporting a finished piece to a location. She also explained that while Pinterest inspires, so does standing in the grocery store looking for something that reminds her of an animal.
“It’s a fun thing to do with kids at home,” continued Wysong-Kauffman as children learn how to cut and what the audience shared as learning “patience.”
The sisters have created everything from parrots to a pirate ship, noting there are a lot of design options when it comes to edible animals.
The Butterflies Junior Garden Club had something special to celebrate during the 2019 Flower Show at the 163rd annual Great Darke County Fair. This year marks 35 years for the junior club all under the direction of Charlene Thornhill.
Thornhill and the garden club paid special tribute to the juniors in the form of a display showcasing the 120 members along with photos to welcome one and all at the coliseum.
There’s still time for former Butterflies to stop by, check off their name, and leave messages they were there. And since the theme this year is “Art in Blooms” the current Butterflies have created several related works from paint pouring to animal prints that include a collage of wooden flowers. The junior division is the largest department in the state of Ohio, so be sure to visit them at the Great Darke County Fair in the basement of the coliseum.
