Letters From Flower Show Chair Diana Drummey

LETTER FROM THE CHAIR: Welcome to the 2017 Coronado Flower Show!

Posted March 31, 2017

It all starts with a group of floral and horticultural enthusiasts in August to create the theme for the upcoming year’s Coronado Flower Show.  These ladies and gentleman banter around several titles relating to Coronado… the sea, the military, red, white and blue and of course floral designs and horticultural presentations.

This year’s theme “Our Family Tree…Out on a Limb” did not come easy, but we enjoyed the process. The flower show committee is always looking for new ideas and themes for the coming year. If you have a wonderful idea, theme, or concept reach out the flower show committee chair and share your ideas, this is a community event.

The Coronado Floral Association kicked off the season getting ready for this year’s flower show by creating a new webpage layout  www.coronadoflowershow.org. Take a few minutes to view the creative and informative webpage and please share your feedback.

As you have been roaming around town doing errands, getting the kids to school or heading to work the city is starting to freshen up with color and beauty as it prepares for the flower show.  The Coronado Flower Show sign has been posted in Spreckels Park, homes are getting fresh flowers, succulents, trees, and shrubs planted, lawns are being mowed, trees trimmed, roses pruned, and weeds pulled.   Yes, it is home front judging time in the City of Coronado.  You will see many volunteers roaming the streets with bags of supplies and their phone cameras out, capturing the beauty of your home and yes, passing judgement on your home front.

This year the home front judging committee fine-tuned the process to judge each home and document the ribbon given to each home address with a computer program. Once all the homes have been judged a special committee then judges the final top homes in Coronado.  All this information is then uploaded to the Eagle/Journal to share with the community.  As the saying goes, “It takes a village…a village of community volunteers to walk each street to judge each home, condominium complex, apartment building, church, public buildings and schools.

The home front judging is just one aspect of the Coronado Flower Show’s epic display of activity. It takes a week for the tents to go up, tables and chairs to be set, tables clothes draped, electricity plugged in and the stages set to accept floral and horticultural displays.

Coronado Flower Show is a Standard Flower Show as defined by the National Garden Club’s Handbook for Flower Shows.  The show must have horticulture and design sections with an emphasis on fresh plant material. You will see no silk or fake flowers in any of the designs, but you may see dried, painted or manipulated plant material in the designs.

As a Standard Flower Show and those involved in the planning of the show, we want to educate the public about flower shows, tickle people’s interest in horticulture and floral design as well as provide amazing themes to express their creativity with plant material.

This year’s theme has provided fun titles to stimulate the many floral designers: Men’s Section-A Few Leaves Short of a Full Branch, Designs: Family Game Night, Miniatures: The Little Ones, Pictures Boxes: Boughs Break but Roots Run Deep, Tables: Family Gatherings and Celebrations. The Men’s Section is always lots of fun to see how the gentlemen of Coronado interpret the flower show theme and bring in their [floral] designs.  There are always plenty of space for men’s section, take the time this year and get involved and show your creative side.

This year we have several new vendors and educational vendors to share and educate visitors about horticulture, floral design, gardening, and your family tree. With the theme, The Chula Vista Genealogy Society will be there to help you search your family tree.  The San Diego Master Gardener Association will not only be at the show again to answer your garden, plant and tree questions, but also selling their birdhouses created by Master Gardeners. The Water Conservation Garden from Cuyamaca College and San Diego County Water Authority will be there each for one day and sharing a booth. New vendors are bringing in wonderful and creative yard art from My Rustic Garden, Rebecca Hillix-Garcia Succulents who just showed her talents at the San Diego Home Show, and fresh from the Master Gardener Spring Seminar Ex Libris garden books from Veronica Marshall.

Friday night the Islander Ladies of Coronado are hosting a movie for the kids dropping off their exhibits. Come bring the family, enter your exhibits and watch the movie, “Sing” under the stars in Spreckels Park.

The show cannot come together without the support of the Coronado Flower Association, Crown Garden Club and Bridge and Bay Garden Club as well as many other community groups, The Optimist Club of Coronado, The Lions Club of Coronado, Coronado Woman’s Club, Coronado Jr Woman’s Boy Scout Troop 801, CHS NROTC, Club, CHS Aquatics Booster Club, and the Coronado bands.

So many thanks are owed to the City of Coronado for their grant of over $40,000 which pays for the tents, equipment, and setup for the show’s presentation to the community. Not only does the city provide an amazing financial support, this year John D. Spreckels and Lawn Bowling will be debuting their programs along with the Senior Association of Coronado. The Coronado Arts Commission has returned with the amazing Florals by Locals, The Tree Committee and Public Works are back sharing their programs. A special singer of our National Anthem, Erica Trevino from the Coronado Police Department with kick off the show with opening remarks from Mayor Richard Bailey.

The show opens on Saturday April 8^th at 1pm to 5pm and Sunday the 9^th of April from 10am to 4pm. If you are entering exhibits come in on Friday the 7^th of April from 4pm to 7pm or Saturday the 9^th of April from 7am to 9:30am.

I am honored to be the Chair of this year’s Coronado Flower Show and I am looking forward to an amazing weekend. I invite you all to come out to this amazing tradition in such a wonderful community, Coronado whether you call it home, your summer place, your place of work, or your favorite weekend hangout, BUT come see this beautiful flower show.

 – Diana Drummey, Coronado Flower Show Chair 2017

LETTER FROM THE CHAIR: A Special Thanks

Posted March 31, 2017

SPECIAL THANKS

The Coronado Floral Association is grateful to the community of Coronado, its garden club members, horticulturalists, and floral designers for all their support over the last year to get this show set up to be the prize of Coronado.

Sincerest gratitude goes out to the City of Coronado staff and the city’s financial support for this yearly tradition in Coronado.

There are so many volunteers who walk the streets for home front judging, clerk the show judging, create designs, exhibit their horticulture plants and cut flowers, tent sit, sell entry tickets, make phone calls and are always willing to help whenever and wherever needed…. thank you so much.

Thanks to the Coronado community groups that provide help with the show: Boy Scout Troop 801, Coronado Optimist Club, Coronado Lion’s Club, Islander Ladies Club, Coronado Aquatics Booster Club, CHS NJROTC, Coronado Woman’s Club, Coronado Jr. Woman’s Club, Bridge and Bay Garden Club, and Crown Garden Club.

Thank you to local and across the bridge floral designers and nurseries for displaying their talents as invitational designers to enhance the show, Root 75 Flowers & Home, Coronado Flower Lady, Andersen Nursery, and independent designers Clivia Anderson, Spring Dyer, and Maribel Herrera Designs. Come in to the beer and wine garden which is generously sponsored by Coronado Brewing Company and thanks to John Weimann for creating this year’s graphic design cover of the Coronado Flower Show schedule.

 – Diana Drummey, Coronado Flower Show Chair 2017