by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

On Saturday, numerous floral arrangements were on display for the community’s delight as part of the Claremont Garden Club’s fourth ever flower show, hosted at the Woman’s Club of Claremont building on 343 W. Twelfth Street.

The show opened to the public at 1 p.m. and featured all sorts of colorful, playful, and even miniature displays created by Southern California and Claremont natives. The show also featured categories which adults, children and organizations entered in including ‘succulent centerpiece,’ ‘foliage,’ ‘in the Japanese manner,’ repurposed junk,’ and ‘a dozen roses’ to name a few.

In total, 51 arrangements were displayed at Saturday’s show according to garden club treasurer Beth Benjamin who shared the floral competition was judged more like a wine tasting. Judges went off a form and filled out met criteria for each display instead of pitting each arrangement against one another. As a result, multiple displays in the same category took home a blue ribbon.

“We have lots of blue ribbons as you can see because there’s lots of nice ones,” Benjamin said.

The event was also a reopening of sorts for the garden club. This was the first time the club hosted a flower show since the pandemic uprooted their world in 2020. Though the show had about 20 less entries this time around, Benjamin said the club was just happy to be back hosting events.

“We did not try and keep up our monthly programs on Zoom or YouTube like a lot of groups did. So for us, we’re just starting our in person things again,” Benjamin said. “It’s so nice to be able to see people in person again…It feels like throwing the doors open for spring and we hope more people came to the flower show and got interested in coming to the club.”

The club’s vice president Patty Lindberg, said the organizations events weren’t outright canceled, just put on hold for a while. Recently on March 9, the club held its first monthly meeting in nearly two years and plan to host a second one in April, and a third in May.

As she walked the show hall, it was clear that Lindberg was excited. Excited about the future of the garden club, and for life to finally be getting back to normal.

“All the normal activities that we used to enjoy, it seems like things are opening up,” Lindberg said. “People need that, they need the activities.”

The garden club’s next major event will be the garden tour, which will include the viewing of six local Claremont gardens. Tickets are $20 and include both a same-day and future admission ticket to the California Botanic Gardens. Proceeds from the event will go back to the garden club.

For information on the Claremont Garden Club and/or its latest events, visit claremontgardenclub.org.