One year when Daphne O’Brien showed up in her Fishing Creek Flower Farm van, she told the members of the Edgecombe Garden Club she was sorry, “but I just don’t have anything.”

Then O’Brien opened the van’s doors “and it looked like a gangster funeral,” recalled Jessie Smoot, a club member.

Michael O’Brien delivered some zinnias Thursday to Kitty Bridgers’ house where members will pick up flowers to make arrangements for the 17 sites on Saturday’s Home and Garden Tour.

It’s part of the Tarboro-Edgecombe History Days celebration that kicks off tonight at the Blount-Bridgers House.

Tarboro has been around a long time. The town was settled in 1733 and chartered in 1760. That’s worth a toast.

The Edgecombe Garden Club has been around since 1938. It meets once a month and invites someone knowledgeable about plants to share their know-how.

When the 32 members are not digging in the dirt, they are tending to the shade garden on McBryde Trail at the west end of the Town Common or decorating the outside of the Blount-Bridgers House for Christmas.

Some members use their own flowers for the arrangements. Others, like the talented Charlotte Edmondson cut goldenrod from “the ditch bank.”

“I know where everything is blooming,” said Edmondson, who lives about five miles out of Tarboro.

This year Edmondson is making arrangements for the Porter House and Armstrong Kitchen in Whitakers owned by James Proctor. It is either the oldest or second-oldest standing house in Edgecombe County.

She also will make an arrangement for The Cedars, owned by Calvin and Dolly Anderson outside Leggett.

“I love doing flowers,” Edmondson said. “I haven’t had any formal training – most of our members probably haven’t – but I know we just love fixing the flowers. We love the flowers.”

It shows.

A $15 green ticket gains you access to each site.

It’s an effort that has raised about $5,500 the last two years for three worthy causes:

 • to Preservation NC for Coolmore Plantation.

 • to Edgecombe Community College Foundation for a scholarship.

 • to the Blount-Bridgers House for its gardens.

“Whatever money we raise goes right back into the community,” said Karen Andrus, a member of the club. “That’s three diverse but wonderful projects.”

Andrus is responsible for getting this weekend activity started four years ago. As executive director of the ECC Foundation, she was searching for a fund-raiser. She came up with an antique show and appraisal fair that was growing, “but it was a massive amount of work,” she explained.

So, Extravaganza has evolved into History Days. It means more Civil War-era attractions, some Indian dancing, a salute to the black community’s heritage – plus arts and crafts and even a boat like the kind of craft that worked on the Tar River way back when.

To each his own, and the Home and Garden Tour remains popular. We get to go inside some of the area’s most interesting homes and take in awesome gardens.

Make sure to notice the floral arrangements. They were made with love, love of flowers and love of community.

W. Terry Smith is editor of The Daily Southerner.