2010 SPRING GARDEN SYMPOSIUM

‘It was a lovely day’

W. TERRY SMITH Editor

TARBORO — Lunch ran a few minutes over. That's what happens when you try to feed 220 people. Outside (with china and silverware no less).

But no one was complaining.

"I understand," said Bryce Lane, whose lecture "Do These Go? Creating Beautiful Container Combinations" began a few minutes later than scheduled.

No one at the Spring Garden Symposium Thursday at Calvary Episcopal Church complained about anything. Not even the 90-degree heat.

Janet Plasky left her Whiteville residence at 6 a.m. in order tobe in Tarboro by 9:30 a.m. for Pam Beck's presentation, "Let's Mix It Up: Mixed Border Design."

It was Plasky's birthday, and Beck gave her a plant, Blue Mist.

"I don't think it could have gone any better," said Candis Owens, who founded the event three years ago. "There were no hitches, and we didn't expect any."

Beck, the author and garden columnist from Wake Forest, was pleased.

"Some were taking notes," she said. "That's always a good sign."

After Beck's opening lecture, the attendees apparently liked what they saw among the 21 vendors that lined a closed-off Saint David Street. Commerce appeared brisk.

Then there was time to visit some of the six local gardens on a walking tour. Some stayed and took a tour of the Calvary's historic churchyard with parish historian Tom Miller and Jeff Kish of Bartlett Tree Experts.

"This church is so beautiful!" exclaimed Nancy Hinton of Raleigh. "I just love it. I'm having the best time. It's a treat."

Lane, host of the popular "In the Garden" show on UNC-TV, gave out plant stakes that promoted the show.

"If all I do is get your to try something different in a container, I will have accomplished my goal," he said. "You can put about anything in a container today."

Container gardening started in China more than 2,000 years ago, Lane said, and was refined by the Japanese into bonsai, the art of growing trees or woody plants in containers.

Attendees had a chance to visit the vendors or tour gardens until it was time for afternoon tea on the Blount-Bridgers House porch.

Volunteers served tea while the visitors snacked on petite sweets.

"I came last year and loved it," said Raye Sapp of Burlington, who was visiting Sylvia Nash of Tarboro. "The speakers were different so you got a different point of view. The gardens were all different."

Judy Davenport, Dinah Sylivant, Debbie Moore and Rebecca Pate all came from Snow  Hill for the third consecutive year.

"It was a lovely day," said Davenport, a self-described "avid gardener." "Pam was wonderful, and we love Bryce."

"We look forward to this," Sylivant said. "It's a treat."

"I've throughly enjoyed it," Moore said.

"Pam was excellent," Pate said, "and the luncheon was delicious."

The lunch as catered by Joe White's Myrtle Grove Catering.

Owens said about 75 percent of attendees were from out of town, from Wilmington to the Outer Banks to New Bern to Durham.

"It's a lot of work by committed volunteers," Owens said. "It's a lot of fun, too."

Now that the event is established, Owens plans to skip at least a year before hosting another Spring Garden Symposium. She said the same thing last year.

The proceeds go to the gardens at the Blount-Bridgers House.

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