Get Creative

Ellen C. Wells

That was the message Danny Summers was communicating in an email to The Garden Center Group members recently. And now that we’re on the back side of the season, you may have a bit more time to dedicate to you and your team’s creativity.

Danny’s reminder to get our creativity caps on was prompted by an email he’d received from the folks at Forest Lake Greenhouses in Florence, South Carolina, back in April. The enewsletter had invited customers to have their pictures taken with “Katie, the Garden Goddess!” just prior to Earth Day.

How creative is this? Danny contacted Laura Venable, Forest Lake’s Marketing Director, to learn more about the origin of this amazing outfit. Laura had responded to Danny with, “We can’t claim the Garden Goddess; it was all Katie’s concept. She is a former employee of the greenhouses, but she has been working on this project for a while. Her retiring high school art teacher hosted a fashion show every year hailing outfits made from uncommon materials. Katie saved nursery pots and plant tags for some time to put together her dress for the exhibit! We thought it would be fun to have her in on Earth Day weekend to take photos with kiddos.”

Pictured: Katie Phillippi in her Garden Goddess dress at Forest Lake Greenhouses’ Earth Day celebration.

I contacted Laura for a little more information about the custom dress. She went straight to the source—Katie Phillippi—to get the details:

“Making the dress took many hours during multiple long weekends! If I had to guess, it took maybe 20 to 30 hours, which includes a lot of reworking the dress structure and lots of sewing,” Katie wrote. “This dress was a challenge for sure, but in the most fun way. With the help of my husband (my engineering and sewing genius), I was able to overcome many obstacles. I used around 50 to 60  6-in. plastic pots, all cut to different sizes for the skirt, and 187 plastic plant tags. In addition, I used probably 3 pounds of sheet moss under the pots, shoe coverage and a bag!”

Also, Katie used an old bridesmaid dress as the base for the whole costume (now we know what to do with those old dresses!). In the end, what did customers think?

“All the customers that day made me so happy. I was a little nervous when I first got there because I wasn’t sure if people were going to get it,” Katie said. “They proved me wrong and my nerves went away instantly! The kids loved it as well. I had such a great time talking to people from the community and enjoyed seeing kids’ faces light up with creativity!”

It won’t be the last time Forest Lake Greenhouses gets creative, either.

“We definitely plan on hosting other creative events for future holidays. This might include interactive photo backdrops, scavenger hunts (finding ‘bees’ or ‘butterflies’ around the garden center for a $5 coupon on International Pollinator Day, as an example) or hosting sip-and-stroll walkthroughs of our wholesale greenhouses when the poinsettias are in full color,” Laura wrote. “We enjoy keeping things interesting and offering fun opportunities for the community to come out and get involved in an interactive and new way.” GP