making the (un-scarey) scare crow...

... with some co-conspirators who are also fellow master gardening friends. The local botanical garden is always trying to raise awareness, not always funds, by doing things to help the public be more knowledgeable about the facilities and opportunities to be had at our beautifully blooming space. A spring plant show and sale, with various vendors providing interesting wares. An annual day lily show with plants for sale, and knowledgeable speakers. Community Easter egg hunt. A big fundraiser event in the fall that brings a high profile, well-known gardening expert to town to give a talk at a luncheon, with a silent auction of donated items to help bring interested patrons to shop and enjoy a catered meal. Fall Festival, usually scheduled close to Halloween.

The annual fall festival  always has some bedding plants for sale, along with lots of fun activities for families: inflatables, face painting, scarecrow contest. Several of my fellow gardeners, who are volunteers for many of the above listed events, decided we should get together and make a scarecrow to enter in the contest. Started planning several weeks ago, with instructions from the county agent/mg sponsor that it needs to be 'educational'. We decided to approach it from the 'where are all the pollinators?' angle. With bees, butterflies, insects on and around our not-scare-crow, and wooden sunflowers that will help to tell the story. The not-scarey-crow will be holding a news paper, sitting in a wheelbarrow. Headlines in the paper will comment on the loss of pollinators and possible causes. Then offer more info. available at the library or UGA county extension service.

There are several different opportunities to win prizes for 'best of' in the contest. Which we have already spent on materials to assemble the man we will enter. So when we have a party to celebrate our success, it will be BYOB. Our man, dressed in plaid shirt and overalls, sitting in a wheelbarrow goes up the middle of the month, to remain through the fall festival event on Oct. 29. It should be amusing, as I understand there are at least two dozen entries.