Each month, visitors to Wiscasset Art Walk evenings – the last Thursday of June through September – are greeted by a tabletop landscape of brilliant colors, tucked into spotless glass jars, under the banner of Garden Club of Wiscasset.

Since 2016, garden club members have been staffing a sidewalk table during the art walks with fresh bouquets coming from members’ gardens. According to Terry Heller, who is organizing the bouquet brigade, members get an email reminder a week or two before Wiscasset Art Walk evening. Members then bring their flowers, picked that morning, to her porch by 3 p.m. on art walk day. “We always have flowers,” she said. “Everyone helps.” About 15 members are involved each month to pick flowers and to assemble them artfully.

By 4:30, the buckets of fresh flowers have been assembled into bouquets and placed in jars. “It’s fun to do because it’s a pretty thing,” said Terry. She’s also noticed that there are various ways to assemble glass jar bouquets. Some members assemble the flowers in their hands, she explained, adjusting for height and color and cutting the stems just right before placing them in jars, and others put flowers directly into the jars and do the assembling then. And new for the July 27 WAW, from 5 to 8 p.m., the floralists will be using Hosta leaves curled horizontally inside the jars to add even more pizzaz.

GCW member Jan Flowers started helping the flower brigade in 2019 when she stopped at their table for a look and has been involved ever since. She enjoys selling the bouquets during WAW where she meets town residents and people from away. Her favorite sidewalk story is about meeting a garden club member from another state who was so charmed by the bouquet table that she left behind a $100 gift.

For each of the monthly sidewalk sales, the Garden Club will have 24-30 bouquets selling for $5 or $10. “That way, we don’t have to worry about making change,” and if there are any unsold at the end of the night, Jan explained, they are given away to assisted living centers and sometimes the street musicians who have been serenading them.

Proceeds from bouquet sales support GCW’s scholarship fund. In 2022, two regional high school students each received $1,500 towards their education in horticulture or a related field.

The observant visitor can watch the seasons change at the GCW table.  The late spring flowers get replaced by the abundance of mid-summer blooms which are followed by the challenges of late summer and early fall. Jan’s approach is to “find what’s pretty and cut it.” This usually includes leaves, grasses, wildflowers, seed heads, and other non-traditional materials. And growing new members, too, is an opportunity Terry appreciates: “We’re training new members in the benefits of volunteering.”

In 2023, the business sponsors who support the many free WAW activities and performers are Lead Sponsor Fogg and Dalton Art Restoration and Major Sponsors Ames True Value, Big Barn Coffee, Bradbury Art & Antiques, Carriage House Gardens, Cod Cove Inn, First National Bank, J. Edward Knight Insurance, Jodie’s Café, Peter Eaton Antiques, Red’s Eats, Rock Paper Scissors, Sherri Dunbar/Tim Dunham Realty, IndustrialME, BIRCH Home Furnishings & Gifts, and Water Street Kitchen & Bar.

For more information about Wiscasset Art Walk, visit www.wiscassetartwalk.org<http://www.wiscassetartwalk.org> or email to wiscassetartwalk@gmail.com<mailto:wiscassetartwalk@gmail.com> . Wiscasset Art Walk is a program of Wiscasset Creative Alliance.