Evergreen Tips - July 4

Rachel Mendell — Staff

Sum­mer has arrived, and noth­ing says “sum­mer­time” like the Fourth of July! I have visions of “Old Glory” fly­ing from porch posts and chil­dren run­ning about wav­ing sparklers.

On July 4th, I believe there can­not be too many flags on dis­play! Per­son­ally, I love the look of flags in gal­va­nized pails sit­ting about. The flags do need to be anchored in some­thing like gravel or sand to keep them upright.

Another attrac­tive dis­play for you home­own­ers with picket fences is to take pan­els or strips of mate­r­ial and weave it through the pick­ets. You need to tack the mate­r­ial every cou­ple pick­ets on the back side to keep the “gar­land” in place. You can use just red mate­r­ial or a strip of red and a strip of blue to cre­ate two dis­tinct bands of color. The bands of color are usu­ally more effec­tive if the bands are not too nar­row: 9 inches by 12 inches would not be too wide in my opin­ion. You could even use mate­r­ial that mim­ics our flag if you find that pleasing.

Most of us will be involved in a back­yard bar­beque or two over the hol­i­day. Table­tops are easy to dec­o­rate for our country’s birthday.

In this pic­ture, I have lay­ered both red dishes and white dishes upon my “patri­otic” table­cloth. A few flags strate­gi­cally placed turned my can­de­labra into a flag centerpiece.

Another option would be to alter­nate red, white, and blue votives. You could also tie small rib­bons on the arms of the can­de­labra (being care­ful not to get too close to any of the can­dle flames!).

Even if you don’t have “patri­otic” linens or dishes, a pot of red gera­ni­ums with a few flags care­fully posi­tioned amidst the blooms would be a glo­ri­ous addi­tion to your pic­nic table.

Focus on the col­ors of red, white, and blue in as many ways as you can. And what could be more fun and appro­pri­ate than a small box of sparklers placed at each place set­ting tied with a small rib­bon? Or place the sparklers in a bas­ket accented with a “patri­otic” bow for friends to take and enjoy.

Red, white, and blue is an easy com­bi­na­tion of col­ors to use. You do not have to put away the flags and bunting once July 4th is past. The Inde­pen­dence Day theme is a great theme for the entire sum­mer, and in my next arti­cle I will expand on this idea.

Remem­ber to fly our beau­ti­ful flag this Fourth of July. Be proud of our nation’s col­ors and dis­play them boldly.

Susan Gim­bel is owner of The Ever­green Co. in uptown Galion. Visit the web­site, http://www.myevergreencompany.com/ for more store information.

Posted by Rachel Mendell on Jun 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.