Children delight in winter greenery

Little kids don’t get much out of the New Year’s holiday. They don’t generally have to make major reforms in their lives, they can’t stay up ’til midnight, they’re a little tired of party food, and, honestly, how much fun is it to hang up a fresh calendar?

If there are small children in your life, give them a break and bring them to the Bangor Public Library on New Year’s Eve day for a fragrant, creative, messy, hands-on winter greenery project to mark the changing of the year. It’s free, too, and someone will get a nice little centerpiece out of the deal.

“Once you’ve gotten over Christmas,” said Susan Poole, youth chairman of the Bangor Garden Club, “when you’re tired of all that red and green, this is a nice spring-like project.” Poole teaches adult floral arrangement as well, and it shows, but this project is geared for youngsters from 3 to 12 or so.

“The whole goal is to use what you have at hand and not have to spend a lot of money,” Poole said, laying out her materials on a vinyl tablecloth.

Today, she’s brought in some feathery white pine, pinky-silver crabapple twigs, and thin shoots of white birch – all found readily in yards, forests and vacant lots around Bangor. She has also purchased some tiny yellow-and-orange carnations and deep purple dried statice. There are a few heads of Queen Anne’s lace, too, spray-painted silver and white, looking like airy, hand-tatted snowflakes. Materials like these will be provided at her Tuesday morning workshop.

She’ll also provide containers for the arrangements – painted tuna cans with no sharp edges – and chunks of spongy green foam that soak up and hold water. Young participants will wedge a block of the green stuff into the tuna can and jab in the stems of the flora as artfully as possible.

But wait. Poole’s roots are showing. The diminutive gardening pro says the children will be encouraged to create a cradle-shaped arrangement, a crescent of soft pine with “round elements” – the carnations – defining the center of balance, and “spikey elements” – statice – creating the focal point.

“They’ll sing ‘Rock-a-Bye-Baby’ first,” Poole said, clasping her arms and rocking them gently back and forth. “They’ll get this kind of swinging thing going while I show them how to put the arrangement together. Then they’ll make their own – it’ll probably take about 32 seconds. They’ll have it done in no time flat.”

Young boys are naturals at flower arrangement, Poole says, because they have great designer instincts. Girls, though, tend to tweak their creations more. The important thing is that kids have a good time with the project.

“If it doesn’t come out looking the way I think it should, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “This is art!”

Poole says she has lots of other ideas for easy garden-related crafts and projects for children, and is pleased to share them with parents. Additionally, the library has a bountiful collection of illustrated gardening books for children, many with indoor activities to satisfy the green thumbs of children and the adults who love them.

The children’s winter greenery workshop will be held 11 a.m.-noon Tuesday, Dec. 31, at the Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow St. For more information, call the library at 947-8336. Registration is not required.