The floral-decorated LOVE sign was a focal point in Bicentennial Park during Historic Garden Week in Virginia. Kim O'Brien Root/staff (The Virginian-Pilot)

I’m not much of a plant person. I’m the type who can kill succulents — you know, the kind that aren’t supposed to need much care? And the garden in front of my house is hopelessly overgrown, though I keep telling myself I have big plans to overhaul it.

But you know who has mad gardening skills? Members of the Williamsburg Garden Club.

Last week was a big week for gardeners with the annual Garden Club of Virginia’s Historic Garden Week. The annual event gives garden clubs across the state a chance to show off plants and flower arranging while raising money for preservation and education projects for gardens and historic sites.

The Williamsburg Garden Club had their day to shine on April 26. There are about 80 members in the Williamsburg club, and Tracy Shackelford was kind enough to invite me to stop by and see what was going on.

What the club members did was truly beautiful, taking the theme of “A Walk in the Park” and transforming Bicentennial Park into an oasis of flowers. At every step, there was something to marvel over, from giant LOVE letters decorated with plants and sunflowers to the 8-foot statue of a cedar waxwing made to look like it was hovering over a nest.

Leslie Coe, president of the Williamsburg Garden Club, and her daughter Jessica added a nest to the existing statue of a cedar waxwing in Bicentennial Park for Historic Garden Week. Kim O'Brien Root/staff (The Virginian-Pilot)

The idea to decorate the park came after Michele DeWitt, the city’s assistant manager and the Williamsburg tour chair, went to a “city in bloom” event in New York City’s Meatpacking District. In a world still feeling the effects of the pandemic, the garden club wanted to keep things safe by keeping the tour outside, and decorating Bicentennial Park fit the bill.

Club members brought items from their own homes for their displays, from statuaries to books to rubber boots filled with flowers. A fan favorite was the dog park, a display filled with dogs made out of terra cotta flower pots and surrounded by white picket fencing.

“This is a whole different concept,” said Leslie Coe, president of the Williamsburg Garden Club, “taking what was here and enhancing it.”

Parallel to Bicentennial Park, parked along the lane between the park and the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, were antique vehicles, each decorated to fit a theme and full of flowers. Shackelford’s contribution was her family’s Bakfiets, a traditional Dutch bicycle that held a figure made of plants and flowers riding in its front cart. Shackelford said she and friend Terry Tang had a blast creating “Daisy.”

This Bakfiets, a traditional Dutch bicycle, held a figure - named Daisy - made of plants and flowers in its front cart. Kim O'Brien Root/staff (The Virginian-Pilot)

In addition to the floral displays in the park, the Williamsburg tour also featured the nearby Wolf Garden on South Henry Street, where visitors could marvel over an interior garden designed to represent the Scottish flag. Other stops on the tour included the arboretum at the National Center for State Courts and five gardens along Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg, where visitors could get inspiration for using flowers, fruits, herbs and foliage in their own gardens.

Coe said that the garden club members outdid themselves this year, and she was right. Even the rainstorm that closed out the afternoon couldn’t erase the fact that Williamsburg became, for a day, truly a city in bloom. Maybe it even inspired me to dig out the gardening shears.

Kim O’Brien Root is editor of the Virginia Gazette & the Tidewater Review