Christmas Southern Style

The next 3 chapter Christmas parties called for a Road Trip to South Florida! Dade, Broward and Palm Beach chapters had scheduled their parties over 3 consecutive days: Dec. 10, 11, and 12. Perfect scheduling for those of us attending from afar!
Billy Butterfield, FLCL, stayed true to his commitment to the FNGLA Christmas party schedule, and was particularly pleased as we had added nursery and FNGLA member visits to our 3 days of travels.
Our first stop was Homestead where we visited some of my longtime FNGLA member friends. First on the list was Kerry Herndon at Kerry’s Nursery, past chairman of TPIE and one my favorite columnists in the Ball Publications. I hadn’t seen his place since H. Wilma so it was past time for a visit. It is always impressive to see those acres and acres of bromeliads and orchids and the smart technology being used. Kerry introduced us to one of the favorite local restaurants. It goes by the name of Las Vegas, although I don’t know why. Food was wonderful – awesome bread!
More nursery stops – we saw Bill Lyden and his family at work at Farm Life Tropical Foliage. Bill’s another past chairman of TPIE and has totally rebuilt his place since H. Wilma with very strong structures! As is his standard, the nursery was perfectly clean and well organized with very cool specimens ready for interior settings. We were intrigued by the large plots of vegetables being grown as one drives onto the property. At first I thought Bill was following First Lady Michelle Obama’s example of growing his own vegetable garden, but he explained it’s actually a third party growing the veggies to sell. Those eggplants looked very tempting.
From Farm Life we made a quick jog down to Charlie Martin’s place, HB Martin. Charlie is the vice chair of the TPIE Committee so I guess our nursery visits had a TPIE committee theme going. Charlie grows colorful landscape plants and had a very diverse collection for us to see.

The Dade Chapter Holiday Party had a truly beautiful setting as it took place at R. F. Orchids. Although this is a retail store, R. F. Orchids is also a botanical garden and is truly a tropical paradise. The chapter members gathered under the chickee complete with bar. Like other FNGLA chapters, Dade was collecting toys for a local charity group. To provide even greater incentive to bring donations, anyone who arrived with a toy received $5 off the chapter meeting fee.
It was great to see many of my long-time south Florida FNGLA friends at the meeting. If I start listing names, I know I will forget people, so I’ll just say it was great to see everyone!
To make sure people had plenty of time to visit and catch up, Dade Chapter president Steve Leonard kept the speeches to a minimum – in fact, he welcomed everyone and then we were directed to move to the lawn for dinner. I was very pleased to see our buffet had a great selection of Cuban food. For those of us from central Florida and beyond, Cuban food is a treat we don’t get too often.
It was a beautiful evening with a clear sky and warm breeze. What a treat to enjoy a delicious dinner and great company sitting in a tropical garden under the stars…in December! Now that's what I call a memorable Chapter party!