A Rossland woman made it to the Court of Honour at this year’s BC and Yukon Peony Show.
Noreen Poznikoff has participated in the peony show, which this year took place in Castlegar from June 9 to 11, for the past three years — as long as it has been running locally — and has made it to the Court of Honour each year.
The first year, Poznikoff received a ribbon for best artistic floral design, and the second year, she received best of class for amateur floral design and a special award for floral design, best artistic use of materials.
This year, she received a special award for artistic merit, Canadian design. The arrangement used red and white flowers and was presented in a white container featuring two doves.
“I really like the container that I chose,” said Poznikoff. “It was a gift from my aunt and basically the doves symbolize peace.”
In total Poznikoff entered eight arrangements this year, and won four first place ribbons (one of which was for the arrangement that went on to place in the Court of Honour), one second place ribbon and one third place ribbon.
Pretty good considering none of her peonies have bloomed yet this year.
“I have been very fortunate to know a lot of people that love peonies, and I’ve been fortunate because they give me flowers to enter, because none of these are ones that I’ve grown,” she explained. “I’ll of mine are still waiting to bloom.”
Poznikoff said she picked the best blooms and entered them on behalf of the growers, then used the rest to make her arrangements. Of the blooms she entered on behalf of other Rosslanders this year, one placed third and one placed fourth.
Poznikiff wants to thank everyone in the area who enjoys peonies.
A highlight for her this year was Chop Box Peony Design workshop, where competitors had 30 minutes to design an arrangement using materials from a chop box.
“That was a lot of fun,” she said. “I really enjoyed doing that and that again plays on my passion of doing arrangements.”
Peony show thrives despite late blooms
This is the third show hosted locally, and organizer Holly Pender-Love was happy with how the event went.
“Our challenge this year was that most of the local flowers were so late, this was the case for the whole region,” explained Pender-Love.
But this year’s show still had the highest number of entries so far thanks to submissions from the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.
There were 341 entries in this year’s show in a wide range of categories from single blooms to floral displays.
Pender-Love credits the show’s volunteers with helping make the event such a success, “The volunteer team in Castlegar is extraordinary.”