Fallbrook FFA wins three special awards for county fair garden

Fallbrook High School's Future Farmers of America chapter won three awards for the horticulture program's garden at the San Diego County Fair.

This year's fair theme is "Oz-some" and commemorates the 80th anniversary of "The Wizard of Oz" movie. The Fallbrook FFA garden is called "The Faces of Oz."

The exhibit won the Johnson Green-On-Green Award given for the best use of non-flowering plants by an amateur or youth organization, the Johnson Fleeting Flowers Award given for the best display of annuals at an amateur or youth garden and the Palomar Cactus and Succulent Society Award given for the most appropriate and attractive use of succulents in a youth-designed garden display.

The garden also received a first-place ribbon from the fair which is based on points rather than head-to-head competition; the FFA exhibit received 98 of a possible 100 points.

"One of our main goals this year was to use a lot of different plants," Fallbrook FFA adviser Meaghan Alvarez said.

The scoring for the displays gives 20 points a piece for practicality of design, use of new or repurposed landscape materials, visual appeal, educational value, and quality and quantity of plant material.

Last year's fair theme was "How Sweet It Is" and the concept of sweetness was not limited to candy, so the Fallbrook FFA students with Alvarez's guidance titled their garden "Sweet Life at the Beach."

The quality and quantity of plant material criteria includes coverage of at least 50% of the exhibit, so the beach theme limited the Fallbrook entry to 18 points in that category while the display received 19 points for educational value and 20 points in the other three categories. Alvarez and the students were willing to sacrifice a quality and quantity of plant material point to align with the beach theme, but this year's display didn't merit as much non-plant space.

"One area of impact we wanted to focus on this year was using at least 80% or covering at least 80% of our landscape with plant materials," Alvarez said.

Alvarez said that the extensive use of plant materials led to the Johnson Green-On-Green Award. "I think that's what helped us win that particular award," she said.

That coverage and variety likely also led to the Johnson Fleeting Flowers Award.

"That kind of goes back to us using 80% of our exhibit and making sure different types of perennials and annuals were used," Alvarez said. "It livened up the exhibit and really created that full look we were going for."

Fallbrook's FFA chapter also won the Palomar Cactus and Succulent Society Award last year. "It's always the goal for us to get that award because we have great community members who donate succulents for us," Alvarez said. "This year we used quite a bit of succulents."

Alvarez added that succulents have become popular in San Diego County.

The exhibit received 18 of a possible 20 points for educational value which includes the display of an accurate plan of the exhibit, the labeling of plant material and a demonstration of water conservation or sustainable practices.

The FFA garden received the maximum possible 20 points in the practicality of design, use of new or repurposed landscape materials, visual appeal, and quality and quantity of plant material categories.

"We always want to strive for 100%," Alvarez said.

"The Faces of Oz" includes a crown in the midst of marigolds to represent the cowardly lion and his quest for courage. An ax and an oil can represents the tin man. A pole where a scarecrow would be expected has a diploma cap and gown. An herb garden which represents a house has a witch's hat on one side and the witch's stockings on the other side. Toto is on a metal bench as is a plaid light blue and white pillow with red bows.

Wood planks were painted yellow and placed at intervals in the garden. The back wall of the display allowed for emerald-colored bulbs, and other-colored bulbs to the right spell out "to Oz" following a non-light "Welcome" sign.

The exhibit uses 36 plants: Berkeley sedge, lantana, cape honeysuckle, ponytail palm, variegated Japanese pittosporum, Lily of the Nile, geranium, hot and spicy oregano, Swiss chard ruby red, lovage, lime basil, curled parsley, Swiss chard orange, sweet bell pepper purple beauty, poblano Anaheim pepper, Fresno chile pepper, kohlrabi purple splendor, string of pearls, horseradish, French sorrel, loquat, pomegranate, Hass avocado, Nagami kumquat, Black Mission fig, pittosporum, jade plant, purple rose, Aloe vera, Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi, tejocote tree, Sinocrassula indica which is also known as A. Berger as it was classified by botanist Alwin Berger, narrow leaf chalk stick, miniature pine tree, Booth cherimoya and marigold.

"The kids did a great job," Alvarez said.

Alvarez divided her environmental horticulture class into two groups as the first step to determine how the garden would be designed this year.

"They came up with their own design," she said.

That created two different options for a design with a third option utilizing portions of each. A discussion in the class developed that third design option. "We brought both of those designs together," Alvarez said.

During the 2018-2019 school year, Alvarez's environmental horticulture class had 17 students, all of whom assisted with the design. Some of those helped put the display together at the fairgrounds as did some students from other FFA horticulture classes. About a dozen students worked on turning the design into the actual garden. The garden took three to four weeks to design, and those who were involved in the fairgrounds phase spent May 23-25 in Del Mar. The county fair opened May 31.

"I think it was really neat to kind of address this year's theme with this landscape, and I think the students did an outstanding job bringing together the story characters," Alvarez said.

Dorothy has a minor role in the garden which emphasizes the lion, scarecrow and tin man.

"Our focus for the exhibit was to represent all of the characters, not just Dorothy," Alvarez said.

"I think that's definitely the main focus. We didn't need Dorothy to be at the center of it because each of the characters have their own stories. There were so many stories from other characters that we wanted to show in our exhibit."

The plaid pillow matches the colors of Dorothy's dress and the red bows symbolize her shoes.

"I think that the public would know it was really Dorothy," Alvarez said.

The scarecrow's graduation cap and gown was supposed to reflect the Fallbrook High School version.

"The plan was to use one of the students' red gowns," Alvarez said.

A former FFA student had volunteered that red cap and gown but couldn't find it. Alvarez still had her cap and gown from her college graduation at Chico State University, so that was placed in the display. Although Alvarez's college graduation cap and gown are black, a red and white tassel with the year "2019" made the scarecrow part of this year's Fallbrook High School graduation.

Alvarez is originally from Northern California and began her teaching career with two years at a continuation high school in Yuba County. She taught at San Pasqual High School for two years after she and her husband moved to San Diego County and took over Fallbrook High School's horticulture classes after Scott Duffin retired in 2017.

"The Wizard of Oz" theme combined elements from the book published in 1900 and the movie released in 1939.

"Due to copyright issues I think we were supposed to go more toward the book than the movie," Alvarez said.

L. Frank Baum, who wrote "The Wizard of Oz," died in 1919 so the book is now in the public domain.

The movie version replaced marigolds with poppies. Other elements of the Fallbrook FFA garden reflect the movie in part because more fair visitors have likely seen the movie than read the book and in part because the FFA students and Alvarez sought a more positive aspect.

"The book is very, very dark. It's got kind of a dark message," Alvarez said.

Use of the movie also eliminates any political overtones from the book. In the late 19th century the Eastern financial establishment was pitted against farmers with regard to monetary policy including complementing the gold standard with the use of silver. The agrarian fear was that deflation would hinder farmers' abilities to pay off debts. The Wicked Witch of the East wore silver slippers in the book.

Some of Fallbrook High School's political science, history and economics teachers may know about the political themes within the book, but Alvarez was not aware of the political history of the book version.

Alvarez wasn't disappointed that the exhibit missed a perfect score by two points.

"It's not a huge deal," she said.

She cited the substance of the garden.

"It's got the most variety," she said, adding that it also matched the fair's theme.

The Palomar Cactus and Succulent Society was pleased enough with the display to issue its superlative award.

"That was kind of huge," Alvarez said. "The succulents are always our highlight."

Succulent bowls will be created using some of the plants from the fair display, and those bowls will be sold at the FFA chapter's plant sale this fall. The monetary prizes associated with the awards added $850 to the FFA finances, and that money will be used for the 2019-2020 plant department.