THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250086
SECTION: HOME & GARDEN PAGE: G1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARCIA MANGUM, HOME & GARDEN EDITOR
LENGTH: 101 lines
IMAGINE TWO of your prize pumpkins finding a spot of glory on the high altar of the Washington National Cathedral for the Thanksgiving worship services.
Then imagine that, just as the bishop begins to celebrate Holy Communion, one of the pumpkins lets out a loud ``phshh'' and collapses. Out fly hundreds of fruit flies, heading right for the communion wine.
As the choir boys roll in the aisles and the verger goes out to get a bug bomb, the woman responsible nearly dies of embarrassment.
It's taken a few years to recover, but today Sandra S. Hynson can laugh at her disaster and even share it with others to put them at ease as they prepare altar arrangements.
Hynson, head of the Washington National Altar Guild from 1973 until her retirement in 1990, will be in Norfolk this coming weekend for the Flower Festival at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. She will likely recount that story and more as she shares tips on flower arranging in lectures and workshops.
She also will help the church's altar guild decorate the Tudor-Gothic-style sanctuary in West Ghent with more than a thousand fresh flowers and greenery for the annual five-day festival and will sign copies of her second book, ``Flowers to the Glory of God,'' at the Friday night opening.
Hynson, whose no-nonsense manner, genuine love for flowers and straightforward instructions have earned her an international reputation for flower arranging, studied at her mother's side in rural Wisconsin.
``I started as a junior altar guild member as soon as I was confirmed,'' she recalls. ``While we little girls were not allowed to do flowers, my mother was on the altar guild and we did flowers together. I've been doing flowers since I was 12, and I'm now 68.''
So there's not much she hasn't seen. The good, the bad and the disastrous. She says it took two years after the pumpkin collapsed for her assistants to confess that they hadn't shellacked the pumpkins.
``They said they looked so beautiful that they just shined them,'' she says with a gentle laugh. The altar guild had a rule that all fruits must be hand-shellacked to prevent rotting, and it took a crew of four to five workers a full day to shellac all the fruit for Thanksgiving.
In most churches, the arrangements are much less elaborate, but Hynson, who now serves on the altar guild of a small parish in western Maryland, has some guidelines that apply to all altar arrangements.
``The most important thing of all as far as I'm concerned is the flowers are there to enhance the altar or the cross, and if they're too important or too flamboyant, then they have no business being in church,'' she says emphatically.
Second in importance is that all arrangements be as natural-looking as possible.
``In our little church (in Maryland), we have absolutely no budget, so everything comes out of the garden, so they look natural,'' she says. ``If everyone who has to use bought flowers would take a little something from the side of the road or from their garden, then it would look a little more home-grown, more natural.''
Through the years, Hynson has seen arrangements get more informal. ``We're away from those very stiff Victorian style arrangements that just weren't very beautiful,'' she says. But she doesn't like it when arrangements are so informal that they bother congregations and detract from worship.
Her favorite styles are pedestals and asymetrical box arrangements, and among her favorite flowers are the traditional gladioli, carnations and chrysanthemums.
``But if you want to know my absolute favorite, it's the gerbera daisy,'' she says.
Like her books, which are loaded with practical tips to help novice or experienced arrangers, Hynson is full of advice.
``I'll tell you a trick, next time you buy cut (gerberas), cut them and put them in vodka for about a minute and then put them in water,'' she says. ``The alcohol forces the air out of the stem and pulls the water up so they last longer.
``And another thing about gerberas, don't ever put them in deep water, because they have very hairy stems, and the hairs transfer the water up the stems and turns the heads into mush.''
Sounds simple, but when you're preparing for occasions like the Reagan inaugural, it pays to know every trick in the book.
After Hynson's Norfolk stop, she'll end her fall lecture travels and head back with her husband to their mountainside home in Keedysville, Md., south of Hagerstown.
``We have 10 acres and our dream retirement house,'' she says. ``I grew up with Frank Lloyd Wright, and I loved some of his early ideas.''
She helped design the mountain house so every room has a view either to the outside garden and woods or to an interior atrium. ``In the dead of winter I have bougainvillea, jasmine, gardenia, peace lily, all kinds of things,'' she says.
Her husband of 45 years is her head gardener, chief photographer and assistant on the lecture circuit.
These days they serve together on the altar guild for their parish.
``Church is very important to me, and the altar guild is kind of an unsung, unseen body that prepares everything for the worship,'' Hynson says. ``If it's done with care and love and beauty, it makes the service better.'' ILLUSTRATION: Dick Hynson color photo
Sandra Hynson teaches that church flowers should enhance the alter
or the cross.
Graphic
Flower Festival at St. Andrew's
[For complete copy, see microfilm] by CNB