The Pike County Master Gardeners gathered at the home of Elaine Knight near Spring Hill Wednesday morning to whet their skills for making wreaths from scuppernong vines.

But, first things first.

After a picnic lunch, the gardeners received instructions from Knight and were then “turned loose” to try their hands at wreath making from fresh cut scuppernong or as the ladies laughed and said, “scupnon” vines.

Knight said scuppernong vines are ideal for making wreaths and are usually plentiful. And, she remembered, along with the other gardeners, dining on the sweet nectar of muscadines from backyard arbors and scouting the woods for bullace vines, but for their dark, sweet fruit, not wreath-making.

Thoughts turned to the almost-forgotten sampling of sweet nectar from the honeysuckle and “what would young folks know about that?”

Knight’s instructions were followed to the tee by the master gardeners.

Leigh Calk stepped back from the other gardeners and began to loop her vines into an almost perfect lasso loop. And readily gave instructions to others. “Just keep doing this, like this.”

After all the looping and binding, some of the gardeners opted to “leave the leaves” on the vines.

“It gives the wreath some color,” Gloria Wesley said.

Most of the gardeners brought bows and bangles for their wreaths

“This is the first wreath I have ever made,” said Maebeth Gibson, with obvious pride. “I’m planning to hang different things from the center, so I’m not adding anything today.” However, before the day’s end, Gibson was sporting a big, blue bow on her wreath.

Some of the wreaths were adorned with sunflowers, some with cotton bolls, some with roses and others with a variety of summer flowers.

Kaye Jinright’s wreath was larger than the others and for a specific reason.

“I love to collect seashells,” she said. I’ll hot glue shells on the vines and I have a large starfish to add. It’s going to be a lot of fun to decorate it.”

For some of the Pike County Master Gardeners, the wreaths will be hung on doors to celebrate the seasons. For others, the wreaths will have permanent placement at the beach house or the cabin by the lake.

But for all, the memories of the fun of making the scuppernong vine wreaths will long linger.