Jan 22, 2019 5 min read

RICES LANDING – Norma Kline has had a lifelong love of flowers. A member of the Town and Country Garden Club of Rices Landing for about 40 years, she used to grow flowers in the yard around her house until a 2010 hip replacement and subsequent back surgery in 2014 put an end to her gardening activities.

“Now I just maintain flowering shrubs like azaleas and rhododendrons,” she said.

The 81-year-old resident of Rices Landing, who calls herself a person who likes to paint, took up painting while in her 50s. Over the years, she’s taken lessons from artists like the late Carol Randolph of Waynesburg and Donna Jean Broadwater and Shelly Anderson of Carmichaels. The fact that she comes from an artistic family also helped stir her creative juices. Her mother, Thelma Gabler, painted, as did her brother, Ernie. Her father, Edgar Gabler, owned Carmichaels Lumber and channeled his artistry through building houses.

Recently, Kline merged her two interests together in a presentation she gave before about 25 members of the Town and Country Garden Club at the Hewitt Presbyterian Church in Rices Landing. Using a book titled “Anthology of Flowers” by Jane Field-Lewis, she sketched, then painted 30 illustrations in the book on 8 and 1/2 by 11-inch card stock. At her presentation, she displayed them on an easel, then explained which of the seven categories each flower belonged: folkloric, medicinal, emotional, edible, wild, exotic and toxic.

“I painted the flowers with acrylics, watercolors, markers, what ever I had except for oils to get the colors I wanted,” she said. “At the presentation, I spent more time on the medicinal and toxic categories because I thought they would be of the most concern.”

Medicinal plants include things like chamomile, echinacea, calendula, juniper, tiger grass, lily-of-the-valley, Chinese lantern and hibiscus. According to Kline, chamomile is known to be an aid for liver and gall bladder complaints, hay fever, muscle spasms, cough and influenza. Juniper has antibacterial and astringent properties. Lily-of-the-valley has strong diuretic properties and helps lower blood pressure, but Kline advises that it’s toxic in large quantities. In small quantities, it is said to regulate heartbeats.

“If you’re going to try to use the medicinals for some ailment, it’s best to get them at a pharmacy or health food store,” Kline said. “Don’t just do it on your own.”

Recently, she discovered another plant with medicinal properties. To ease her back pain, she said she started using hemp oil. Within three weeks after she started taking it she said she found relief.

“While it’s not complete relief, it’s enough to make taking it worthwhile,” she said. “And it’s not the kind of hemp with psychedelic properties.”

Edible flowers include nasturtium, sunflower seeds, lavender and chrysanthemum, Kline said. On the other hand, hydrangea, calla lily and euphorbia fulgens (a relative of the poinsettia) are toxic.

Kline’s presentation received such a positive response that she’s been asked to repeat it later this year for the Martha Washington Garden Club in Washington and at another garden club meeting at Caporello’s Restaurant in Uniontown.

In the past, when Kline grew her own flowers, she planted different varieties that produced nice color throughout the year, While she said she never particularly liked to grow roses, she has an archway at her home covered with them r. Her tastes, she said, run more in the direction of wilder flowers such as daisies and Queen Anne’s Lace.

Kline is also adept at flower arranging and has won several awards for her arrangements at the flower show her garden club organizes each year. In the 1980s, she had a flower arranging business for three years that focused on the Christmas and Easter holidays.

“I still do arrangements but prefer to use dried and silk flowers because they last longer and I can do more with them,” she said.

Kline has a knack for crafty hobbies. In the past, she’s also given presentations on Christmas gift wrapping and how to make presents more interesting.

Another craft she’s gotten into came about after her husband passed. She took some of his clothes and made Teddy bears out of them for her grandchildren. Since then, friends have asked her to make bears out of clothing that belonged to their deceased relatives.

Something a bit out of the norm is her talent for taking bra cups and making hats out of them. They have combs on the inside to keep them in place and are meant to sit on the side of the head.

“I call them boobie bonnets,” she said jokingly. “On my business cards it says ‘keep abreast of the latest fashion.'”

Although they don’t sell well in Greene County, she said she’s sold between 200 and 300 in Pittsburgh and Washington.

“When I display them at craft shows, the women don’t seem to recognize what they’re made of,” she said. “The men, however, often wink at me and think they’re funny.”