Summer is a great time to bring the outdoors inside, especially as a way to add to the beauty of table settings. Last Saturday, 10 gardeners did just that as they competed in the table-setting contest at Hill City's Alice Smith Flower Show.

Mary Jo Marcy of Custer captured serenity and best of show with her leaf-themed table setting and tall stalks of Queen Anne's lace. Judge Doug Hesnard, a horticulturalist and master gardener, eventually awarded her the prize after struggling between it and two other entries that caught his eye for their creativity and beauty.

"This is absolutely what I like to see in a setting," Hesnard said of the floral leaf shape repeated in the dishes, the print of the tablecloth and napkin. The floral vase also had a copper leaf coiled around its bowl.

"Everything just worked together," he said.

Among the 95 entries of single and triple-stemmed florals, potted plants, hanging plants, annuals and perennials exhibited at the Girls and Boys Club auditorium, the tablescapes reflected the beauty of the flowers as well as the tableware and linen.

Margaret Rasmussen, a Hill City Garden Club member, said people brought in a variety of flowers as well as tableware.

"It's amazing how many people turned in exhibits. Last year we had only three table settings," she said.

Bobbi Tracy, garden club president, said it was the third year for the flower show and that table settings have been a part of its exhibits from the beginning. This year saw 10 tables with a children's category.

"It continues to grow," she said of the tableware category.

Hesnard was impressed by the contestants' creative vision. One contestant used a red serape for a tablecloth; another placed a bouquet of flowers in an ice cream cone.

"I absolutely love what I'm seeing here," Hesnard said of a child-sized table that went back to basics.

The basics included yellow mums planted in a square-shaped, plastic blue beach bucket next to square and round plates with a triangular-shaped dish. The primary colors again reinforced the theme of the elementary basics.

An elegant woodland combination of tall and short flowers arranged in a tabletop water fountain and surrounded by votive candles complemented the tablecloth, linen, tableware and china. Hesnard said the ceramic woodland figurines added to the theme.

"The floral arrangement was sophisticated enough to carry off the elegance of the crystal and china," he said.

Hesnard was delighted by Janna Emmel's entry of tailgating.

"It's so creative. It's thinking completely out of the box," he said.

Emmel's table setting was constructed by using an actual pickup truck tailgate placed on a steel trash can with a wooden crate as its seating. The tableware was a blue tin camp plate placed on a blue and black, buffalo-checked wool shirt, a red bandana cotton napkin and tin cup. An arrangement of long coneflowers, blue stem grasses, baby's breath and thistles wrapped in birch bark was casually placed across the table next to a pair of work gloves and a blue tin coffeepot filled with wild sage, turkey feathers, a deck of cards and a music cassette.

"It's like going to a clearing for a woodland picnic," Hesnard said of the exhibit.

People agreed, voting it in as their favorite.

Emmel may not have won the category, but she walked away with the People's Choice Award.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com.