Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following was published in The Floyd Press on December 15, 2010.

Linda Swers has been delivering good cheer and lifting spirits with her inspired floral arrangements since she purchased the Flower and Gift Shop in the fall of 2004.   “I’ve always loved flowers,” she said.

As a florist and business owner, Swers draws on her background as an artist and her years working with the public as part of The Blue Ridge Restaurant staff.  The longtime gardener with a degree in art has worked as a professional landscaper and a graphic designer, and has traveled the craft show circuit selling her hand-painted flower pots and hand-woven baskets.

As well as being a full service flower shop – offering fresh and permanent customized arrangements for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and more – the Flower and Gift Shop has a focus on gifts for the home and garden, including a variety of birdhouses, wreaths, wind chimes, ornaments, devotional sculpture, Thomas Kinkade collectables, and a Mark Rogers Christmas collection of fairies, elves and Santas.

“She adds her artistic touch to everything she does.  That’s what makes the shop special,” said Swers’ daughter Elisha Reygle, who cited her mother’s knack for centerpiece scene creations and pointed out a candelabra designed by Swers.

Browsing through the spacious West Main Street shop, it’s apparent that Swers uses her knack for arranging in the creation of colorful and whimsical displays and window designs, which currently sparkles with a festive holiday theme.

Reygle, a 1990 Floyd High School graduate and mother of three, is a certified massage therapist who has been teaching at the Blue Ridge School of Massage and Yoga for the past nine years. She recently helped her mother give the flower shop a facelift in the interest of “making it all work” in today’s down-turned economy.  Revitalization efforts at the shop have included a new outdoor sign and an interior re-design, some of which was suggested by a local practitioner of feng shui (an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics).

Reygle, who also coordinates Floydfest’s Healing Arts Tent and is trained in Tuina (a bodywork system rooted in traditional Chinese medical theory), has set up her by-appointment massage business, “Elisha’s Graceful Hands,” in a inviting pastel-rose loft room in the shop. “It brings people in and helps with the rent,” she said.

Swers said she has cut back her part-time employee to an “on call” basis, but family input has increased.  It extends to Reygle’s ten year old daughter Yeshe, who enjoys learning flower arranging and hopes to take over the shop when she is older, her mother said.   Both Yeshe and her older sister Linneya recently made corsages for a dance scene in the Young Actors Co-op play Tom Sawyer, which both girls had roles in.

“We’re also planning ongoing events,” Reygle said. During the month of October the shop gave out free orange carnations.   For Christmas an open house is planned for Friday Decemer 17^th from 4 to 8 p.m.  A family train set will be running around the store’s Christmas tree, and cookies and hot drinks will be served.

Swers and Reygle both hope people will stop by and see the changes at the Flower and Gift Shop, decked out and lit up for Christmas.  “Come by see the tree and enjoy some refreshments,” Swers invited.

~ Colleen Redman