Flower power in full force at competition

Floral designs become works of art in the skilled hands of competitors at Florescence gathering

Garden detritus like twigs or seed pods become whimsical works of art at the Florescence botanical competition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

CAROLE Bailey can’t walk through a garden without stopping to scavenge things some people wouldn’t even notice. No seed pod, flower petal, leaf or twig is too miniscule to escape her practiced eye, and she has a room of such materials

at home to prove it — a room so full that her husband often chides, “When does this season end?”

But, oh, the botanical fantasies she has created with nature’s leftovers: A ring that protrudes several inches, depicting a hummingbird whose proboscis dips into the center of a many-petaled flower.

Melissa Phillip photos / Houston Chronicle Carole Bailey, left, and Sara Ledbetter demonstrate some of the floral-design techniques that will be on display during the Florescence competition.

Bailey used items she found in nature to fashion this ring that features a hummingbird feeding from a flower.