Not Your Average Haute Fruiture

When you’re in a garden club, you can have an Easter parade--or at least the bonnet part--any time. For the Newport Hills Garden Club, the right time was last week.

Twenty of the club’s 100 members arrived at the monthly meeting wobbling under the weight of hats piled high with fresh produce, plastic dolls and undisclosed knickknacks.

“We’ve done this for seven or eight years, and it’s our favorite event,” says Missy Lawless of Newport Beach.

Louisa Norton of Garden Grove captured the flower category with full-blown roses from her garden nestled in a large picture hat.

Julie Blumberg of Newport Beach won the comique category with 21 stuffed bunnies balanced on a flowery brim.

Doreen Adams, also of Newport Beach, was honored in the fantasy category for 86 dolls teetering on her hat brim and headband. The dolls represented the countries she has visited.

If a member arrived hatless, she was dinged a buck.

“But we didn’t keep that money,” Lawless says. “That went to buy a prize.”

Before you start envisioning a bunch of Lucille Balls meeting in a clubhouse each month to spout off more wacky ideas, refrain. This is a community-oriented group.

“We do more than talk about green thumbs,’ Lawless says.

The 25-year-old group has contributed money to the countywide Horticultural Society, the Hortense Miller Garden in Laguna Beach and Fairview Developmental Center, a facility for menally challenged adults, in Costa Mesa.

The group has also purchased a bench from the city of Newport Beach to be installed on a greenbelt outside the Newport Hills Club House, where the members meet. “It’s graffiti-proof and theft-proof,” Lawless boasts.

People interested in the club can call Lawless at (714) 644-8806.