Needie enjoys her pressed flower artwork tremendously.  To her, it’s a peaceful hobby that she has turned into a business called Pressed for Time.  Join us as she gives a demonstration on how to press flowers along with a power point presentation, showing plant materials to press, types of flower presses, glues, frames, and other supplies to make a distinctive pressed flower memory.  She will also donate some pressed flowers for door prizes as well as some of her beautiful work for our Silent Auction.

Needie became an Arkansas Master Gardener in 2004, and beginning the following year, she taught the herb classes for them. She was shocked at how few people grow and cook with herbs!  Flower pressing was a natural progression from gardening and cooking, and the rest is history.

Needie bought her first house in 1993 and immediately started hard gardening (double digging) – all ornamentals and herbs.  She was in love with the story of Barbara Damrosch and Elliott Coleman, bought both their books and worked through her failures, since she doesn’t live in the northeast!  She learned a lot from the Victory Garden TV shows and listening to the “Jim and Jim” radio shows on Saturday mornings, broadcast from Memphis.

Needie grew up in and now lives in St. Francis County, Arkansas. She is married to Dr. Tom Rountree, a veterinarian, where she has been the manager of Rountree Small Animal Clinic for 20+ years. They have two sons and four grandchildren.  Needie also bird watches with her husband, helps with animal rescue/rehoming, serves as cat whisperer, amateur gourmet chef, amateur photographer, sometimes choir member, and Eucharistic Minister for the Episcopal Church.  She is a former fundraiser for public radio in Arkansas and is a member of the Humane Society of the United States.   Needie and her husband are members of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, the Herb Society of America, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology.