THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 23, 1994 TAG: 9409220155
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
BARBARA BONDS will not miss the phone calls at all hours of the day and night.
``One Sunday morning I got woken up at 7 by somebody asking, `What do you do to cattails to keep them from bursting?' '' the florist recalled last week.
Hold those questions. Pungo's resident flower authority is hanging up her clippers.
After 17 1/2 years of owning and running her floral and gift shop, Country Flower N-Things Inc. in the Pungo Square shopping center, Bonds, 64, is retiring at the end of this month. Selling the business and watching someone else run it will take some getting used to, she said, but she's ready.
``I'm tired of working six and seven days a week and every holiday all these years,'' she said.
Bonds has an elderly father, four children, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren scattered around the country. She'll also help a daughter, Gini Hunter, who owns Coverworks, a local custom sewing and decorating studio.
Bonds' little shop, smelling of fresh flowers and potpourri and busy with baskets and greeting cards, has been a pleasant stopover for people in the southern part of the city. They've planned wedding bouquets, ordered birthday posies and asked for special touches in funeral arrangements.
From the start, Bonds' shop had a small town flavor. When she opened, a large animal vet treated livestock next door.
``It was nothing to see someone ride up on a horse and tie it in front of the shop,'' she recalled. Today it's still nothing for Bonds to jog across a plowed field to bring flowers to a farmer driving his tractor. She carries gift wrap, seasonal decorating knick-knacks and even free postcards, aerial views of ``downtown'' Pungo, propped next to the cash register.
People have dashed in, looking for things that would amaze big city florists. Their desperation always amuses Bonds, who recalled, ``One woman ran in, looked around and said, `What? You don't have pantyhose?' ''
In her own bouquets, the natural look became her signature before it became fashionable. When customers gave her creativity free rein, her arrangements looked like a patch of wildflowers had been scooped out of a meadow.
``I've always used branches and birds and butterflies,'' she said. ``They've been things I've found or picked up . . . roadside, or ditchbank flowers,'' she added, laughing. ``Those are things I like, and you do a better job when it's something you like.''
Until his sudden death five years ago, her partner in scavenging for nature's gifts was her husband, Billy R. Bonds.
``He was my helpmate,'' she said softly. ``Things haven't been quite as good since he hasn't been here. It's just not as much fun.''
Billy Bonds built the shop's displays and, instead of flowers or candy, used to bring his wife gifts like unusual seed pods.
``He'd hide them in his pocket and say I have a surprise for you,'' she said. ``He had an eagle eye for pine cones.''
She has no favorite flower but likes to try different varieties. And she's attempted, sometimes unsuccessfully, to educate flower buyers. Bonds has advice that would save many customers, especially men, a lot of money.
``I do have male customers with very discriminating tastes,'' she said. ``But men who aren't seasoned flower givers think the only thing to give is roses. In actuality, most women aren't that fond of red roses.''
Pungo is a good place for a business, said Bonds. She's been successful; she's rarely gotten bad checks. And Pungo-ites are friendlier, she said, to the degree that she feels she should know everybody and everything about the area.
``You have to live here for at least two generations to be a native,'' she said, smiling. Bonds doesn't qualify. She grew up in Washington, D.C., and traveled around the country for 30 years with her husband, who was in the Navy.
They moved to Back Bay in 1969 and became active in the community. Bonds helped get the Pungo Strawberry Festival started and resigned from its board of directors last year.
She tried to learn the locals' names but sometimes not even that helped.
``They'll come in and say send the flowers to John, you know, my cousin John, around that second bend in the yellow house with the white shutters with the blue pickup out front,'' she said. ``And then the pickup would be gone.'' She laughed. ``It's a different ballgame out here.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
``I'm tired of working six and seven days a week and every holiday
all these years,'' says Barbara Bonds, 64, who is retiring after 17
1/2 years as owner of Country Flower N-Things Inc. in the Pungo
Square shopping center.
by CNB