Mums and garters are a Texas tradition for Homecoming dates. Combine that with another Texas ideology – the bigger, the better – and you end up with some gargantuan mums.  

Each year at Homecoming Taylor Land and her boyfriend, Trevor Hendricks, stand back to back, and then turn around at the same time and reveal their mum and garter to each other. This year the mum that Hendricks’s mom, Chrissy Hicks, made was so big that Hendricks had to stand down the hallway leaving Land in the living room.

“At first I didn’t turn around,” Land said. “I was scared. When I saw it I was like ‘What is that?’ I keep all my mums on my wall and I’m going to have to nail this one up.”

The most challenging part for Hicks was getting everything together and balanced. She made the head piece that incorporated the two giant T’s separately from the ribbons. When she added the ribbons she had to make sure it was balanced. She even was able to incorporate a reference to a set of James Avery jewelry that Hendricks has given Land representing her owning the key to his heart.

“Because it was senior year I wanted it to be bigger than last year’s mum,” Hicks said. “I didn’t think that it was going to be that big but one thing lead to another and it just happened. I spent probably a total of eight hours over three days making it.”

Hicks, who is originally from New Jersey and had never heard of the mum tradition, quickly realized a regular backing wasn’t sufficient for holding the giant mum. She utilized a larger, heavier cardboard backing to support it and prevent the “Jerseylicious” head piece from collapsing on itself.

“When I first heard of the mum tradition I thought it was insane,” Hicks said. “I also thought it was the coolest thing ever and that it would bring up school spirit and morale and that it was really fun. Plus, it’s a memory you get to take with you forever.”