Favors With Flavor : Guests--and Animals--Eat Up Beastly Ball’s Innovative Decor

The gorillas loved everything about the centerpieces.

The social types attending the party were impressed too.

The Beastly Ball, the Los Angeles Zoo’s annual fund-raiser held earlier this month, was a hit in more than the usual ways.

For the first time, committee members abandoned traditional party decorations in favor of a totally recyclable affair that provided favors for the resident animals as well as the guests.

“We decided to use materials that could be turned around and fed to the animals or planted in the zoo,” explained Susan Keck, who worked on the planning committee.

Five-foot banana trees in pots wrapped in burlap were used instead of floral centerpieces to decorate the 68 tables of 10. Arranged around the trees were clusters of uncut fruit, including kiwi and papaya, meant for animal consumption later. After the event, the trees were planted throughout the zoo grounds, and the branches will periodically be harvested and given to the animals to eat or play with.

Nothing, not even the burlap, went to waste. Gorillas go ga-ga for burlap. “They play with it, they tear it, they throw it,” said Mark Goldstein, zoo director.

“What’s so sad is how so much money is usually wasted on decor at charitable events,” said the party’s designer, florist Wayne Woods of the Woods at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Woods said he has been gradually incorporating ecological ideas into his business, including lining baskets with reusable glass containers instead of plastic and weaning himself from floral foams in favor of natural bases in vases.

“Since my business is selling the beauty of nature, I don’t think I should destroy it,” he said.

For the zoo, he thought of the trees after consulting the zoo commissary and landscaping departments to pinpoint their needs. “My point of view was, let’s put something back into the zoo and not be frivolous and wasteful,” said Woods.

The party took place in an empty patch in the zoo which was encircled with bamboo reed fencing instead of the usual rented white lattice panels. “All the fencing will be rolled up and used behind the animal compounds,” said Woods.

In addition, about 50 mature trees, including palms and pepper trees, items also on the zoo’s wish list, were placed around the party perimeters, all intended for planting later.

“I jumped all over the idea,” said Keck. “The time was right for it.” Zoo supporters, she said, are “ecology minded and appreciated it.”

Besides being in tune with the environment, the centerpieces were a fiscal success. The trees-cum-burlap-and-fruit priced out under $15 each, not including labor. (Woods enlisted the committee members to help him with that.) By comparison, he said, it’s almost impossible to create a traditional floral arrangement for less than $50.

Guests went home with donated party favors--Ralph Lauren’s appropriately named Safari fragrance--and packages of oversized animal cookies.

But no one made off with the centerpieces. Printed on recycled paper and tied on to the trees with twine were tags that read, “Please don’t take me; I’ll be planted in the zoo.”