Jane Ellis July 2013

It was good to welcome Jane back to BFAS to present Summer Serenade. Music accompanied the presentation but the DVD player had a mind of its own and decided which track and when to play! Thank you, Jane, for unintentionally including more humour  into the evening  as well as producing your wonderful designs.

Jane’s first design was a basket arrangement representing ‘ An English  Country Garden’ involving many cottage garden flowers including delphiniums, stocks, alchemilla mollis and paeonies. We went to a tropical island for the second design using a wonderful structure ( a snake, or a sailing ship?). Cordylines, aspidistra, palms and mahonia gave a wonderful background for strlitizia, anthuriums and curcuma.

The ‘Sun has got his hat on’ accompanied the next arrangement which was a lovely foliage design even before the sunflowers and centaurea  were added. The knickerbocker glory design was accompanied by Katherine Jenkins singing ‘O sole mio’. Groups of colour, texture and variation in height represented ice creams and sorbets using carnations, eryngium and pink ice protea created rhythm of movement  with viburnum, pittisporum and  rhododendron leaves before being topped with liatris for the spoons or wafers.

The fifth design was accompanied by ‘The Banks of Green Willow’ with roses and pinhead protea alongside euonymus, bergenia leaves and kangaroo paws. A beautiful sunset was the final arrangement using a variety of foliage and flowers including weeping cotoneaster, escallonia, mahonia berries, amaranthus, roses, callas and dendrobium orchids.

The final stage display was  stunning and colourful  and sent us all home hoping for the beautiful summer weather that we were being promised for the following week.

A few photographs are below.