We had a lovey morning yesterday at Christ Church Hall in Goldington where under the expert guidance of the two Ann’s from our Committee we met to get some hints, tips and advice on how to create the perfect pedestal.  Everyone attending had been asked to not spend more than £10 on flowers as this was felt to be the amount allowed by many local churches for doing the Church flowers.  After just 2 hours, the hall was filled with a huge variety of colours and styles of pedestal arrangements – all beautiful – and we’d all had an enjoyable morning too.  Many thanks to Ann P and Anne G for organising it so well.

What a pleasure to welcome Jayne on the 4th October for our open meeting , and what a spectacular evening it was with such wonderful arrangements. Beginning with the urn, for the foliage Jayne used weigillia and trailing ivy and fatsia leaves.  For the flowers Jayne used pale pink roses and powder blue delphinium and carnations, and lime green chrysanthimums.

In her second arrangement Jayne used a type of conifer  called ‘thauja’ , and said that ”it the sent of apples and pinapples. For the flowers Jayne used the zedbra grass and yellow rose and also gladiolis, and the bright sunflowers and also the brassica.

Jayne’s third arrangement was the imaginative butterfly with the wings that she made out of damp twiggs to form the shape and then let it dry out, the arrangement was in a cone sprayed with lots of glitter. Some aspidistra leaves and fatsia leaves, and also the phoenix palm. Then placing the the lovely open pink lily’s, and the cerise gerbera, and roses before finally adding the cymbidium orchid.

For the fourth arrangement, Jayne used a metal round frame, which she had addapted in the middle Jayne has used a wreath wire and secured it with the  fabric , and had made swirls out of wire and used bullion wire to infill these showing different textures in the design.  Again phoenix palm was used and choicer . Then adding a green cymbidium and the pale green anthurium with just a hint of pale pink on them almost as if painted or sprayed on, and green blooms.

The fifth arrangement was also in a metal interlocking  frame again which Jayne had used with sisal and leaves cones sequences and glitter  and sceleton leavesand sprayed. Using the smoked bush leaves and the seed heads of crocosimia. The flowers that were used were cherry brandy roses and chinese lanturns.

Jaynes final arrangement was a star made from chicken wire and sisal. gypsophillia was used to interperatethe stars, Jayne used open white lily’s and green carnation in this arrangement , along with aspidistra leaves that were sprayed in silver spray paint, and some phormium leaves, and large avalanche roses

On Saturday August 6th, 34 ladies from our club made their way to Chicheley Hall near Newport Pagnell.  We weren’t quite sure what to expect as it was a new event and the pre-publicity had been quite understated but we are so glad we went.  Chicheley Hall itself is a lovely old building and the flowers that decorated it  were exquisite, I have never seen so many orchids anywhere before nor even flower arrangements on such a huge scale.   Flowers filled every room of the house, and outside was wonderful too.  There were floating arrangements on the pond, decorated trees, landscape art, and the local church was decorated too.  There was a big marquee with continuous demonstrations by international designers including Gregor Lersch, Moniek Vanden Berghe, Damien Koh and mini demonstrations in another part of the house.  It rained a little in the afternoon but nothing could dampen our spirits that day and if it is on again next year, you really should try to keep the date free to see it for yourself.  A few photographs are below to just give you a little taste of what we saw  at Chicheley Hall.

Gill’s last visit to our club was in 2007 so it was a great pleasure to welcome her back again for the July meeting.  Her enthusiasm for flowers, flower arranging, floristry and foliage remains as strong as ever and was evident throughout her demonstration which was peppered with useful information as well as alternative ideas for some common household items. Can you spot the table mat, tie holder and bath scrunchy in the photos?

In the bath scrunchy arrangement Gill used Palm, Scindapsus and Pandanus leaves. I am familiar with the first of those but had to look up the other two the following day.  In case you don’t know either – Scindapsus (Devil’s Ivy) is easy to grow as a house plant and Pandanus is a large genus of about 600 trees and shrubs from Asia and Africa, most of which have broad and dense leaves.

Gill’s sense of humour was a wonderful addition to the evening but there was an almost audible sigh of relief in the hall when both ‘homework tasks’ were allocated.  We await to see if certificates are collected!  (I’m afraid the significance of the last two sentences will be missed unless you were at the meeting).

On June 21st, approximately 30 of our members gathered in the centre of Ampthill to visit The Kings Arms Garden, a woodland garden of about 2 acres managed by volunteers on behalf of Ampthill Town Council.  We had first heard of this garden at our AGM in February, when Joan Emsley, one of the volunteers, had visited our club to give us a talk and slides and many of our members had said how much they would like to visit it for real.  The entrance is hidden away down Kings Arms Yard off the old Market Square and it’s difficult to believe that you are in the centre of a town once you are inside.  We were met by 2 of the volunteers, Joan and Bryden,  who gave us a brief talk on the history of the site and pointed out some of the more interesting plants to look out for before we all wandered around on our own.  The threatened rain managed to stay away and we had a very pleasant couple of hours just a few miles away from home.  There were plants for sale which many of us were unable to resist and an opportunity to meet up with other club members beforehand for a drink and a bite to eat so all in all it was a lovely evening.  A special thankyou to Bryden and Joan who made the evening possible and also so enjoyable.

How nice it was to hear Susie telling us stories about Susie’s homeland Zimbabwe, and her extrordanry encounters with their wild life. A good idea just to show what you can do with a £8 bunch of flowers from the supermarket. Thankyou for those who managed to do an arrangement for Your Turn ‘ Darling Buds of May’

Well! the night was full of wit and laughter, it is always a pleasure to welcome Nick Grounds back to Kempston, with some rustic designs especially the one in the huge wooden bowl, and as for the one in the tea cup(that cost Nick a lot of money), and the things that he aquires through his job. wouldn’t it be lovely if we could all have a job like that!

On Tuesday 1st March Jan came from her home in Essex to present ‘Designed to Please’.  She not only entertained us, but showed us some creative ideas with aspidistra leaves which were intended to inspire us to go home and give it a go!  She made 6 beautiful arrangements and some photos from the evening are below: