“Floral Variations”.

On a lovely summer’s evening, we were delighted to welcome Wendy Lawrence from Teddington, near Tewkesbury, to Bishampton Villages Hall on Wednesday, June 20. Much of the foliage she used and also many of the flowers were from her garden which many of our members have visited. She started her demonstration using a discarded wicker hanging basket in which she put wire mesh. This she filled with varied foliage, including heavily perfumed honeysuckle, all from her garden and then added flowers of all colours in a random way which created a beautiful natural design. Next she used an upturned wastepaper basket covered with fabric on which she had secured oasis in a container. She created a tall vibrant ‘clashing’ design using shocking pink canes, aspidistra and actinidia leaves tinged with pink, tall blue delphiniums in a block, stems of freesia, dark red roses and red alstromeria. Her third design was very simple but effective, using upright dried stems of twisted willow placed in a wicker ring with orchid tubes covered in soft green floral tape into which she placed cymbidium orchids of the same colour of the tape. Her “long and low” design consisted of senecio leaves and sprigs of belotta without the leaves to which she added pale peach and pale lilac lisianthis, plus peach carnations and glorious salmon coloured roses. For Wendy’s fifth design, she used two logs of silver birch that had been thrown over the fence into her paddock, to which she had attached a long thin silver coloured metal tin. She used small blooms of styrax to cascade over the logs and then horizontally placed varying foliage including paeonie leaves and variegated hosta leaves. Her flowers were “froggy” g reen chrysanthemums, large headed green chrysanths in the Anastasia range and then the first green carnation. Her final design was a traditional triangular shape using rhammus foliage, sprigs of philadelphus from her garden from which she had removed the leaves, a white rambling rose which had seeded itself in her garden, together with begonia leaves and stems of pale pink astilbe and alstromeria. She finished off this soft coloured arrangement with large white roses tinged with pink and then white paeonies.

All these beautiful designs were raffled as usual at the end of the evening and the winning members and guests left with large smiles! We meet again on Wednesday, July 18 when Andrew Lloyd will be treating us to some “Midsummer Madness”. All visitors are welcome – 7.30pm at Bishampton Villages Hall.

DINAH WOOD