ON the evening of Wednesday, April 19, forty-two members and seven visitors were at Bishampton Village Hall to welcome Sharon Dower from Swansea to give her demonstration entitled “Nature’s Cast-offs”.

She entertained and amused us with her chat while carrying out her demonstration using pieces of wooden bark of interesting shapes and textures, gold-painted pieces of bamboo, old twisted pieces of an ivy plant and banana bark coating a long wooden box, which she had made herself.

The foliage she used was extremely varied – palm leaves, tall leaves of cordyline “black tie”, stems of pussy willow, eucalyptus, camellia leaves, sprigs of cotoneaster, sprigs of rosemary, branches of variegated ivy, some of which had been provided by members of the Club.

Her flowers were exotic – wonderful pink and burgundy orchids, cerise provadia flowers, coral anthuriums, dark arum lilies, lilac gerberas, large white snapdragon blooms, lilac stocks, sunflowers and dark coral peonies with yellow centres to match the sunflowers.

She created a white arrangement in her “banana box” using palm leaves and molucella, otherwise known as Bells of Ireland, with white alstromeria, white choisya and large white hydrangea heads. For a bit of shine and shimmer and to add texture, she had made small squares of sparkly wallpaper attached to wires which she inserted in the arrangement. It was a wonderful show of beautiful foliage and flowers all put together with such skill and original thought and the raffle-ticket winners were delighted to take home their arrangements – less, of course, the dramatic “mechanics”.

On Friday, May 5, look out for a ‘Lonely Bouquet’ displayed at varied points in our area and take one home to enjoy. Attached will be a small label telling you about Flower Clubs.

Our next meeting, to which all visitors are welcome, is on Wednesday, May 17 at our usual venue, Bishampton Village Hall, at 7.30pm. Please come along and enjoy the demonstration.

DINAH WOOD