Hilltop Gardening Club: with guest speaker Alwyn Page, a NAFAS National Tutor
ALWYN Page, a NAFAS National Tutor, led members of the Club through an evening of flower arranging that proved to be fun, relaxing and therapeutic!
To start the proceedings, she demonstrated three hand-tied designs, which can be made using garden flowers.
Wiring and floral foam was not required.
The first was a Tudor-style Tussie Mussie, a small fragrant nosegay, using a perfumed flower like a rose, for a centrepiece, surrounded by fragrant foliages and herbs.
Such posies were carried in Tudor times whenever you left the house to ward off the diseases of the streets.
The second was a Victorian posy, larger than a Tussie Mussie, but still a posy.
It is sometimes called a Biedermeier arrangement, reflecting an artistic style that spread throughout Europe in the early Victorian period.
Containing flowers of various sizes and colours, arranged in concentric circles, and edged with foliage like ferns, ivy and hostas, the finished posy is tightly packed and has a dome-like top, like an inverted saucer.
The Victorians loved strong dark colours but today any colour schemes are acceptable.
The third was the all-round (mixed flower) Hostess bouquet using the spiral tie method.
This is a challenging arrangement needing a minimum of 25 stems: bold flowers for the centre, filler flowers, linear flower material, filler foliage, flat foliage to create an outer collar.
To create this arrangement one needs very flexible hands!
Refreshments were then served and members who wanted to ‘have-a-go’ themselves proceeded to practical work, supervised by Alwyn.
We all learnt how important prior conditioning of the plant material is (otherwise everything flops!) and that one must prepare and strip all the stems as far as the tying point, before starting a design.
The finished posies were much admired, especially the two bouquets made by our more experienced members.
Finally the three designs created by Alwyn were raffled and three lucky members went home with them.
The next meeting of the Club will take place on Tuesday, July 5 (7.15pm for 7.45pm) when Gareth Williams will talk about ‘The National Gardens Scheme: the secrets of the Yellow Book’.
He will cover the history of the NGS and then give us his thoughts and experiences of what the scheme looks for in gardens that are accepted for the YB.
It is through the NGS that gardens in Eastcombe, Bussage and Brownshill are open for charity each year at the beginning of May.
Membership and other information relating to the Hilltop Gardening Club can be obtained from Ruth Fraser on 01452 770535, or by viewing our website at hilltopgardeningclub.org.uk
Non-members are welcome to Club meetings, which are usually held on the first Tuesday of the month from Autumn to Spring.
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