Ashton Hayes and Tarvin Flower club

The October meeting of Ashton Hayes and Tarvin flower club was of the usual high standard. Jacqueline Owen, our demonstrator, is new to flower arranging but is an experienced florist who has a wedding business. She was entertaining to listen to and passionate about flowers. She gave up a highly paid career to follow this creative path.

Her topic "A River runs through it " refers to the river Weaver, one of 18 rivers in Cheshire, and deals particularly with Nantwich where she lived as a child and returned 5 years ago .She told us of childhood walks with her Grandad by the river and all her designs were influenced by that area.

Her final design , called "River flow" , has a photograph and had delphiniums in the most glorious shade of blue. She preferred not to have her other designs publicized so I have tried to show examples of the flowers used, leaf manipulation and the tree bark tied with string as a container.
All the designs could be viewed from all round and contained much foliage, often eucalyptus. Her flowers, which she very carefully obtains, included very expensive hand-picked roses that are always perfect (unfortunately with no perfume) The lilies were a double variety and she used white flowering euphorbia which was very attractive.

The six designs created were all quite subtle in their use of colour and didn't contain too many flowers but the results were stunning.

She gave us a good tip to remember when using Hydrangeas. They take up water better through head of the bloom so give them an hour or more upside down in water to give them a good drink before using them.

The next meeting on 8th November will be out Christmas demonstration. Make sure you have the date in your diary. We will be meeting in the hall so would love a large audience. More details of what to look forward to will follow nearer the time.