Ashton Hayes and Tarvin Flower Club's November Meeting.

WOW was the way to describe the Christmas demonstration and meeting.

Christmas came a little early but the evening was so well supported that extra chairs had to be found. The stalls selling wonderful Christmas gifts looked great (see photographs 4,5 & 6) and hopefully did well with sales. The tombola proved a great success with people coming to have a go.

Dawn Weaver, a local flower arranger, teacher and judge based her demonstration on a book by J.R.R.Tolkien called "Letters from Father Christmas". This is a collection of letters written and illustrated by J.R.R. Tolkien between 1920 and 1942 for his children from Father Christmas.

As Dawn worked on her designs she told us of Snowman, the head gardener and of the naughty antics of Polar Bear. We learned of the problems at the North Pole with goblins stealing gifts. The gnomes who worked there knew all the addresses of all children around the world. We call these postcodes in 2019!

Dawn's designs ranged from traditional red and green with holly and a reindeer to an all white snowman design. She produced an enchanted garden in orange tones and an alternative Christmas tree. Her final design was a representation of the Aurora Borealis with multi colours, sparkle and lights.

In all she used 75 stems of orchids in various colours of white, green, orange, purple, blue dyed and a lovely red/yellow mix called Tiger Lily. As well as traditional foliage and flowers she included more exotic greenery of palms, cheese plant and aspidistra and ginger flowers and anthuriums. The stage was packed at the end and very full of colour.

The raffle provided many winners as Dawn had split her designs into manageable sections and the stall holders were also generous with gifts. The seasonal refreshments hand made by our Chairman, Merryn, were delicious
Thanks go to Dawn for entertaining us so well but also to our members, visitors, stall holders and general help received. The flower club can manage to be financially viable for another year.

We do not meet in December so our next demonstration will be on January 8th 2020 with a visit from Louise Jones with the subject "Making a House a Home" Our monthly demonstrations are as entertaining as this one has been but on a lower key so if you enjoyed what you saw do come along. Visitors are always welcome.