Ashton Hayes & Tarvin Flower Club – Report of January Meeting (draft)

A good audience welcomed Louise Jones, a demonstrator, from the Wirral. Her subject was "Making a House a Home" She had good accessories for her designs and had researched her subject well. As one of the area NAFAS committee she also told us of this year's events and up-dated us on requirements for entering RHS shows.

Her 1st design represented decorating the home and was a small cascade in peach, pink and orange placed in a paint can. This was displayed on a ladder with other decorating accessories and a second placement, also in a paint can. She informed us that the 1st year of The Ideal Home Exhibition was 1908.

The kitchen was the topic for design 2. For this Louise had 2 wooden boxes with the front one containing a display of fruit. Her arrangement consisted of garden foliage with purple liatris , 5 purple and green brassica plants and some orange carnations. She recalled one demonstrator who had failed to warn her audience that these brassicas are not edible and the lady who won the design complained after trying to cook and eat them!!! The whole display was placed in front of a curtained kitchen window.

Cushions were her 3rd area to cover. She and a friend had attended a workshop and made some cream cushions in heavy wool. These she mounted on wire and made a space in the centre where she put her 3rd deigns containing purple dendrobium orchids. No good to use but most attractive to look at.
Design 4 was a structure for an odd corner which could be used all year round for various arrangements. She used a flower arranger's spade which held beautiful small anthuriums and unusual pom-pom roses for an elegant design.

Louise had been researching the Pot -au- fleur and decided that for demonstrating this was not entirely practical so she would do her take on one. The original was a good sized container with various pot plants in soil. Into the soil was buried one or two small containers to hold water for flowers. As the flowers died off they could be replaced and the pot plants continued to grow. She placed her foliage in blocks to represent plants and added eryngium, antirrhinum and pink roses.

For Louise's final topic she chose light, so important in a home. Her design was a crescent shape with large palms. The colour scheme was all pink with attirrinums, roses and some very attractive miniature gerbera. She displayed this on a very large lantern with a candle inside.
Thank you to Jane Pughe for the Photographs.

Several people left happily clutching the flowers they had won in the raffle after enjoying their cuppa and chat. Our next meeting, originally programmed as surprise is to be Penelope Harrison with the subject "Nature's Bounty" Hope to see a large audience again on 12th February at 7-30pm

Ed: Only by clicking on the photographs will you be able to see the demonstrator's overall designs.