Roundhill Flower and Garden Club

After an enforced break of eighteen months owing to the Covid pandemic and associated lockdowns, Roundhill Flower and Garden Club was finally able to return to holding its monthly floral demonstration meetings in September 2021. We had to adopt some stringent safety measures before meeting indoors was permitted, but nonetheless it was great to be back watching a flower arranging demonstration again.
Our demonstrator for the evening was Claire Bond, from Birmingham. She is a professional florist of many years experience who now runs her own flower school, in addition to being a former NAFAS demonstrator.
The title was ‘Best of British’, which showcased a distinctly topical, deeply environmental subject in that she only uses British grown flowers and foliages, thus avoiding the inevitable carbon footprint associated with cut flowers being flown into the markets from around the globe.
Claire described how she has two main sources of plant materials produced by growers in the UK, and is herself branching out into growing flowers for cutting and use in a wide variety of floral designs – even wedding bouquets.
Furthermore, to enhance the environmental aspect of her approach to floristry, she avoids the use of plastic based floral foam in her designs. This gave the demonstration another interesting twist as all her arrangements for the evening were created in a variety of containers using the old method of scrunched chicken wire as the support mechanism.
It was amazing to see how many different shapes of design could actually be created this way, not just the traditional loose triangle so familiar in old photographs. A diagonal; a vertical; and even a modern European parallel were all included, but perhaps the most fascinating was the creation of a flowing shower bridal bouquet constructed into a specifically rolled cage of chicken wire. This was hollow in the centre to provide two layers of support through which stems were passed front and back before being grouped into a ‘handle’. Once the bouquet was complete, the cage became totally hidden.
Of course, with the flowers being British grown, they were very much of ‘garden flower’ varieties. Dahlias featured substantially with some being enormous whilst others were the small pompoms. Colours ranged from deep orange, through golden yellow, to mauve, pink, and white. Other flowers included Cosmos, Calendula and Gladioli, along with the use of autumnal seed heads from Echinacea and Teasels.
However one of the most stunning flowers were the huge tassels of rust coloured Amaranthus which cascaded down from a pedestal design.
Members in the audience soon realised just how much we had missed visual delights such as this, and as said, it really was great to be back!