Christmas Delights Floral Arrangements

On an Autumn evening 22 BRHS members and guests attended our first talk since February 2020. Unfortunately our booked speaker Jenny Hendy was unable to attend.

Thank you to Sally Gosmore for stepping in at short notice to do some Christmas inspired floral arrangements with the theme ‘Christmas Delights’. 

Sally has been creating arrangements for over 40 years and took her WI judges test and has been a judge for 38-39 years and now she also does stage and interpretation.

Conditioning your plant material before you start is essential for them to live longer in the arrangement. Leaving the leaves on the flowers will help them take on water. If you are cutting flowers and foliage from your garden it is best to cut them in the morning. Sally usually just uses a bucket of water to give the flowers a good drink before arranging and if using bought flowers trim the stems at an angle to allow more water to be taken up.

One of the main points in flower arranging is to create texture and form into the design and you will see all three have been created with this in mind.

Our first arrangement was using shades of green foliage, silver twigs and flowers of shades of gold (yellow and orange).  Using different shapes and texture in the foliage and diagonal twigs to give width and a focal point.  Flowers used were roses, spray chrysanthemum and small gerberas to create a lovely golden arrangement.

The second was an indoor wreath using sphagnum moss covered with gypsophila, floristry wire twirls, cones, adorned with small Christmas baubles and finished off with small led lights. This could be used as a wreath hung on the wall or on a table with a candle as the centrepiece. 

The final arrangement was using the traditional Christmas colours of varied green foliage and flowers of different shades of red. Tall spikes of phormium were used to give the structure height. Sally used the yellow edged and pink edged varieties which created a lovely effect to give height. Again different foliage used including holly, pittosporum and others to give texture and form were used. The flowers were roses, spray carnations, hydrangea and alstroemeria  with clematis seed heads. The display was finished off with gold sprayed poppy seed heads, cones and twigs.   This was set on a tall mount/pot and in the best Blue Peter style a smaller one Sally had prepared earlier.

This stunning display finished off a perfect evening for us.

After Sally had completed her demonstration we thanked her for her time and expertise, and she kindly judged our Monthly competition which was won by Mrs Liz Pinder for her vase of Winter berries.

We hope there was something to inspire you all to try one of these at home for the festive season and beyond.

Happy Christmas