On Saturday August 6th, 34 ladies from our club made their way to Chicheley Hall near Newport Pagnell.  We weren’t quite sure what to expect as it was a new event and the pre-publicity had been quite understated but we are so glad we went.  Chicheley Hall itself is a lovely old building and the flowers that decorated it  were exquisite, I have never seen so many orchids anywhere before nor even flower arrangements on such a huge scale.   Flowers filled every room of the house, and outside was wonderful too.  There were floating arrangements on the pond, decorated trees, landscape art, and the local church was decorated too.  There was a big marquee with continuous demonstrations by international designers including Gregor Lersch, Moniek Vanden Berghe, Damien Koh and mini demonstrations in another part of the house.  It rained a little in the afternoon but nothing could dampen our spirits that day and if it is on again next year, you really should try to keep the date free to see it for yourself.  A few photographs are below to just give you a little taste of what we saw  at Chicheley Hall.

Gill’s last visit to our club was in 2007 so it was a great pleasure to welcome her back again for the July meeting.  Her enthusiasm for flowers, flower arranging, floristry and foliage remains as strong as ever and was evident throughout her demonstration which was peppered with useful information as well as alternative ideas for some common household items. Can you spot the table mat, tie holder and bath scrunchy in the photos?

In the bath scrunchy arrangement Gill used Palm, Scindapsus and Pandanus leaves. I am familiar with the first of those but had to look up the other two the following day.  In case you don’t know either – Scindapsus (Devil’s Ivy) is easy to grow as a house plant and Pandanus is a large genus of about 600 trees and shrubs from Asia and Africa, most of which have broad and dense leaves.

Gill’s sense of humour was a wonderful addition to the evening but there was an almost audible sigh of relief in the hall when both ‘homework tasks’ were allocated.  We await to see if certificates are collected!  (I’m afraid the significance of the last two sentences will be missed unless you were at the meeting).

On June 21st, approximately 30 of our members gathered in the centre of Ampthill to visit The Kings Arms Garden, a woodland garden of about 2 acres managed by volunteers on behalf of Ampthill Town Council.  We had first heard of this garden at our AGM in February, when Joan Emsley, one of the volunteers, had visited our club to give us a talk and slides and many of our members had said how much they would like to visit it for real.  The entrance is hidden away down Kings Arms Yard off the old Market Square and it’s difficult to believe that you are in the centre of a town once you are inside.  We were met by 2 of the volunteers, Joan and Bryden,  who gave us a brief talk on the history of the site and pointed out some of the more interesting plants to look out for before we all wandered around on our own.  The threatened rain managed to stay away and we had a very pleasant couple of hours just a few miles away from home.  There were plants for sale which many of us were unable to resist and an opportunity to meet up with other club members beforehand for a drink and a bite to eat so all in all it was a lovely evening.  A special thankyou to Bryden and Joan who made the evening possible and also so enjoyable.

How nice it was to hear Susie telling us stories about Susie’s homeland Zimbabwe, and her extrordanry encounters with their wild life. A good idea just to show what you can do with a £8 bunch of flowers from the supermarket. Thankyou for those who managed to do an arrangement for Your Turn ‘ Darling Buds of May’

Well! the night was full of wit and laughter, it is always a pleasure to welcome Nick Grounds back to Kempston, with some rustic designs especially the one in the huge wooden bowl, and as for the one in the tea cup(that cost Nick a lot of money), and the things that he aquires through his job. wouldn’t it be lovely if we could all have a job like that!

On Tuesday 1st March Jan came from her home in Essex to present ‘Designed to Please’.  She not only entertained us, but showed us some creative ideas with aspidistra leaves which were intended to inspire us to go home and give it a go!  She made 6 beautiful arrangements and some photos from the evening are below:

Well, What a night! We had wanted something very special to celebrate the Golden Anniversary of our club, and we certainly got it! Sandy pulled out all the stops with a brand new demonstration entitled ‘Threads of Gold’ which she had created especially for us and everyone enjoyed watching her create some beautiful arrangements whilst reminiscing about her childhood in Bedford and the people and places she remembered. Sandy and her helper had arrived at the Addison centre just after lunchtime to prepare for the evening, and for every arrangement that was produced as we watched, another matching or complimentary one was brought out from behind the scenes so that by 9pm the stage was literally full of flowers. All of the arrangements went into the raffle and so lots of ladies were lucky enough to take home an arrangement. Mulled wine and festive food was also available and we all had a truly memorable evening. Some photos are below…….

Last Tuesday we were joined by Jane Fox from Rugby who created some lovely arrangements under the title of ‘Bright and Beautiful’.  Jane was aware that our Club is celebrating our 50th Anniversary and so included one arrangement inspired by Constance Spry in the style of flower arranging that was popular in the 1960’s and one incorporating a big golden sun for today.  Her efforts were much appreciated by our members and her flowers truly were ‘Bright and Beautiful’!

In November 1960, the inaugural meeting of Bedford Flower Arranging Society was held in Newnham School, Bedford. The ladies present on that first evening would have been delighted to know that the club (now Bedford Floral Art Society) would be thriving 50 years later and that on Tuesday the current members and friends celebrated the anniversary in style. The Addison Centre in Kempston was awash with ‘gold’ decorations, accessories, raffle prizes and of course, flowers. There were 50 gold, flower-shaped candles too – not on the cake but on a leaf covered block of florists’ foam! After a delicious meal, the evening finished with a flower arranging demonstration, when local florist Pat Davies produced stunning arrangements on the theme ‘Ancient and Modern Revised’.  It was a lovely evening and a few photos from the evening are below.  If you would like a printed copy of any of our photographs, just let me know.