Cheadle Flower Club: Welcoming Autumn
Cheadle Flower Club meets monthly, sharing knowledge and techniques to create the most wonderful unique displays for the home, for gifts, and beyond. It's a delightful way to create pieces that bring a little joy to all who see them. With a florist wholesaler right here in Cheadle and a variety of flower sellers around the town, this makes for an accessible hobby. Here's what happened at the October meeting, sent in by Flower Club's Susan Fox.
Club’s chairman Sheila welcomed a large audience to our October meeting with a demonstration by club members Sheila, Dorothy and Ali with a demonstration entitled ‘Autumn Mix’.
Sheila started the demonstration with a scooped out pumpkin filled with soil and plants providing a novel way to produce an autumnal display. She next demonstrated how to make a broomstick using a garden cane wrapped with double sided tape and twigs attached to create the broom. She added a variety of dried material such as poppy heads, bunny tails, straw flowers and creepy spiders to give a wonderful Halloween vibe.
Ali from Bank Farm Flowers was then invited to give a talk on dried flowers. Ali has an allotment at Sunny House Farm in Tean and is a grower of many different varieties of dried and cut flowers. There has been a resurgence of interest in dried flowers recently with Ali growing straw flowers, achillea, zinnia, poppy heads, feverfew and thistle to name just a few. Ali dries them by hanging them up in brown paper in storage helping to retain colour. Ali handed around small buttonholes for members to handle and see the beautiful shapes and versatility of dried flowers .
Sheila then demonstrated a stunning wreath on top of a harvest box holding skimmia, fatsia, ivy, rosemary, wax flowers, dried nigella seed pods and sedum. The harvest items included sweetcorn, chillies, apples, grapes and a small pumpkin producing a wonderful combination of colour.
Next Dorothy presented her display she had already arranged at home, showing a ghostly white pumpkin holding beautiful red roses and sedum to give a gorgeous arrangement. Dorothy had also arranged a lovely display in a scooped out pumpkin with a carved scary face, holding dahlia, stocks, zinnias and poppy heads to produce a wonderful colour scheme. She had also arranged a small pumpkin surrounded by gypsophila with an orange night light on top which gave a beautiful idea for small seasonal table arrangements.
Sheila then took over for the final two arrangements, the first was arranged on top of the pumpkin holding fatsia, eucalyptus, ivy, stocks, zinnias, scabious, strawflowers,feverfew and astrantia creating a stunning display.
Whilst the final arrangement included a large wreath ring with a white pumpkin in the centre, a smaller wreath ring on top held an orange pumpkin with a large orange witches hat placed on top. The wreath rings held ivy, poppy heads, strawflowers, dahlias and chrysanthemum completing a wonderful display of autumnal and Halloween themed gorgeous arrangements.
Club President Elizabeth gave a vote of thanks to Sheila for all the hard work and thought gone into producing a wonderful evening, together with special thanks to Dorothy and Ali for all the wonderful help and assistance in making the evening such a huge success.
Our next meeting is on Wednesday 18th November with a demonstration by Eleanor Davies entitled ‘Christmas is Coming! ……. And?’ This will be held at The Guild Hall, Tape Street, Cheadle 7.30 pm. and will surely be a wonderful evening to get everyone in the mood for Christmas.
If you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact our chairman Sheila on 07974577572 or email sheilajones@hotmail.com
Cheadle Flower Club: Welcoming Autumn
