Twelfth Night

A belated happy new year. You can probably guess what one of my new year's resolutions is, from my lack of blogging at the end of 2013.

As it's the twelfth day of Christmas, I thought I would add some Christmas photos, before decorations get packed up and put away for another 11 months.

I did two themed Christmas bouquets last month. One was The Miracle of 34th Street, inspired by the 1947 film with Maureen O'Hara and a very young Natalie Wood. It's red and green, with anemones, rosemary, pepperberries, and viburnum. It is supposed to represent tradition but also a childlike sense of fun. I used rosemary in all of the festive bouquets, and as well as making them smell delicious, they also conveyed one of the sentiments of Christmas and new year - remembrance.

The other was Joyeux Noël, inspired by the 2005 film about the Christmas truce during the First World War. I saw the film when it came out at the cinema, and I thought it was lovely - just the right side of sentimental, with some wonderful acting. Although it was odd to see Alex Ferns as anything other than Trevor from EastEnders. This bouquet has blue, red and white, with bubblegum-scented muscari, anemones, pepperberries, some had viburnum and others white hellebores (Christmas roses), and most had senecio. They are supposed to represent warmth and empathy. I got all of the ribbons for the jam jars from Bromley market on Small Business Saturday.

There was a lot of Christmas baking, too. Two different attempts at lebkuchen (this one, thanks to a recommendation on Twitter, which I amended to replace the ground almonds with flour because of an allergy, and this one, which I added a bit of melted butter to as it wouldn't bind), mint chocolate cakes, spiced mocha cakes, peppermint fairy cakes, and mince pies aplenty (using variations on Nigella Lawson's and Mary Berry's recipes). The peppermint cakes just use the standard 2oz to 1 egg sponge recipe I was taught as a girl, with melted dark chocolate for the mint chocolate ones, and peppermint essence. I do recommend the Primrose Bakery book as the recipes are wonderful (the Earl Grey cakes, for example) and the bakery in Covent Garden is the perfect pitstop.

And finally, this was one Christmas present that went down well with my little sister. I admit it - I probably enjoyed playing this game more than her.

Happy Twelfth Night!

DIY flowers

If you can’t travel to a pick-your-own flower farm like Blooming Green in Kent, Green and Gorgeous in Oxfordshire, or one of many flower farms in the West Country, then here is something to try: a DIY box of flowers from the Cornish farm Tregothnan. I think this is something new that the company has just introduced, but I hope it takes off.

There are three different sizes/prices of boxes of flowers and foliage – a posy box, a bouquet box and a deluxe bouquet box. I ordered the posy box, which was £19.95 when I ordered it last week, and I was very happy with what I got.

For starters, there was more than a posy’s worth of flowers. There was a big bouquet’s worth, with plenty of foliage left over. They are lasting very well, and still look as fresh today as they did when I made the posy on Monday, soon after receiving the delivery box. The box included some striking pepperleaf (drymis) foliage, which has red stems and glossy green leaves and a sort of cinnamon scent, and beautiful pink-red kaffir lilies, which look rather like mini gladioli until the flowers open – both of them are things that I am unfamiliar with and probably wouldn't have ordered on their own, but now, I’m enamoured by them! It was also wonderful to receive the first narcissi and anemones of the season, both stunning.

Tregothnan uses a combination of flowers and foliage that are growing in its farm, but tops up, if necessary, with extras from other Cornish farms.

I hope other farms will do similar boxes. It would be nice to order flowers from somewhere that is less than 300 miles away! In the meantime, I just hope Tregothnan continues to do these DIY boxes. They are a great idea for anyone who wants to make a bouquet as a gift or to arrange themselves, and they are a fantastic present for someone who loves to arrange flowers. And of course, they are an easy way to buy British, seasonal flowers.

Spring/Summer Collection 2012

As it’s Easter, I thought I’d add some photos from the past month. I’ve used lots of spring flowers – scented narcissi, irises, ranunculus and anemones, as well as pink, summery roses: huge Sorbet Avalanche spray roses and scented Auguisa Luise garden roses.

This gift posy uses florist hyacinths, paperwhites and ranunculus.

The next few pictures feature hyacinths that I’ve grown in the greenhouse. The blue is Delft Blue, the pink is Pink Pearl, the yellow is City of Haarlem, and the purple is Woodstock. They smelt gorgeous.

And here are some arrangements using City of Haarlem hyacinths, Pacific Blue roses (which are also scented), lisianthus and skimmia.

Fast away the old year passes

I did my last Christmas arrangement on Christmas Eve. It was quite sad to pack away the remaining baubles and cinnamon sticks, but never mind - Christmas will come around again quickly enough. Here are photos of some of the arrangements I did as presents or to brighten up my home.

Here's the Christmas topiary tree that I made in college, once I'd found an angel for the top.

And on Christmas Day, I did run over to the greenhouse, like the boy ran outside in The Snowman, only to be met with mild disappointment that my snowdrops hadn't flowered yet.

Back indoors, there was baking to be done. Lavender cupcakes, unintentionally decorated with Manchester City blue icing, mince pies and cheese straws. I'll just have to be patient and wait for the snowdrops.

We're dancing in the midnight sky

Let’s have a different song this time.

Unfortunately, getting a market flower stall is not as simple as my friend and I had thought. For various reasons, we’ve had no joy so far. But we’ll keep trying. I really enjoyed planning our stall and the bouquets and posies I wanted to make, which are all inspired by Christmas songs. As I’m so keen to make them anyway, I bought lots of flowers from the market so I could start making them as presents for people. Here are three that I made for my tutors and the technician at college. They work so hard teaching us and organising flowers and sundries for all the students, and I feel very lucky to be doing my course.

This floaty one is called Walking in the Air. It’s funny, because I wrote out the kind of material I wanted to use in the arrangement weeks ago, such as fountain grass and lisianthus, and the delicate, ethereal effect I wanted it to have, and when I finally made it, it was just how I imagined it would be.

This pretty one is Fairytale of New York. I wanted it to be white, pale pink and green, and I thought the pastel colours of the anemones and Little Silver spray roses, the delicate narcissi and the big, sweet-smelling O’Hara roses would help to create a ‘fairytale’ effect. I also listened to The Pogues’ and Kirsty McColl’s song again and realised that there are some sweet lyrics in it, amongst all the insults!

And the last one is Blue Christmas. Due to budget constraints, I couldn’t buy all of the flowers I’d originally planned to use, so this arrangement didn’t really turn out how I’d hoped. But I think these anemones and beautifully scented muscari are pretty blue, while the thistles and eucalyptus are lovely and Christmassy. I have to confess, when I planned to do a Blue Christmas posy, I had the Shakin’ Stevens version in my head (I’m sorry, Elvis). He was my idol when I was about three years old. If I do this design again, I’ll see if I can get some denim ribbon to tie around it, in honour of him!

How does your garden grow?

Roald Dahl, whose writing I adored as a child and still love as an adult, wrote a marvellous parody of the nursery rhyme ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary’ which features in his collection of poems, Rhyme Stew:

‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
“I live with my brat in a high-rise flat
So how in the world would I know.” ’

Now I don’t live in a high-rise flat, but I am a novice at this gardening lark. I've felt incredibly inspired by Sarah Raven, who is to gardening what Jane Packer is to floristry, and I've been devouring her book, The Cutting Garden, every day. It's a must-read if you want to grow your own flowers for cutting - there are garden plans for each season, ideas for seasonal flower arrangements, and huge section giving detailed information on different plants to grow for cutting, including particular varieties for their colour or scent.

Today we started to prepare a bed for daffodil, muscari and tulip bulbs. I can’t believe I actually used a wheelbarrow without any disasters.

I’ve planted hyacinth, ranunculus, Anemone De Caen, and snowdrop bulbs in pots and left them in the greenhouse (which is in dire need of a tidy up). I’ve already learnt one lesson, which is that labels shouldn’t be written with a water-soluble pen! We’ll see whether I have any success with the flowers in the spring.