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Oh my gourd! It's Halloween again.

I'm back into full swing at uni, and enjoying working at the Garden Museum and my counselling placement, so blogging has been neglected a bit. Sorry!

I couldn't let today go by without a post though. I've mentioned before that I never really cared for Halloween until I became a florist. Now I can't wait to fill pumpkins and gourds with flowers!

These are a couple from last year, when I used lots of foliage from the garden, and the odd rose, but also used lots of imported/unlikely to be British flowers. There's also gorgeous viburnum from the garden, which makes me feel a bit sad now, because this year it got some sort of disease in the roots (possibly from the wet weather, I'm told) and died.

This year I did a couple of gourds for the Garden Museum. The gourds were from a farm shop in Sidcup, Kent, called Kelsey's. They had such a stunning display of pumpkins and gourds of different shapes, sizes, and colours, and I could see people harvesting even more in their field.

I cut lots of beautiful brown and orange foliage from the garden (Physocarpus 'Diablo', maybe?), which doesn't last that long in water, but looks incredible. 

I snapped off some red foliage with berries that was hanging off a wall in an alleyway (you wouldn't want to meet a florist in an alleyway around here!), trailing ivy that seems to creep in everywhere in the garden, and some sedum which is now dark red. From the museum's cutting garden, I cut lots of euonymus, rosemary, sage, persicaria, and a beautiful foliage with berries that I don't know the name of. My local florist gave me some alstromeria that had opened, and I bought some solidago from her. I used the colourful bottom leaves of physocarpus as a bed for the gourd.

One of loveliest things about making these was the visitors to the museum who sometimes watch, ask questions, and comment on my work. It's a nice change from working alone as a freelancer in the garage!

And here are the gourdy flowers.

The last arrangement above was very pretty, but I made a mistake by leaving it on the counter of the cafe - all that warmth and ethylene from fruit and veg meant the design didn't last that long and had to be thrown out in less than a week.

But the big arrangement in the porch of the museum lasted well, and the following week I just took out a few of the going-over alstro, persicaria and foliage, and added a few stems of new foliage, chrysanthemums and limonium.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins and brains

Happy Halloween! The chocolates and traybake have been polished off by the local children, and all there is to do is try to think of a decent recipe using pumpkin.

Today was the perfect excuse to make some pumpkin arrangements and to use bright pink 'brains' (celosia) and red, trailing amaranthus, which are both from the same family and have stunning stems.

I also got some peachy, pink-tinged roses, orange euphorbia, and cut some pink roses and viburnum flowers and berries from the garden. There was some pepperleaf left over from my Tregothnan DIY box, too. Do make sure you wear gloves if you use euphorbia - it releases a milky sap when you cut the stems or break off the leaves, and this irritates the skin.

I made a big pumpkin arrangement in foam, a little pumpkin posy (which my little sister helped with), and a hand-tied in a fishbowl with the leftover flowers.

Floristry has a lot to answer for - I was never this fussed about Halloween before!

Happy Halloween

I offered to take flowers to a friend who had invited me over for dinner. He asked for something ‘unusual’ and ‘interesting’. I’m hoping that this Halloween/autumnal arrangement fits the bill. I’ve used orange ilex berries, orange brassicas, and Picasso eucalyptus in a hollowed-out pumpkin. But no scary face, especially since I am going to be delivering this on All Saints Day!

And either side are more leftovers for me. One of the perks of floristry!