Maths + Jersey =

A leftover Sudoku rose from a few weeks ago, and the very empty bottle of apple brandy cream that my friend Tracey (who is good at maths!) sent me as part of my Christmas bundle.

Scent to sleep: Blue Jasmine

I was given a jasmine and lilac scented diffuser as a gift at the start of the year. The scent has been lovely, especially on warm mornings.

It's reaching the end now, so soon I will be using the bottle for tiny flowers. But before that happens, I was able to use the jasmine that's been flowering for a few weeks to make up a posy of leftovers from yesterday's flower stall.

How beautiful is the powder blue scabious? It reminds me of a Degas ballerina.

The larkspur trimmings began to flower in the heat and looked so pretty.

The poppy seedhead is so smooth and nature's design on the top is wonderful.

And that jasmine.

Jasmine smells amazing late in the evening and early in the morning.

The jasmine in both the diffuser and the posy scent me to sleep last night.

British Flowers Week: A Mad Tea Party for Alice's 150th

2015 is a year of a few special anniversaries. One of these is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

When I first read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, my favourite chapter was A Mad Tea Party. I loved how conversational and silly it was, I loved the setting and the characters. I didn't want the chapter (or the party) to end. I also loved the meeting with the Queen of Hearts, even though she was terrifying. The Duchess freaked me out though, especially after I saw a television version in the 80s.

Today is Alice's Day - the day that Lewis Carroll first told the story of Wonderland to Alice Liddell, who inspired the books. If you were lucky enough to be in Oxford today, you may have seen the celebrations, including a line up of 150 Alices!

When I did flowers a couple of weeks ago, I had the tea party in mind.

I often do - I bought this Alice cup when I visited a friend in Oxford, and another friend sent me this cake stand from Jersey.

Last month, I got rainbow cake fit for Wonderland, from Brighton cake and ice cream cafe Cloud 9. (This anniversary Mad Hatter cake is quite something though.)

There were "bunny ears" grasses to represent the White Rabbit and the March Hare, and a few strongly-scented red roses to keep the Queen of Hearts happy. There were also chamomile flowers, which I've wanted to grow for years, ever since I learned that they symbolise energy in adversity.

There were jam and marmalade jars, but no mustard.

I have three copies of the book because I love the different covers so much. I'm busy today and tomorrow with a flower stall (come and visit me - it's at the Garden Museum from 10.30!), but will dig out one of my copies and have a read again.

Lonely Bouquet Day 2015

The last Sunday in June is Lonely Bouquet Day, when we are encouraged to make posies of flowers from our gardens (or a kind neighbour's) and leave them in a recycled container for a stranger to enjoy.

I had left this posy at a train station during British Flowers Week.

But on Lonely Bouquet Day, I was looking after my disabled sister, and while I had buckets of flowers cut and ready for us to make posies together, she really wasn't in the mood. 

So when she suddenly decided she wanted to go out, I hastily made this one and she left it by the cut flower plot at Hall Place.

I have since seen that it was adopted!

Then the rain poured down, and in the afternoon, during a brief dry hour, I made and left a few more - by the allotments near Sundridge Park, and on the bench overlooking the Desmond Tutu Peace Gardens in Chinbrook Meadows, which were designed by Chris Beardshaw (and which were the site of my first abandoned bouquet a few years ago).

Unfortunately the rush meant no fancy photos; just hasty phone ones!

No use crying...

I saved my first, perfectly-formed delphinium to use in my new, second-hand vase. I arranged it with some white scented hesperis (sweet rocket), white roses and 'Nora Barlow' aquilegia from the garden and greenhouse. But as I turned around so I could move back to quickly photograph it, I heard a crash.

Gutted. After much cursing (sorry neighbours for the morning wake up call) I chucked the flowers in this old, first-hand vase, and they don't look nearly as good.

Mind you, despite being broken in the middle, the delphinium lasted another six days.

On the same morning as Vase-gate, I made a small posy of my flowers for Sara, the Garden Museum's sustainability trainee, who has just left to go on maternity leave. No disasters with that, fortunately! There were calendula, tagetes, aquilegia, and gorgeous-smelling sage and thyme.

And on Saturday I made a posy with another delphinium and my first few nigella.

Happy 2015!

Happy new year! Hope your year is full of happiness, health and peace.

Here are eight flower-filled milk bottles in lieu of eight maids a-milking for the eighth day of Christmas.

At last! A Christmas flower stall.

If you cast your mind back three years, you might remember I was trying in vain to get a flower stall for Christmas with a fellow student from my floristry diploma. Fast forward three years and I finally have one! The lovely people at the Garden Museum are running an eco-friendly Christmas fair called Diggin' Design for the third year running (I should have asked them three years ago!) and I will be sharing a stall with another lady who volunteers at the museum. I'll be doing all British flower posies and bouquets.

So this morning I was at Pratley in New Covent Garden Market nice and early (on the way there I saw two ice cream vans on the road...surreal in November). There was plenty of British flowers loveliness to choose from, including a box of 200 different-coloured tulips, which was very tempting but a bit too much for my needs! In the end, I bought powder blue scabious (I couldn't believe it was still flowering), brassicas, paperwhites, and freesias. The freesias and paperwhites smell beautiful.

I also went to GB Foliage and got viburnum, berried ivy (the berried ivy growing in the garden is not that great now - the ivy is fine, but the berries are not so pretty), and mistletoe. "Is it British?" I asked. "Yes," came the reply. "We don't like the French stuff."

I also had a delivery from Tregothnan - lots of pretty Sweet Williams from B J Richards, the last of the British chrysanthemums (well, it is still November), ranunculus, rosemary, sage, and pepperleaf. I got a bag of scented pine cones too, which I've wired to add to posies and other arrangements.

Here's it all cut and conditioned and ready to be arranged.

And here are the first of the posies in upcycled jars and tins...I had to quickly take these before the sun disappeared. There are big bouquets too...but you'll have to wait till tomorrow for photos. Or better still, come to the fair and see them for yourself! The fair is from 10.30am to 5pm tomorrow, at the Garden Museum (next to Lambeth Palace). Who would have thought you could get all this from Britain at the end of November?!