Good heavens….what a day! Filled with activity, smiles and breathtaking beauty.

As last time, it all kicked off with lovely Jardine Hansen hauling buckets of flowers….(this time the ones that herald the spring season) into the Dairy, on an astonishingly bright last- Saturday-of-winter’s morning.

Flowers that our participants would plunder later in the day, to make arrangements of their very own.

But it all began (after morning tea and lengthy conversations about flowers!) with a garden ramble to collect a bounty of material for Jardine to play with…from branches of Manchurian Pear and Almond blossom, crab-apple and banksia to racemes of Macadamia flowers, feathery artemisia to cupped abutilons, the first fennel flowers and kitchen garden poppies, for a morning session of tips and teaching before lunch at a flower-laden table. 

And then, working at paper covered trestles, participants plucked the material of their heart’s desire from those dazzling buckets and got to work.  A buzz of chatter was interspersed with the silence of concentration, experimentation and pure joy.  

As Jardine coaxed and encouraged, made a suggestion to add here or subtract there, arrangements of wonderful diversity emerged from tables covered in flowers and foliage at the ready ‘for placement’.

But I’m leaving you with this image of exquisite poppies, neither frilled nor pleated, yet something in between….blushed and magical.  Thank you Jardine, from me and all our participants, for a quite wonderful workshop.  What a heavenly way to spend a Saturday! 

ps you can see all the beaming faces holding their arrangements on Jardine’s instagram page if you go to @jardinebotanic