Today I'm sharing the flowers from the Swedish Midsummer party I wrote about earlier this week. The blues and whites really matched the decor of the room we had, and they were beautiful!
The flowers were done by Botanic Events based in Sevenoaks in Kent, a friendly mum and daughter team. As well as the arrangements above they decorated the table too, in a way that I could only dream of. And you'll notice that I was quite fond of the sections containing nigella!
After cooking and eating (actually eating nowhere near as much as we cooked) there was some time to make some traditional flower garlands. Where to start, just look at the choice of flowers:
As well as nigella, roses and gypsophila - which if I'm honest I hadn't considered for many years, consigning it in my head to things of the 1980s - but here it looked right, even elegant and complementing the other blooms, and I might just have changed my mind.
The real find for me though among these flowers was the bunches of wax flower, it was something I'd not seen before - and for some inexplicable reason it's not in the photo above. And although I was very tempted to sneak the whole bunch home, I promise you I didn't... well not all of it anyway!
I did use it in my flower garland though and you can see it below and in the finished shots either side of the white rose-like but not rose flowers. I was so enamoured by the wax flower that I've forgotten the name of these!
Making the flower garland was relatively straightforward and not dissimilar to making a wreath, after all in its basic terms it's a wreath that sits on your head isn't it?! So we made a round(ish) shape to fit our heads from florists wire, and then cut small stems or individual flowers and wrapped florists tape around the stem and used that to attach them to the ring. The tip I learnt with the florists tape is to stretch it, as then it becomes more pliable and sticky making it easier to work with.
Although I had help from the lovely florists, I think mine turned out rather well, don't you?
And remember I said I brought some flowers home, well they're still going - admittedly not quite as strong now but it's been lovely to have them indoors. You might remember seeing my funky chicken's mohican on Instagram - it's still making me smile!
And that wax flower, I decided to take some cuttings and see if I could grow my own, so some of it has made it into the greenhouse. Keep your fingers crossed!
