The Wedding Flowers

The flowers always play a huge part in any wedding decor and you need a lot of them for any kind of impact, especially in a bare paddock. We are not professionals by any means and I think this goes to prove that with some help and YouTube tutorials, almost anyone can pull off some pretty floral decorations. 

Firstly make sure you know what style the bride is expecting; casual, cottage, field or formal, colour specific and traditional. 

Next really take a mental snapshot of the time of year and what will be growing then. Start assembling some lists of flower contributors and don't forget the very important green fillers.

One of the tools I found useful was to collate pictures of in season flowers on a pintrest board and share this with the bride so she has the story too.

Start putting some flowers together in arrangements to see how the colours and textures sit together and more importantly see how they fare over the next few days for their durability after being cut.

Before the big week it's time to make checklists and start assembling the vessels, lighting etc.

If you are decorating a marquee you will need a very tall ladder; the six footer is not going to cut it. Some of the more obvious equipment will include but not limited to: secateurs, gaffer tape, chicken wire, florist wire, cutters and oasis foam but don't forget a staple gun, impact drill, batteries, rubber bands. cable ties, needle and thread and a spray bottle of water. A folding trestle table will be invaluable and take insect repellent!

I was fortunate to have the the back of the ute to work with when I was packing the flowers, otherwise, set up a table to save a lot of back breaking. Cutting started at dawn and you need to allow yourself a good couple of hours or more for this job. These "Pierre De Ronsard" and "Naheema" roses were the key flowers in all the ceremony arrangements; that is the bridal arch, the signing table and the large urn backdrop. It's good to bear in mind not just the "prettiness" of the effect you are creating but also backdrops for the photos.

Sedums were the huge hero of the day and coped quite well with the 39C heat and wind when all else was flagging. They filled arrangements elegantly but be warned, the bees LOVE them and several varieties of bees came from everywhere to sup at their cups.

Top right is the lovely silvery velvet of Dusty Miller, also durable and a great contrast. Down in the bottom left is the old alium heads that were great structural additions in tall arrangements as were the dried towering russet seed heads of the giant ruby rhubarb that I grow, pictured below.

These looked amazing in a really large spectacular dimension arrangement in my urn on a column. You'll have to take my word for it as there are no photos because just before the happy couple arrived at the ceremony, the wind captured it's magnificent proportions and propelled it to the ground where the urn smashed. All we could do was quickly kick it to one side out of view. We managed to salvage most of the pieces and Craig has glued it back together and it looks a vision of antiquity and will live another day at another event some time I'm sure.

In the absence of a van, the flowers had to travel in my car as they would have been devastated by the wind on the back of the ute. Very tall bucket meant I could travel with water in the bottom but a few bumps in the road would not cause spillage. I have a huge ream of wrapping paper that I bought from a florist supplier years ago and it really came into it's own. Every bunch was wrapped in neat cones to protect the flowers during travel, limit their expiration and make packing into the buckets safe and easy.

Greenery is just as important as the pretty stems too. I had a whole bucket tightly packed of ivy: IMPORTANT- this is highly irritating so wear long sleeves and gloves (also another vital to add to your packing list) when working with it. I had two buckets of lovely hardy spinning gum cuttings and a great sheaf of twisted willow. I also had large stems of agapanthus (flowers spent) which I cut the seeds from creating balls of green globulous sticks. Very striking.

I had been watching the long term weather forecast avidly and it became more and more apparent that we would be in the middle of a scorching heat wave. That is why I decided to add in some dried elements. This massive bunch of Love-In-A-Mist gone to seed would become the central feature in the marquee with woven bud lights through it. I knew a massive fresh ball of floristry was going to be problematic.

I had the car absolutely packed as tight as a sardine can and boy was I glad to get to the other end. Two hours inside a closed car full of flowers and greenery was overpowering! The shearer took all the hardware on the ute along with the ladder and urns etc. 

At the other end the buckets were placed in a cool dark part of the house where they remained from Thursday until Saturday morning when they were taken to the site. 

IMPORTANT - Check their water during this cool store time and top up. You'll be surprised just how much they'll go through.

On Saturday morning at dawn we picked more roses, dahlias and the gorgeous lemon ginger flowers seen above from my daughter's garden. Everything arrived at the venue in tip top condition and we worked fast and furiously for a few hours. It was so unfortunate that we had such unseasonable weather. There is not much you can do about it but be ready to adapt and be fluid with your ideas.

By doing the bulk of the flowers ourselves we saved a substantial amount of money but more than that....

and I hope I can express this right...

The flowers came together by the giving from family, friends and neighbours and I certainly saw a creative side of my other sin-in-law who helped us with the many arrangements. I'm sure they thought they were simply pitching in but more than that...

When I look at these photos and remember the day and the flowers, those family, friends and neighbours wove themselves into the very fabric of the memories of that day. I can't help but look at the bridal arch and think of Dino and his beautiful garden that I am privileged to wander so often. Of Rae so generous and vibrant, delivering a whole ute load of spinning gum branches. Of Leslie and her twisted willow and I see her smiling face. Of mum, delaying the cutting of her ivy so we would have long stems for the day. Of Susie who sat with me for five hours, she at her machine and I at mine and we made metres and metres of bunting.

And on and on....

Thank you to so many for all their love and support, It really makes a wedding when so many people are intimately involved.

Here are some really great tutorials for event flower decorating...

Large Scale Floral Decorating

Pergola or Arch by Flower Moxie

Suspended Floral Installation by Team Flower

this one is long but a beautiful thing to watch - 

A Lesson in Florals with Nicolette Camille 

Countdown To The Wedding

If I appear a little quiet....fear not for I am busily putting together the wedding decorations. My eldest gets married in just under three weeks and I am trying to coax the flowers to ignore the sweltering heat and keep coming towards fruition.

Maybe there will be a lot of foliage and seed heads....

Working with living things and trying to plot their course on a calendar....isn't it exciting!!!

I'm gathering together pieces to interpret her "Boh-ho" vision. Her brief "Not really a colour theme, sort of Turkish rugs and candles, not cottagey, a bit Lux....vague...mutterings and hand flingings....

oh and we'll be in a paddock don't you know.

I've been watching a lot of floristry tutorials to learn how to do really large scale event pieces. Fingers crossed.

I just found out we also want bunting for the marquee....

again, a bit vague on a colour story so I have chosen to pull out the accent colours within the Persian style rugs that we are scattering everywhere with straw bale seating.

The upside is that the stash is getting a really good bust-a-long and thank goodness for the invention of cutting mats and wheels. My very clever man also zipped out to the shed and knocked up a template for me in lovely acrylic so I can cut accurately and quickly.

Big Love.

All the while it is coming into preserving season and I am pressure canning lots of vegetable soups, curries and casseroles for shelf storage to try to use up the zucchini glut.

So I am still here, just reeaaalllyy busy.

#markandtedwed

The Birthday Bower

The feasting continued Boxing Day as we celebrated the 100th anniversary of my Nan's birthday and my youngest daughter's birthday. Much of the warm afternoon hours were lazed away under the trees in the cool and the babes dozed at intervals.

There are a couple of dishes for the day that were outstanding that I want to note the recipes for.

The first,

Macadamia, Mango and Haloumi Salad

(This is my recipe for 12 people)

 3 cups of prepared cous cous

700-800g of Halloumi 

300g of macadamias 

3 ripe mangoes

Very large bunch of mint and parsley

Macadamia oil

Salt and pepper

Dice the mangoes, chop the mint and parsley and add to the prepared cous cous.

Slice the halloumi and cook in a med-hot pan then quickly pan roast the macadamias

Cut the halloumi into bite sized pieces and roughly chop the macadamias.

Mix all the ingredients together with a drizzling of macadamia nut oil.

This makes a sweet, nutty, minty dish with a texture explosion of the cous cous and the soft mango with the hard meaty nuts and the chewy almost squeaky fried halloumi.

Visually it is bright and festive too.

The roulade is a bit more fiddly and complicated but Izaac and Camilla volunteered to do this one and equated the process to something a bit like childbirth; a bit complicated with many stages and sweat with a great end result and after about three years the memories fade and you are ready to tackle it again.

They used Delia Smith's online recipe here

We spent a lazy four hours outside under the trees sipping sparkling wine and cutting the beautiful flourless orange cake. It is a Nigella Lawson recipe and a light refreshing morsel after the two days of feasting.

A family game of quoits and a bit more chatting and snoozing...

bowers of roses about our beds...

This one is called "Coral Dreaming"

(The rose in the top picture is called "Dark Desire" and is for making rose petal jam, The rose featured in the middle is the very popular"Pierre de Ronsard") 

Happy Birthday Nan and Emma x

My Frost Protectors

Can you see my frost protection?

How about now?

Poppies!

That's right, these over-run perennial borders of poppies are one of the ways I protect tender plants from late frosts. Growing in the midlands is a challenge and last week's low temperatures showed us we are still not safe from frosts.

We are tentatively planting out tomatoes and zucchinis but we're ready with the covers just in case. Unfortunately the poppies weren't tall enough six weeks ago and all but a couple of my iris buds were destroyed but I can't cover everything. Actually in those frosts we even lost things in the poly-tunnel.

Long time readers will remember that when we moved here a few years ago we had our hands full with the house and the garden (paddock!) just had to wait, so I sprinkled some poppy seed hoping to have some spring beauty and a way of keeping some weeds down and mulch at the end.

Besides being cheap, easy, showy and then providing mulch and seed ....

It helped to cut some of the winds and I found it was wonderful protection for emerging dahlias and salvias etc. They are so expendable and if they get broken or blown it really doesn't matter. At the very least they put on a colourful show after the bulbs and blossom have finished and the bees adore them. 

And next year they come again....

In The Zone

I used to feel so comfortable and at home in this world, now everything looks exotic and strange. I used to know so many of the plants but that was more than 30 years ago. Now the scenery for the most part jars my senses and jangles my nerves.

We recently went back to Queensland to see a new grandson and family.

I used to embrace the heat and humidity but now I find like a plant out of climate, I don't fare well; my skin doesn't feel comfortable and my hair becomes listless.

This is more the palette of my spring world now and the climate I feel comfortable in. It takes a long time to acclimatise and I am sure I've arrived.

It has made me think about the plants and gardening. We can and often do, blur the climate zones within which we grow things, some survive and a rare few fully acclimatise but for the most part I sympathise with those plants out of zone that fail to thrive but we persevere anyway.

My folly of a Tahitian Lime in Campbell Town is very much on my mind. It's definitely not thriving but....it just might be acclimatising.....?

Are you like an exotic flower and struggle outside of your climate zone now?

Twined Climbing Frames

Thank you all for the lovely encouragement and kind words. 

The long term plan for the front garden is a white garden of cottage style but for now a bit of anything to fill the gaps and bring joy. Bright balls of blooming dahlias. 

These climbing tepees were one of the last projects the Golden Child helped me with before he flew out on Monday. He is so like his father, I have a scheme and he accedes and makes my dreams reality. 

We have been cutting some juvenile English elm trees that are too close to the neighbouring house. We cut some sturdy lengths and used some strappy Siberian iris leaves to weave fine twig lengths around the poles.

I plan to plant white sweet peas to climb these for the spring.

Either side of the door in large urns we have planted evergreen magnolias "Teddy Bear" and under-planted with white annuals. I am pouring over white tulip varieties for late winter and have planted some miniature white agapanthus, some hardy erigeron with it's tiny white daisy-like flowers and helichrysum "Hi Ho Silver", a hardy silver foliage ground cover.

In the front, I have planted a low hedge of Italian lavender.

"Riccarton"

Just on the eastern outskirt of Campbell Town is "Riccarton", one of the first land grants in the area dating back to 1826 and owned by the Lyne family since 1909.

It is a charming serene oasis created amidst the "bones" of very old plantings where Poppy Lyne has created sweeping beds and graceful turns to compliment her great passion for bulbs and peonies. 

Not only do I draw inspiration from plantings, but also from gates and structures, the visual clues to the "doorways" from one area to another. 

This can still be achieved even in small gardens and they need not be expensive, just strong to stand the test of time, winds and to support the weight of growth.

I note with interest also the various ways of using rocks, plentiful on our own land, about the structures for borders and walkways.

An example of "cloud" pruning, a technique where branches are stripped bare and balls are encouraged at the ends, giving trees another design look all together. Their whimsical look puts me in mind of Dr, Suess illustrations.

Strong straight pruning lines and formal clipped hedges.

Box clipped into fences, columns and pillars.

Some focal points are as simple as taking advantage of a lost tree and using the stump as a column.

Or interesting weathered sculptural garden art,

Clever vistas...

Views beyond....

A memorial garden commemoration 100 years of Lyne ownership of the property.

A gate on the outer perimeter of the house garden looking further eastwards. 

The dovecote in the orchard.

The sheep brought in for drafting the lambs from the ewes look on bleating, a reminder of the importance of the wool industry in the district.

And a little further along we come to Poppy's vast plantings of peonies for cutting.

A grand passion and I can certainly understand why she is so captivated. So many varieties, both herbaceous and tree.

I could have stayed for hours but it's also nice to get back to one's own garden and get stuck in with fresh eyes and inspiration. 

Riccarton is a working farm and not a public garden. I would like to thank Poppy for very kindly showing us her garden and sharing her passion, it was a rare treat.