Sussex Life and Wreath Workshop

This lovely article appeared in the Dec Edition of Sussex life magazine.
It’s about Christmas wreaths with tips on how to make your own with foliage from your garden.

If you’d like to make your own wreath with a great selection of materials, a glass of Nyetimber and mince pies then it’s not too late to book a place on one of our wreath workshops at Cowdray Hall this year. There are still a few places left on our afternoon workshop at Cowdray Hall on Thursday 5th December. Book online at www.cowdray.co.uk

I hope you can make it and if so I look forward to meeting you.

If you can’t attend the workshop but would like to buy a wreath then please get in touch as we are taking orders for Dec through to Christmas. We no longer sell our wreaths and flowers through the Cowdray Farm shop as we operate a local, weekly delivery service by electric van from our busy flower studio in Midhurst.

Sustainable White Wedding at Cowdray House

On last day of August we arranged the flowers for this elegant white wedding for Louise and John.

St Mary’s church, Easebourne, Midhurst was the venue for the ceremony and we dressed the outside with seasonal white flowers and woodland foliage. Inside the church we dressed the windowsills with trailing ivy, candles and clouds of gypsohilla and a large urn of seasonal white flowers with woodland greenery completed the decoration. All of the flowers were arranged into water with no single use plastic floral foam used in the mechanics.

The reception was at beautiful Cowdray House where we decorated the fireplace and the tables with ivy training from candelabra and gorgeous white and neutral shades of roses, seasonal flowers and Louise’s favourite Lily of the Valley.

British Flowers in August

Garden roses, dahlias, rudbeckia, cosmos, scabious, blackberries, grasses, seed heads…

You probably know by now that we grow our own flowers where possible but we also use other growers, farms and suppliers and this week we had a delivery from West End Flower Farm in Hampshire where they grow the kind of flowers I love; a little wayward and wild!

There’s such a huge choice of flowers available in August with garden roses are enjoying their second flush, dahlias coming thick and fast, there’s rudbeckia, cosmos, scabious blackberries, grasses, seed heads and the strongest beech, jasmine and rambling rise foliage.

I’ve used all of the above in the arrangement below in some of my favourite jewel colours of August.

The abundance of August

British grown garden roses

British grown rudbeckia

British Dahlias

Jewel coloured British flowers of August