April Showers Bring Spring Flowers

This afternoon we had a joint meeting of two of our Ladies’ Groups. Our guest speaker was Rebekah Weston of Becky’s Blooms. Rebekah grew up at KMFC, then left with her parents when her father Chris became pastor of another local Baptist Church.

After some glorious weather last week, the rain was really quite heavy at 2pm and I wondered if it would reduce our numbers – but we had over 30 present and the Hall was comfortably full.

Here’s the before and after of her first demo

She demonstrated four different arrangements of fresh flowers, and also brought some silk arrangements to sell. Her talk was really informative and full of helpful tips.

• don’t mix daffodils in with other flowers, their sap will kill off the non-daffs
• always cut stems on a slant to give maximum area for taking up water
• the sap from euphorbia stems is irritant – seal the cut ends in a gas flame.
• soak your Oasis for a minimum for 30 minutes.
• condition your flowers with a 2 hour drink of water [containing flower food] before you arrange them
• tulips will stand straighter longer if you drop a penny in the water
• revive wilting roses by plunging them for 30 seconds in boiling water, then 30 seconds in iced water
• gerbera should be conditioned in water right up to the neck!
• large blooms towards the centre of the arrangement, small ones to the edge
• if your irises are still closed, tap them firmly at the base of the flower and they may open up for you. We watched Becky demonstrate this with the tallest flower in the photo below – it was tightly in bud when she began the afternoon!

Here are all the silk flower arrangements in an assortment of vases, pails, baskets and jugs.

All very useful because many of us have taken baskets home to fill with flowers to decorate the church on Easter Sunday. I shall expect it to look really stunning this year after this training!

EDIT; the tip about reviving roses- that should be plunge the STEMS in water to just below the flower. Becky stressed that BLOOMS should NEVER be submerged!