British Flowers Week 2019
British Flowers Week is an annual celebration of the wealth and variety of British cut flowers and foliage, and of the craftsmanship of British Florists.
British Flowers Week 2019 (2019) by Garden MuseumGarden Museum
Since 2018 the Garden Museum has held the British Flowers Week exhibition every June which features five installations by some of the best floral designers in the UK.
In 2019 the theme was ‘Memories’ and the florists; Ruth Davis from All For Love London, Terri Chandler and Katie Smyth from Worm, Graeme Corbett from Bloom + Burn, Rowan Lewis of Rowan Blossom and Carly Rogers of Carly Rogers Flowers, showcased their creations based around their personal memories.
All for Love Installation (2019) by Garden MuseumGarden Museum
The original site-specific horticultural sculptures were designed in response to the space provided in the Garden Museum, which is housed in a 14th century deconsecrated church.
Rowan Blossom
Floral designer Rowan Blossom is a Notting Hill-based florist who specialises in dreamy and natural creations using seasonal flowers. For her British Flowers Week installation she was inspired by her childhood memories. Growing up in the Cotswolds, Rowan’s childhood was entrenched in its lovely bucolic settings – garden roses spilling over honey coloured stone, pastures green as far as the eye can see.
Rowan Blossom Installation (2019) by Garden MuseumGarden Museum
Distinct memories such as catching grass hoppers in the meadow, dreamy long picnic lunches nestled beneath the orchard, and sewing seeds in the cutting border have always stuck with her and were an essential emotion she wanted to capture in her installation for British Flowers Week.
Rowan Blossom Installation (2019) by Garden MuseumGarden Museum
Rowan Blossom’s installation combines these three memories into one fantastical imaginary garden space, curated within a nook in The Orangery.
Carly Rogers Flowers
Carly Rogers is a Camberwell based artist and florist, combining a passion for flowers and plants with contemporary art, sculpture and fashion. She is inspired by our emotional connection to plants and flowers and notions of still life and composition.
Carly Rogers Flowers Installation (2019) by Garden MuseumGarden Museum
'The gardens that I create aren’t permanent so I’m able to be quite free and create a fantasy space. I’m constantly inspired and fascinated by the plants I use. They are all hand picked and each plant is unique, I often say that I’m just ‘borrowing them’ as they are all gifted after a project.’ – Carly Rogers
‘I find imperfection beautiful and often more moving than perfection, so I like to show a garden in a realistic almost vulnerable transient state, brown leaves and fading blooms blending with green buds and fallen leaves, often adding soil, leaves, twigs, and plant floor debris to add to the authenticity. My aim is always to create a quiet, subtle, beautiful space that people can relate and connect to and believe.' – Carly Rogers
Bloom and Burn Installation (2019) by Graham LacdaoGarden Museum
Bloom & Burn
Bloom and Burn was set up by florist Graeme
Corbett in North London. His British Flowers Week installation was called
‘Leave You In Yesterday’ and Graeme explained ‘it’s based on the lyrics of a
song by one of my favourite artists, Clare Maguire. It really puts into words
how I feel about the events that have led me to becoming a florist, bad things
happen to all of us but ultimately some memories are best left behind but not
necessarily forgotten.’
‘Although I don’t think about it much, you sometimes cross my mind. But I leave you in yesterday, one more time.’ - Clare Maguire
Bloom and Burn Installation (2019) by Garden MuseumGarden Museum
‘The structure of my installation is made from a collection of Dutch flower buckets. These are the buckets used to deliver the flowers to New Covent Garden market from the Dutch auctions. I have chosen them as my base as I want to reference my reliance on the flower market all year round.’ – Graeme Corbett
All for Love Installation (2019) by Graham LacdaoGarden Museum
All for Love
Ruth Davis, founder of All of Love, a
London based florists, was inspired by her grandparents garden for her
installation. She recalls ‘Many of my happiest memories as a child would be
spent with family at my grandparents’ house in Lancaster. My Grandad would grow
sweet peas outside his greenhouse, up against the wall adjoining his
neighbour’s garden. They would grow up rickety bamboo canes he had had for 50
years or more.’
‘As a small child, I remember thinking how tall they were. They towered over me! He would walk me over to them with him to show me how many new flowers there were this week, how many different colours. We would water them together and then he would pick some of the delicate flowers for me. I always remember feeling so special that he was willing to part with his prized, precious beautiful flowers that took him so long to grow. He would send me into the kitchen with armfuls of them and ask me to take them to Nanna who would split them into three bunches.’ – Ruth Davis
All for Love Installation (2019) by Garden MuseumGarden Museum
‘I have taken over a compete archway in the church and decided to use the full height and shape of the arch cavity to create my installation. It’s at once an ambitious and yet simple design - the sheer scale is pretty epic at around 7m tall but the content is just one flower - sweet peas! Just like the little girl looking up at Grandad’s trellis, I want people to crane their necks and look up as far as they can to see the sweet peas growing, the sheer size of it to dwarf them as they look up.’ – Ruth Davis
Worm
Worm are a creative East London based florist made up of Katie Smyth and Terri Chandler. They grew up on the coast of southern Ireland, Terri in County Cork and Katie in Chapelizod Dublin, and are often inspired by the imperfect wild flowers growing there. Katie explains ‘When Terri and I sat down to talk about our earliest flower memories we discovered that we had both gone a little crazy with our Marian garden devotions in the month of May.’
British Flower Week Installations, Garden Museum, London (2019) by Helen Perrault-NewbyGarden Museum
‘At a time when our friends were barely out of the sandpit, we were propelled to the bottom of our respective gardens pushing aside hanging washing and gathering arms of blossom and grasses and May flowers, to furnish our fantasy “home altars” with all sorts of garden treasure. We may have short on rosaries but we had plenty of roses and imagination. Now we find ourselves creating an altar in the beautiful Garden Museum, a former church also dedicated to Mary, as part of our celebration of British flowers.‘ – Katie Smyth
Floral Installation by Worm at Garden Museum, Lambeth (2019) by Garden Museum and Helen Perrault-NewbyGarden Museum
‘The flag colours reflect the way a flower changes from root to stem to petal, and echo the transitions that take place in the landscape as the natural world goes through its life cycle. Hanging across the threshold, these ‘flags’ act both as a ritual offering to our nature altar as well as a celebration of the high summer palette of colours we are using.’ – Katie Smyth
The British Flower Week Exhibition is run with New Covent Garden Flower Market.
