Final call for RHS Chelsea floristry applications
Floristry at Chelsea is being given a huge make over in 2020 with a single, dedicated space and it’s the final countdown for applications.
Floristry will take centre stage in the iconic Great Pavilion at next year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show (19-23 May) as the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) refreshes the popular Floristry Competition and invites talented florists from across the UK to take part in the 2020 show.
Show Manager, Rose Gore Browne said: "We have made exciting changes to our floristry offering at RHS Chelsea for 2020, merging the Florist of the Year and Floral Arrangement competitions into a new format, theme and aesthetic, bringing it under one roof inside the Great Pavilion. We hope the new format, which will be free to enter, will attract inspiring, creative and imaginative applications from talented florists from across the industry."
The concept for the Floristry Competition at next year’s show will be ‘Our World’ in celebration of environmentally friendly floristry, addressing the threats and challenges facing our world, highlighting the global impact of the floristry trade and how small changes in the cut flower industry can have a positive impact on the environment.
Interested florists can apply to transform one of two new staging platforms ‘Floral Windows’ and ‘Floral Installations’ depending on the theme they choose to interpret.
The ‘Floral Windows’ will be filled with displays inspired by the themes ‘British Blooms’ and ‘Preservation’ encouraging florists to use plant material grown within the UK to celebrate British grown flowers or dried plant material to demonstrate a waste minimal approach to floristry.
The themes of ‘Pollination’ and the ‘Beauty of Nature’ will steer the designs for those interested in creating a larger ‘Floral Installation’. The floral creations in this category must be created using plants from the RHS Plants for Pollinators list or express a strong horticultural message or theme through their design.
All exhibits within RHS Floristry will be judged and receive an RHS Medal and the deadline for applications is Friday 29 November 2019.
To find out more or to enter the competition visit the RHS site here. To access the application form click here.
What happened last year
For the first time four very different florists were invited to create a special installation ... here's what they did.
The Circle of Life Jens Jakobsen jensjakobsen.co.uk
Designers Description
Life in the form of the 'circle of the fairies' which is found on the Shetland Islands, reminds us that nature is fragile but also full of beauty energy and healing. Just once in a while you should lie on the ground, listen to nature and all its sounds, let your hands play with a leaf, hold your ear to a tree to hear its heartbeat, let your senses absorb the colours, structures, lines and scents. This installation features a circle of the fairies' and bird nests in trees, using raw nature where woodlands become the frame for a never-ending circle.
Ravished Billy Hillhouse billylovesflowers.com
Designers Description
The exhibit depicts an abandoned room ravished by nature. Seasonal foraged foliage, flowers and plants create an abundant interior natural fantasy inspired by English flowers, fashion photographer Tim Walker, the Pre-Raphaelites and Kensal Green cemetery. English wild flowers are displayed in a natural way rather than being overly arranged, allowing them to do their own thing, which is what they do best.
Come what May Charlotte Smithson festoonflowers.co.uk
Designers Description
Come what May is a fresh, botanical suspension of individual stems of natural material. Glass test tubes hanging from the ceiling are dressed with textural and delicate displays of seasonal flowers, seed heads, foliage and meadow grasses, carefully curated into clusters. Inspired by tangles growing in hedgerows, wisps of leggy grasses in forgotten corners of fields, the test tubes of flowers and foliages hang ethereally to be observed and inspected. The installation captures the best of May’s wild, sustainably foraged and garden grown British flora. The exhibit’s sponsor, 24 Design Ltd, assisted Festoon with fabricating this fully recyclable installation.
Living Herbarium Gail Smith www.gailsmith.co.uk
Designers Description
Water cones secured to a freestanding upright birch pole contain 500 stems of cut flowers and foliage to create a 3m tall living herbarium. Visitors are invited to identify the various flower species by their common names to help compile a compendium of flower nicknames. This installation is in part homage to the designers estranged grandfather who was a keen amateur botanist in 1920’s Cardiff, specialising in alien species that grew from seeds swept off the foredeck of foreign merchant ships docked at Barry in Wales.
