Special Invitation

We were thrilled to take part in this super all-sustainable flower festival in the stunning Strawberry Hill House - Horace Walpole’s masterpiece, supported by the great Flowers From The Farm. Conceived and curated by the brilliant Leigh Chappell and Janne Ford, we were invited, alongside others whom we greatly admire, to adorn a space with our exceptional English flowers.

We took on the Great Parlour complete with stunning oil paintings with gleaming gilt frames and beautiful dry elm floor boards, the perfect foil for the Midsummer Nights Dream brief we had created. We have always loved both the fun and muscularity of Strawberry Hill Gothic; Horace Walpole’s fantasy creation became quite a visitor attraction even in his lifetime and is considered the best example of Georgian gothic, or Gothick, revival taste. It was backdrop that was a Hortus Poeticus dream and so we decided to found our exhibit too in the landscape of dreams, moonlit dreams. 

We imagined a late summer’s evening lovers walk, through coppiced hazel woodland lit by moonlight, with overhanging branches and scented rambling roses before stumbling upon a pair of urns as if to decorate a romantic rendezvous for a secret tryst. Our understory, at the base of the urns, was mossy with woodland ferns, bracken and jasmine trails, our upper story more flower and colour full as buds and stems reached and found the light. 

It was the most fabulous experience with few boundaries on our creativity and we are so grateful to the brilliant @leigh.chappell.flowers and @jannelford for inviting us.

Do follow them if you don’t already - their work is stunning, as was that of the other exhibitors. It was a truly inspiring invitation for us.

Picture credit Janne Ford ©