The first ever Autumn RHS Chelsea Flower Show opens in a few days and Tracy Rowbottom NDSF is well on her way to finalising her exhibit ... the one she first started back in 2019!
Week two of the final countdown caused a few headaches but Tracy, a florist as well as part of the brilliant Flowervision Bristol team, is taking it in her stride even though she admits to a few sleepless nights! In her second update she descibes how making her own glue and finding the right plants are occupying her time.
Chelsea 21 Blog 2
I'm writing this with two weeks to go until D Day!
It's been a bad start to the week, car parking for Burtons Court (the closest exhibitor parking) opened on the 30th Aug and sold out almost immediately, I only managed to get build up days so will have to move the van before the show starts and replenishment will be more complicated. It was almost as bad as getting tickets for Glastonbury!
I am at the stage where I am waking up in the night and writing down things to do, things to get and more and more ideas for techniques, I just can’t switch my brain off!
I have spent this week reading and re-reading the criteria, the show regulations and the marking schedule and taking lots of notes.
It is essential to keep all of the relevant show info to hand as it is very easy to get carried away with the design and miss a crucial point. This year its immediate disqualification if you use floral foam, including foam with enhanced biodegradability, imagine putting in all this work only to be disqualified because you didn’t read the rules properly!
My plants have started to arrive, I want them early to look at textures, work out quantities and do some practices with plants and flowers in my structures and mechanics. Because of Brexit there is a banned plants list so I have checked that (read, re-read the regs), and plants now have passports which must be in order and available to be viewed at the show so I have a folder for all of those. My workshop is now full to bursting.
It's time to make decisions and I find that an inspiration wall is a really good tool to keep focussed and on track, I print off inspirational pictures of texture, shape, colour as a start and stick them to my workroom wall. I have added lots of images of shapes, pattern and texture in all forms, images of my chosen flower varieties.
I work in Flowervision Bristol so I am surrounded by flowers and plants so again can get carried away. I am in the process of photographing my design techniques and adding them to my wall, I am at the point where I need to control my urge to throw everything at it and perfect the best techniques for the job.
From a practical floristry point of view I have been doing some mossing, messing around with natural home made glue (and checking that’s even allowed) and finding creative recycled containers. I have struggled to find a space to build the whole complete design so at the moment it is in two halves and that’s my current main worry but by next week it will hopefully all be in one place and looking as I imagine it, fingers crossed!
The van may end up at the Editors house (what will the neighbors say!!) and Tracy will soon be in London. keep checking in for the latest developments
