SOME of the members of the flower club were busy earlier in October helping with the Byley Flower Festival. This festival was part of the celebrations of the Emerald Anniversary of NAFAS.

The Flower Festival was held at Byley Farm and Village Church. The owners of Byley Farm,Wilf and Pam Lomas, moved out of their farmhouse into a caravan and kindly allowed numerous flower arrangers to take over their house and farmyard and turn it into a profusion of colour and design by creating the most stunning and amazing designs.

It was a busy but rewarding event attended by over 1500 visitors. Our members helped in numerous ways from creating and arranging designs, to serving in the refreshment marquee.

This month’s demonstrator on October 7 was Lynn Stott from the Preston Area. The title of her demonstration was Through the Garden Gate. We were treated to a lovely evening as Lynn shared with us her talent and imaginative designs as she took us through her garden gate. Lynn described herself as firstly a gardener, and from her love of the garden she developed a talent for flower arranging and finally became a demonstrator.

The love which she had for her garden gave her the idea for the title of her demonstration, and she created six stunning and very different designs based different types of gardens.

She began her demonstration with an arrangement using a variety of foliage from her own garden, she described it as a "casual," arrangement. a wicker basket was lined with the foliage and then she added bright yellow sunflowers, orange carthemus, and completed the design by draping hops in between the flowers and thereby creating a lovely autumnal arrangement.

Her other designs, equally stunning, included a wedding garden design, inspired by her neighbours wedding which was held in their garden. This was a traditional triangular pedestal design consisting of variegated rhododendron leaves, trailing ivy, white hydrangeas, white roses and peach carnations. In the centre she placed a spray of white lilies. It was a beautiful design.

Her next design was two horizontal designs which she created at the same time, one placed on top of the other. For these she chose purple gladioli, gerberas and carnations. She then created a traditional arrangement in an urn using foliage and ferns and then added orange roses and gerberas.

Her final design, as she closed her gate, was a window box arrangement showing off a true English garden using large leaves to line the box , then draping hydrangeas over the edge of the box. She then added height to the design by putting in clusters of mauve gladioli, pale pink roses and deeper pink nareens, making yet another lovely design.

All agreed that Lynn was a very talented and excellent demonstrator and we all truly enjoyed the trip through the garden gates.

Later this month some of our members are going on a coach trip to the flower show in Southport where we are sure to have a lovely day enjoying the joy of flowers, watching the talented arrangers and having afternoon tea to finish off the day If you would like to join us on our demonstration evenings you would be most welcome. We meet on the first Tuesday of the month (except January and August) at Appleton Parish Hall 7.15pm for 7.30pm start. For any further details please ring Kath Sharples on 01925 266758