Christmas Florals

I arrived home to Normanton on Sunday night after driving for over 14 hours (nothing unusual there - it's a long way), and this post was going to be about my floristry journey, but since being home I have found that there's a couple of other things I found myself thinking about.  

Firstly, the family business has changed a bit since I was last here in July!  These new bowsers were about to be installed (there's now SIX of them! - Wow!) and the new little office and toilet block wasn't here.  

This vista just doesn't look right with the bowsers that I'm used to seeing there being gone. I can only imagine how "wrong" the whole block will look when the original building goes too. 

It hasn't bothered me too much - I've been parked up in the air-conditioned office in the big shed working on Cert IV assessments. I'm sure there will be more about the service station in future posts. On a side note, if you're a mechanic, a tyre fitter, or an admin person looking for work in a pretty cool corner of Queensland let me know and I'll pass on the info. My family is looking for more workers.

The other thing I noticed this week is how much better I sleep up here. I'm not sure if it's because I'm home, or the weather is different, or my body is in holiday mode and I'm still tired after the long drive, but there's been a lot of sleeping. I'm actually surprised that I'm getting any study done.

Anyway, back to becoming a florist...

When I was a kid my grandmother had a fairly dense garden, which I used to refer to as "Granny's Jungle". My other Granny had a lovely garden too, but she lived in New South Wales and I unfortunately didn't get to spend much time with her. I remember helping Granny O’Neill in the garden, and cut flowers were never really something she had a lot of. It was too hot here for a lot of varieties and I actually think she preferred to enjoy the flowers in the garden.

Granny had one of these trees, but it wasn't quite as big as the one next to our house. It's a Golden Shower Tree (Cassia fistula), and I'm about a month late seeing it in all its glory, which is pretty much a fluffy yellow burst of flowers. 

I used to collect these flowers and tie the stems together with grass or whatever I could find to make cascading bouquets. I think it was when I first noticed a flower's form, and I had no idea. 

Both of my grandmothers loved flowers, and I guess I have inherited that. When I was on maternity leave from my Kindy teaching job I inquired about studying floristry because I thought it would be a wonderful skill to have and the kind of job I would really enjoy. I was unable to arrange (that could be a florist joke...) care for my son for the one day each week that I needed to spend in a shop for the course, so I wasn't able to do it. Apparently if you keep thinking about doing something you should just go ahead and do it. Five years later I had another look at the course and there had been some changes. I could study online and complete the practical component during a week block each term, so I signed up.

Deciding to study with Flowers to Impress was one of the best decisions that I have made. I completed my Certificate III, and am now almost finished my Certificate IV in Floristry. Right at the moment I’m not doing all that much with my Floristry qualifications, due to there not being enough hours in the day or days in the week, but I am planning a Pop-Up Shop for Valentine’s Day, so stay tuned for details on that in the new year.  I’m a bit excited about it!

While studying my Cert III I found that I enjoyed the plant unit more than I expected, so I also completed Certificate II in Horticulture (through a different RTO) to learn as much as I could about growing flowers and foliage to use in floristry.  Down the track a bit I'm hoping that I can put this to good use in a yard bigger than postage stamp size. For now, I have a bit of fun with various things that I manage not to kill, like the feral cherry tomatoes and rosellas that continue to just randomly come up in odd places around the yard and always yield delicious results. I’m enjoying my attempt at a garden of native Australian florals.

A couple of years ago my floristry teacher Debby asked me what grows naturally around my home at Christmas time. We had been talking about table decorations and wreaths and other Christmas florals, and I was admittedly a bit stumped for a response. Around Normanton in December it's hot, and can either be dry as a desert (like last year), or starting to move into the monsoon season and more humid than is comfortable. I did remember these though.  

As far as I know this plant is called Hopbush. A bit of research suggests that the botanical name is Dodonaea sinuolata.

My Mum's grandmother (who was Granny's Mum) always said that when she was a kid they used to cut it and hang it above the dinner table and all the flies would be attracted to that and leave them and their food alone. Interesting, since it has no scent or any obvious fly attracting characteristics, but not many people argued with Nan so we just accepted that as gospel.

Last year I went looking for it, but there hadn't been any rain, so it was still quite dormant. This week I got my wish - Hopbush to use in Christmas designs! Last year I used Gardenia vilhelmii blossoms on my table arrangement, and funnily enough this year there are none of those.

I discovered that one of the greatest joys for me in "playing with flowers" is in using what I can forage and creating unique designs.  I also found that doing this gives me something else to think about when I'm shooting a competition, and now there is always a pair of secateurs in my gun case.  Sharing these creations with others gives me the warm fuzzies too because I don't think I've seen anyone at a Gun Club not smile when they see what I'm doing.

I went out with Dad the day before yesterday to scout out what I could forage for a local native design for Christmas. We found the Hopbush, Silver Leafed Ironbark (Eucalyptus melanophloia), Normanton Box (Eucalyptus normantonensis) and Spinifex grass "flowers", so I went back and collected.

I added cherries to this table design because they are my favourite stone fruit, and of course, in Australia stone fruit is part of the taste of Christmas. If anyone has the know-how to genetically modify them to grow the size of a grapefruit (or watermelon) without a seed please go ahead. We're eating in the air conditioning tomorrow, so the flies shouldn't really be a problem. If we had been planning to eat outside I would have hung the baubles above the table to keep the flies away from us, as per Nan's advice.

Whatever you’re doing tomorrow I hope you’re surrounded by family and friends, have too much to eat and drink, the flies don’t bother you too much, and the big man in red finds you.  Merry Christmas everyone! 

It’s been quite a party, ain’t it?

Purple Fairy