It’s April and after some glorious weather at the end of last month it felt as though we were back to winter.
Our Demonstrator this month was Mrs. Christine McKenna from Dundee, who is a very busy lady as, in addition to demonstrating, she is also Chairperson of JDE&S for SAFAS. Christine’s title for the evening was “Cartoon Capers”.
To those of us who grew up with the ‘Sunday Post’ newspaper the appearance of an upturned aluminium bucket on the turntable could mean nothing else but “Oor Wullie”. Christine placed black aspidistra and phormium onto the top base of the bucket adding white lisianthus and white Anastasia chrysanthemum into the foliage to represent Willie’s blonde hair. To augment that extra texture Christine wrapped single white carnations into newspaper and interspersed them throughout the design. To complete the arrangement a tartan scarf was tied around the neck of the arrangement and we really could see him sitting on his bucket.
Some vivid colours characterised the next design; yellow gerbera reminded us of spikey hair, some vivid purple chrysanthemum, purple lisianthus, blue statice and rosa “Cherry Brandy” hinted at the colours of his clothes. Phormium bent at sharp angles gave the impression of movement and all arranged on top of a tiny skateboard meant it could be no one else but Bart Simpson!
A container atop a black metal frame formed the basis of Christine’s next arrangement, galax leaves, black aspidistra, viburnum, dogwood and leatherleaf formed the basis of this design and into this foliage was inserted red tulips, red carnations, both place upwards and downwards, and red spray chrysanthemum. A smaller version of the design was produced which was linked to the tall placement with some plaited grass studded with crystals representing a collar, revealing it to be none other than Denis and his dog Gnasher.
Christine then produced a hollowed out log which was used as the base for her next arrangement. Pussy willow, mimosa, viburnum, leatherleaf and pittosporum filled the log followed by white lisianthus and some alstroemeria and vibrant red anthurium. Tempting vegetables of lettuce, carrots and sprouts packed the arrangement as a feast for everybody’s favourite rabbit, Bugs Bunny who was positioned at the front of the design.
A fantastic assortment of foliage was brought together in Christine’s final arrangement. Fatsia, yew, mahonia, photina, skimmia, heaths and more were placed into the container. Through this Christine arranged pink protea and finished with bright pink gerbera, a lovely finale to her demonstration. It could be none other than Aleksandr and Sergei who were placed alongside a copy of ‘A Simple Life’ by Aleksandr Orlov, a sell-out at the time.
We enjoyed a fun evening, guessing our favourite cartoon characters that Christine brought to life depicting them as floral arrangements.