All in Pip Bensley Flowers

It's Black and White!

It's Black and White!

Pip Bensley
Pip Bensley Flowers, Flower Arranging Lessons

This week my Advanced students were challenged to create a design in Black and White.

While this sounds simple it is actually really hard to create a really strong design because of the green that creeps into the design from stems.

There were some creative solutions including spraying stems and using black or white stem tape.

Our inspiration pictures included Yin and Yang, zebra stripes, refections in black and white photographs, concertina paper decorations, washi tape and many more.

The students really stretched themselves and the range of designs was superb.

20 Years On

20 Years On

Pip Bensley
Princess Diana, Pip Bensley Flowers

20 Years On

Today I am heading back to London to Kensington Palace to mark 20 years since Princess Diana died. I am going because I feel the memory of her is being hijacked by "royal attention seekers" draped in union jacks and conspiracy theorists hanging posters touting frankly nonsensical theories to an eager press.

I will be leaving flowers away from the main hue and cry to remember and exceptional woman who made a real change to our society simply through her innate humanity. She wasn't perfect by any means but that is exactly the point, her faults and her understanding of them made her open to people who we all as a society shied away from.

country house new years eve wedding

country house new years eve wedding

Pip Bensley
Pip Bensley Flowers, Pip Bensley, wedding, staircase

One of the lovely parts about working as a studio florist, that's a florist without a physical shop, is that you are free to take on freelance projects as and when they crop up. You tend to build up a network of other florists who are familiar with your work and who can call on you when they get a big project that needs extra pairs of hands.

This week saw me winding my way through the Hampshire countryside to a beautiful private house. Andy McIndoe had been called in to turn the blank canvas into a fairytale country house wedding. That needed a bigger team than usual so eight of us assembled early in the morning to start conditioning and sorting flowers as they arrived from the wholesalers. 

 

Winter Bouquet - stand out from the crowd!

Winter Bouquet - stand out from the crowd!

Pip Bensley
Okishima & Simmonds, Pip Bensley, Pip Bensley Flowers, poinsettia, stars for europe

I love the winter! I am a huge fan. The nights draw in, fires get lit, leaves rustle on the ground and our colour palette gets richer and warmer. My wedding was a winter one with a rich, dark green, velvet dress and glowing red flowers. So the poinsettia is a flower I adore. 

Liz Anderson, the PR guru, subtley slid the idea of me doing a bouquet for the Stars For Europe poinsettia campaign into a conversation we were having about me assisting Okishima & Simmonds in producing their Living Poinsettia Dress for International Poinsettia Day 2015. Liz is one of life's quietly persuasive people and before I really knew what had happened I found I had said yes!

living poinsettia dress

living poinsettia dress

Pip Bensley
poinsettia, stars for europe, living poinsettia dress, Okishima & Simmonds, Liz Anderson, Pip Bensley Flowers, Pip Bensley, Hill Brothers

December 12th 2015, is International Poinsettia Day, celebrating this most expressive of Christmas plants.

Funnily enough one thing I really do know about is poinsettias, having been plant buyer for the Hillier Garden Centre Group for 27 years I was the person responsible for finding the best poinsettias, working out how many we needed, getting them into store and then back to the customers home without mishap and making sure we sold everything we had bought.

So when I left Hillier this summer I thought my poinsettia days were over, But a quick call from PR guru Liz Anderson and I found myself back in the middle of the most fabulous poinsettia nursery, Hills Brothers, in the wilds of Chichester earlier this month.