Emma Keeler from Sonning Flowers won a Gold Medal at Chelsea Flower Show this year.

Chelsea Gold Medal Winner Emma Keeler from Sonning Flowers

Emma won her heat back in January and entered the RHS Chelsea Florist of the Year competition 2017.

The finalists were asked to design a floral kite.  The kite had to be suspended and weigh less than 5kgs.  At least 2/3 of the design had to be made from fresh flowers and/or plant material.

This is Emma’s design…….

The Judges said…

Emma had an entirely different take on the traditional kite shape, the ingenious use of layers allowed for great interest and variations in colours coming through the design.

The swirl  rotates throughout the entire design finishing off as a dramatic tail, bringing together the wonderful selection of plant materials and colours.

The blue purple panel includes echeveria, vanda, cyclamen leaves, delphinium, begonia rex and bamboo cross sections.

The glass test tubes not only are used to give flowers the necessary water but to bridge the layers beautifully. The yellow layer included zantedeschia, craspedia, curls of beargrass secured with pearl headed pins, shells, gold cord and spheres covered with stachys leaves

Gloriosa, phalaneopsis, ceropegia woodii, asclepsia make up the pink/red/orange layer

Equasetum/snake grass covers the underside of panels, ensuring the yellow layers are not too dominant in the design.

The swirl running thoughout the kite is edged to great effect with green hypericum.

Succulents adorn the underside of the smaller layers, as the tillandsia/spanish moss continues down.

Bullion wire is used to swirl spanish moss, tillandia and tillandsia xerographic around, along with cereopegia, hypericum berries and the odd gloriosa to draw your eye through the design.  A wonderful design with a technique that could have many applications.

What we said….

Emma, you made us very proud.  With help from Lucy and Heather also from the Sonning Flowers Team.

Shall we do it all again next year??????