K: Karen Kaye, Host
A: Andrea Caldecourt, Flowers and Plants Association

K: Hello and welcome to the lifestyle show in association with the Flowers and Plants Association; I’m Karen Kaye. Now it’s been a long, hot summer but it is finally over. The clocks have gone back, the nights are drawing in and it’s dark and cold outside. But how can you keep a little bit of that summer freshness, those lovely flowers and those beautiful colours of summer in your home? How can you perhaps bring spring forward a little bit into winter? There are ways you can do it – we’re going to find out how today with the lovely Andrea Caldecourt of the Flowers and Plants Association, welcome to the show Andrea

A: Thank you very much – it’s not often I get called lovely, that’s very nice thank you!

K: You clearly are lovely, you’ve bought beautiful things to show us, you’re going to be telling us a little bit about something called Elegant Glamour today, is that right?

A: Vintage Glamour –

K: Vintage Glamour?

A: Yes we’re stepping back in time, we’re going back to the time of – from about the 1920s to about the 1950s when women were very elegant, if you think of the beauties of the Silver Screen, people like Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Audrey Hepburn – and we’re – in flowers – showing a touch of that glamour, so they’re beautiful flowers in themselves, but they’re wearing a little sparkle, a little jewellery just to dress them up that bit more

K: So it’s about accessorising, a bit like fashion really?

A: Yes it is, it’s dressing-up box with flowers we’re going to do today!

K: So tell us a little bit about how you can achieve that, what do you need in terms of raw materials? Obviously it’s dark and cold outside, is it easy to get these kind of flowers?

A: Yes I think people are sometimes a little confused, that they think that flowers still are very seasonal, and some of them are, things like daffodils or tulips or peonies equally are very seasonal, but there’s an awful lot of flowers that we can get virtually all year round, and all of them here are available virtually all year round so although we’re focusing on them for a winter trend, if you want to reproduce this in the summer you can, but it’s a very rich, opulent, luxurious trend so it’s perfect for this time of year when we’re all cosying up indoors

K: Well if you’re cosying up indoors and looking at your computer screen, don’t forget this is an interactive show so if you’ve got any questions for Andrea, anything about flowers, plants, how to brighten up your house or if you’ve got a special occasion, maybe you just want to learn how to decorate your festive table – don’t forget Christmas is only a few weeks away – you can click on the box below the screen here and you can pop your question over for Andrea. Don’t forget to tell us your name, where you are and be as clear as you can, be fairly brief and we’ll try and get as many questions in as we can during the show. For the time-being why don’t you give us a few tips to get us rolling Andrea, tell us what flowers you’ve got here and perhaps a starter idea for some Vintage Glamour inspiration

A: Yes if we talk through the flowers we’ve got – if we go to this vase here these are dendrobium orchids – all orchids are –

K: They’re absolutely beautiful aren’t they?

A: If we get one of these stems out without dismantling the whole – they’re white but they’ve got this lovely blush pink on the flowers. Dendrobiums are great, they’re very easily – to get hold of – white or like a magenta purple almost, the colour of these berries here. Phalaenopsis orchids are also a great – a lot of people know them as the plants, so –

K: And you can get those in a lot of supermarkets now can’t you?

A: Yes

K: It used to be that they were very exotic but they’re really quite prevalent –

A: Yes, it’s micro-provocation techniques. It used to be –

K: There you go, you’re learning it all here today!

A: It used to be that you had to wait for the mother plant to produce enough off-shoots to grow new plants from, and now they can grow new plants from individual cells, so it’s bought the price of orchids down, it’s made them much more accessible, so these are just great loose in a vase because they’re so beautiful in themselves, and we’ve dressed up the vase, this is a necklace, costume jewellery that I had at home and a lot of the accessories are quite readily available so you don’t need anything specialist, it’s maybe something you’ve got in your jewellery box or found in a haberdashers of something like that – maybe a boot sale

K: So it really is a case of using your own accessories, your fashion accessories and being inspired by fashion icons like Ava Gardner and co. to dress up your flowers in the same way

A: Exactly

K: For an evening dinner or whatever

A: Yes or just because – a lot of the time at this time of year we’re doing everything for everybody else, so we’re cooking for everybody, we’re buying presents for everybody and this Vintage Glamour trend is very much it’s time to treat yourself so that almost boudoir chic flowers, they’re something to put by your bedside table or on your dressing table, just to remind yourself it’s about you as well, it’s not about everybody else at this time of year

K: They will be appreciated by everyone else I’m sure

A: Yes. So the next ones we have here are these lovely starry blooms, these are nerines

K: Nerines?

A: Nerines – sometimes called Guernsey Lily, sometimes called Jersey Lily depending on which island you have an affinity with. And they come from – either this white, through a shell pink to a very deep pink and also red, sometimes you see them in a red

K: Which is very festive of course isn’t it?

A: Yes. And they’re very pretty but this lovely shell pink we’ve got here. And I’ve just dressed it up with – this is called Ting Ting

K: Ting Ting? I love that stuff it’s wonderful isn’t it?

A: And a little bit of gold, it just makes it look a little bit more festive and googies it up a bit

K: And most florists have that don’t they?

A: Yes

K: I mean it’s not just a case of going to a florist and buying flowers, a lot of them do have these bits and pieces don’t they?

A: They’ll have the accessories as well, yes. So we – or garden centres or often craft and hobby shops will have this sort of thing as well. We’ve just tied a bit of small, gold material around it just to dress it up a bit

K: That’s very beautiful

A: And then show that off

K: And then you’ve got some beautiful, beautiful peach-coloured roses here

A: Yes, really large flowers

K: Which we tend to associate with summer really don’t we?

A: Yes

K: But they’re obviously much more readily available as well?

A: They’re grown all around the world, so you can get them all year round and these are a very large-headed one, this one’s called Talia, and it’s this gorgeous sort of soft peachy, apricoty, foundationy colour which suits very well with Vintage Glamour trend, and for this one I’ve treated it very simply because it’s in this plain gold vase, just to add a bit of sheen we’ve tucked in some sparkly twigs, they’ve got a little bit of sparkle to them. If you had plain twigs yourself you could always spray paint them up but they come ready done so it’s probably a lot messier and slower to do it yourself, so just a few twigs –

K: Well again I’ve seen these in my local florist so it’s again very readily available and I have to say these smell beautiful, so I can thoroughly recommend this one, this is my favourite – let’s have a look, we’re just going to take a break for a second and have a look at some of the arrangements you did earlier, we’ve done a little montage of those. Let’s have a quick look at what we’ve got to show you because I know you’ve been very busy this morning creating a whole plethora of beautiful arrangements so let’s take a look

(footage of arrangements)

Beautiful array of flowers there, I mean that just, that actually makes me quite excited to think that we could have those in our houses at this time of year –

A: Yes

K: When we’re actually coming home from work in the dark and we’re feeling a bit gloomy, the weather’s cold and it’s so cheering isn’t it to see pretty pastel colours and perhaps more exotic colours as well, I know you’ve got some beautiful roses here

A: Yes

K: So can you guide us through some little steps I know you’ve shown us some lovely arrangements in the vases here, you’ve got some slightly more festive colours on the other side of the table –

A: Yes

K: Show us a little bit about what you could do with those

A: I mean the beauty of this trend is you don’t actually need a lot of flower, I think people think they have to buy a lot of flower and a lot of equipment and a lot of extras, and really just a couple of stems – we’ve got 3 stems of the Nerine in this vase here and these are Christmas ornaments that came free with a magazine, so we didn’t even pay for those, it’s a bargain arrangement! And this is a vase but you could equally use an old coloured water bottle or wine bottle or something like that, or maybe old perfume bottles. I have some that are this colour that would suit that, and we’ve just tucked those around just to dress up the vase a little bit, and again 3 stems on your dressing table, it’s quick and easy but it gives a lot of pleasure

K: It’s beautiful. And what kind of lifespan do these flowers have when they’re cut?

A: It depends on the flower, and it depends if you treat it right. Orchids will last for ages – I mean on a plant they’re lasting over 6 weeks, and in a vase equally 3 weeks or more. Most flowers here would last a good 10 days or so. The thing you need to do is if you cut the stems at an angle, I’ll demonstrate on a really fab rose I have with me –

K: Well for the time – while Andrea is digging that out, don’t forget if you want to ask her any questions because I’ve got loads, I can keep hogging you – this is all about you, if you’ve got any questions for Andrea click on the box below the screen, put your name in, write us the question and we’ll try and get as many as we can in. Show us how to cut our roses – look at this!

A: This is Christmas bling, definitely

K: I want some now!

A: I think – you either love it or you hate it. We showed it to the receptionist coming into the building and she was just like “I want a bunch, it’s just fabulous”. Other people are a bit “how can you do that to a living rose?”

K: Stunning

A: But hey, for Christmas –

K: So what exactly have you done here?

A: It’s basically just sprayed with glitter spray, so you could either spray it with a spray glue and dip it in glitter if you wanted something that was a bit more sparkly, a bit heavier, or spray it with just glitter spray in a can. Or they come ready done from the florist like this

K: It’s like going to Play School isn’t it? Just look at that, let’s just take a look at that rose, it’s absolutely stunning there. Absolutely beautiful, really, really stunning, and you’ve got the leaves there as well

A: Yes so it’s just right for Christmas

K: So just show us how – and this is with all flowers not just roses

A: Yes all flowers. We’ve stripped this one mostly but you can strip as many leaves off as you like but always strip all of them that are going to be below the vase level. You cut the step at an angle. I’m using scissors here, you do get some florists who would use a knife and cut it but it would have to be really sharp knife. Cut at an angle because that enables the stem to have more area to take up water

K: Right

A: And then always use the cut flower food that you’re given because that will prolong their life

K: So it’s not a pointless exercise, it’s absolutely worth doing

A: Not at all

K: My mum always tells me to keep putting fresh water in the vase every couple of –

A: Yes

K: Days, she says that’s really important

A: Yes, make sure your vase is spotless as well, clean water and yes if it’s going to live on 3 or 4 days clean the water out, put fresh water in, new flower food – they don’t spend millions of pounds testing the vase life of flowers just to add that sachet for nothing, it does work

K: Good

A: So that will treat for all flowers. And also at this time of year when we’ve got the heating on full blast, or we might be lucky enough to have a log flower – try to keep your flowers as cool as possible, so keep them away from the radiators, don’t put them on top of the TV, just keep them nice and cool

K: That’s why florists are always cold!

A: Yes and if you go in the wholesale markets they’re chilled to 5 degrees so it’s really chilly in there but that keeps the flowers fresh

K: So if your house is a bit chilly your flowers will last longer, you might be wrapped up warm but your flowers will last longer! Now back to Ava Gardner and all her beautiful co-stars – we’re really talking 1930s, 1940s – and that was the hey day of Hollywood wasn’t it?

A: Yes

K: That was you know really really sophisticated

A: Definitely, and I think this arrangement is very Hollywood – these beautiful frilly flowers here are called lisianthus, and they come in all sorts of pastel shades, so you can get them in greens and lemons, in wine purples, in royal purple and then this one which is a sort of a xxx, it’s got a very faint blush at the end of each petal, and what we’ve done here is stuck it in with some more sparkly twigs, and also some feathers, these are just feathers on a stick

K: Absolutely beautiful

A: Quite fun and they come from haberdashers or sundries, hobby places. Just pop those in and they just add a little touch. And you’ve got the twigs and the feathers for the next arrangement, so when the flowers fade after a couple of weeks, you’ve still got the structure and just tuck some fresh flowers in

K: So it’s worth keeping a sort of dressing-up box for your flowers isn’t it?

A: Completely, but they’re really, a really beautiful flower. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t love lisianthus

K: I love lisianthus, and they last ages, we were talking just now about their sort of vase life, but I know – I’ve got some lisianthus at the moment and they’ve lasted probably a good 2 weeks

A: Yes

K: So they do look lovely

A: Very pretty, very feminine. If you’re at all worried about, you know, you want to buy some lady in your life a bouquet of flowers then you can’t go wrong with lisanthus, I don’t know any women who don’t like them, so that’s a great choice

K: Well let’s look at some of the inspiration that you’ve taken these themes from, we’re talking about the true stars of Hollywood, the golden era

A: Yes

K: So people like, for example, Hedy Lamarr, tell us a little bit how you would be inspired by those women to create because I can see this style here –

A: Yes

K: Tell us what you’ve done to create that look

A: Well for each of the arrangements, we named them after some stars of the Silver Screen because we thought it was so appropriate, so – you saw from that arrangement, it’s very simple, it’s just a line-up of very elegant, beautiful containers. Dark colours, and then the contrast of the pale colours of the flowers. I mean equally if you think of Audrey Hepburn you think of that black dress with the white pearls and her pale face, and it’s that contrast of the colours where you’ve got very pale, almost make-up shades in the flowers contrasting with dark or sheeny gold containers. And it’s that combination that we felt suited the Hollywood stars best

K: So it’s about real glamour, it’s about contrast and it’s about accessorising – is that the sort of key points?

A: And accessorising, although it’s sparkly it’s not too bling, it’s not too full on, so we’ve got a bit of a sheen, and one thing you can do, we’ve got here –

K: Oh this looks fun

A: Yes, this is the sort of thing you can dress up your flowers with. So we’ve got a plain test tube vase, and we have – you can pop this sort of stuff inside which is just aquarium gravel

K: I was just going to say you get that in fish tanks don’t you?

A: So that comes in all kinds of colours so you can coordinate. Again this is a different ting ting, same as the gold but in a pink, threaded on some, just sort of little child’s beads almost for making necklaces in, but that adds a bit of sparkle. You can also put things like the glass nuggets into the bottom of the vase, just to add a bit of sparkle. And we’ve got this one here –

K: So these are the kind of things that you would get again from a florist shop or even a garden centre maybe?

A: Yes or hobbycraft places, same as this, these are plastic nuggets as opposed to glass but it’s the same sort of sparkly, twinkly – it just adds a little something to the glass just to sparkle it up a touch.

K: So these are like plastic crystal effect?

A: Yes

K: Like individual pieces really, plastic rocks if you like. But they give a great effect don’t they in the vase there?

A: Just a little sparkliness, so that helps

K: And would you add water presumably to these?

A: Yes. If you’ve got soft stems like for instance with the nerines, the best thing is to put the flowers in first and then drop those around, rather than try and shove the stems through. But if you have quite short-stemmed flowers it’s ideal for just sort of rest them on the top so it pushes them up a bit higher so you have a taller arrangement

K: And also I guess it helps you give structure to the flowers. I know some florists use mesh or chicken wire scrunched up, but it would help to actually stand some flowers upright wouldn’t it?

A: Certainly it would add some structure. Or you could have something like this, this is great stuff, I’ve got it on a reel round here

K: This is what looks like wire mesh – it’s a bit like chicken wire but it’s coated –

A: Sparkly

K: With a sort of sparkly paint

A: And it comes on a roll

K: And it’s quite bendy and flexible

A: So you could wrap it round a vase that’s just a plain bottle, just to add a bit of excitement and a bit of sparkle. Or you could put it over the top of a vase

K: If we just put that down there. Ok

A: Yes just over the top of the vase, hold it on, and then you’ve got holes that you can actually push the flowers in

K: Ok, and then they stay where you want them to?

A: Yes so that adds a sparkle, adds a little colour to it and also helps you arrange if you have difficulty of if you just want something that’s a little more even. So that’s another idea

K: Now Lana Turner, she’s another star, she’s a bit of a favourite of mine, she was a bit of a goddess wasn’t she of the silver screen

A: Aha

K: How would you utilise her style of glamour, I mean you’ve got some stunning pink roses there

A: Yes. The difference with this arrangement is, it looks very old-fashioned and it also looks very modern at the same time. And the reason for that is each of the flowers have been clumped together, so instead of dotting your flowers around the bouquet, put all your carnations together, then all your roses, all your lisianthus, so that they make much more impact, so rather than one or two here throughout the bouquet, you’ve got them grouped together in sections and they’re much more powerful that way, they make a much better visual impact

K: Carnations have had a bit of a bad press haven’t they?

A: Yes, I won’t hear a word said against them!

K: I gather they’re in vogue again?

A: Yes and in fact we’re going to make a carnation bouquet just to show you how beautiful they are. Yes they’re lovely I think most people are used to the spray carnations which are very small headed, and we’ve got some –

K: Just while Andrea’s digging those out, don’t forget questions for Andrea if you’ve got any, pop your name in the screen below, type your question in and we’ll try and get through those in the second half of the programme.

A: This is a carnation

K: It’s an amazing colour

A: Yes, it’s a nice pistachio green. These are called in the industry “standard carnations” but they’re about as far from standard as you can get really. It’s just the way that they have one flower per stem as opposed to the others that are called spray when they have more than one – it’s a technical term. So we call them large-headed carnations, or large flower carnations because it makes much more sense and they’re very very full and frilly. You can get ones that have lovely streaking and striping all over them, they come in a huge range of colours, last for days in water. I can’t see anything that’s bad about them, I think they’re a wonderful flower

K: And actually when you have them all together clumped like that it does create a sort of wonderful – it looks like one of those old-fashioned swimming hats doesn’t it?

A: Yes completely

K: Which reminds you again of that Hollywood era

A: Exactly

K: A sort of beautiful array of petals, it’s stunning

A: Yes I mean you can’t say that’s unfashionable or anything

K: And actually that beautiful green sets of other flower tones beautifully doesn’t it?

A: Yes

K: That with a pink shade or a deep red or something would look stunning

A: Yes and the lisianthus that we looked at earlier with the prickety edge, that also comes in this pistachio green so you could mix and match, have the same colour in a bouquet but have different forms within it, so some that are more frilly and some that are more open, which is a very modern way of arranging flowers as well

K: Lovely well talking of modern let’s look back again towards our Vintage Glamour. Greta Garbo is another icon of your little set-up here

A: Yes

K: Tell us a little bit about what you’ve done, inspired by her?

A: Well these are beautiful roses, these are called Illusion roses, and they’ve got a real old-fashioned, blousy romantic feel to them and this lovely shading on the petals, and what I’ve done here is just put them simply in a vase and then we’ve dressed them up with a little bit of jewel, a little crystal here and there and draped some pearls over the top, so again rummaging in the dressing-up box or in your jewellery box. Bought in some –

K: That’s almost like hat pins in the arrangement there isn’t it, you could almost go to those antique shops and find things like hat pins and pop them in –

A: Exactly. If we look at this one, the darker coloured one – these are dark roses. If you want a rose that’s this dark then good ones are Baccera or Black Magic

K: Let’s have a look at those just from the top, because you can see that Andrea has put some little crystals in the centre of the flowers there

A: Yes they’re basically, see if the camera can see them, they’re very like these ones we’ve got in the vase here, and they’re just – if John the cameraman can pick this up – they’re just as you say literally hat pins, they’re very small pin with a diamante top on, same as with these, these are another just a hat pin

K: And would that damage the flower head at all?

A: It will shorten the life slightly but it won’t do too much damage, it will reduce it by a couple of days but if you’re having a dinner party or you just want something quite sparkly just for a couple of –

K: It’s perfect

A: A couple of days for a bit of sparkliness, and again these are bigger hat pins if you like, a plastic crystal effect ball and just on a stick. And again you can get them longer or you can tuck them into a bouquet and you can use them amongst the flowers. We just pop them in the bottom there just to add another layer of levels

K: It’s a stunning combination, I love the idea of mixing and accessorising your flowers so it’s making them fashionable. Let’s have a quick look again at the last icon you’ve chosen as your inspiration for this story, Vintage Glamour, she was of course incredibly glamorous, the beautiful Vivien Leigh – what have you done here?

A: Well obviously Vivien Leigh has that dramatic quality to her anyway so when you think of her in the roles she played it is very sort of dark / light and also with this sort of spiky quality, so here we’ve got lisianthus, this is a purple version of the lisianthus, it’s just a really simple bouquet, a massive lisianthus which you can pick up anywhere, any market stall, supermarket, florists, wherever – and we’ve just popped in some white twigs so you’ve got the softness and the delicateness of the lisianthus with the spikiness and the sharpness of the twigs, so it’s that contrast again

K: And it looks incredibly extravagant doesn’t it?

A: Yes

K: It looks quite exuberant doesn’t it?

A: Yes

K: If you presented that to someone you’d be rather thrilled I’d say

A: Yes and yet it’s very easy to put together, very straightforward and as I say lisianthus are available everywhere so although it looks exotic it’s actually quite obtainable. The same with the orchids, although they look very glamorous, you know it’s like having a Hollywood superstar on your high street really you can pick them up quite easily

K: Well let’s take some questions, we’ve had lots of people coming in with some queries for you with your expertise. Jane has sent us one in saying, now this is an interesting one “how can I make jewellery incorporating flowers?” so you’ve dressed your flowers with jewels here –

A: Yes

K: But how can you actually –

A: The reverse

K: Make something you can wear, perhaps a little corsage or something, but actually using fresh flowers?

A: Well certainly – earlier this year we went to a festival called Fruitstock and we did a webchat the same, so you can download the webchat of Fruitstock and watch the programme but basically you can get aluminium wire that is metallic, comes in a range of colours, and that you can pick that up from florists or hobby shops, and what we did we wound it in loops around wrists and attached the carnations – they’re great for doing that, you just poke the wires through the – this is called a calyx that holds the petals on, poke the wire through there and then twist it a couple of times either side to hold the flower in place, and then we just wrapped it round our wrists, we did bigger ones that went around our arms, and you can wrap the wire around a pencil, and that makes a little coil – I’ve got one here actually, this is a bit of a longer one –

K: Brings out the child in all of us this doesn’t it?

A: Yes if you wrapped the wire around a pencil a couple of times you get something like that, and then you can do that at the ends of the wire that you’re wrapping round your arms and then you’ve got a holder you can like tuck a flower into

K: Beautiful

A: We tucked in Anthiriums because they’re nice and flat and they lay against your arm, but you can choose whatever flowers you like

K: Oh I’m so inspired I’m going to go away and make floral jewellery for the winter season, I think that’s my inspiration! Cecile sent us a question saying “what kind of shade combinations go well together?” Now you’ve been talking about contrasts here, can you offer some ideas and suggestions for people that perhaps aren’t as confident as you are with putting flowers together?

A: If you’re not very confident with mixing colour – first of all I would say that any shades go with any shades if it makes you happy and it makes you feel excited or it gives you a buzz, then that’s the right shades, but if you’re worried about mixing them the best thing to do is stick to what are called tones of colours, so like we have here that are all in a very pink, cream, white, natural tone and we’ve contrasted with the containers but they’re all in much the same colourway, so if you’re a little bit nervous that’s the best thing is not to mix up too many colours, stick to one colour and go slightly lighter, slightly darker or maybe slightly warmer, slightly cooler, you can mix them up but within the same colour palette. And that’s the safest way of getting it right

K: A florist friend told me once that if you get one of those paint charts and they often have colour spectrums that work well together in groups and you can take that as inspiration for flowers which is quite a good idea I think

A: Yes and I think that works well for beginners, I think once you – if you’re confident with colour and you know what you’re doing chuck that rule book out, but if you’re a beginner then yes it’s a great way of getting into knowing what colours work and what colours jar

K: Ok well talking about what colours work well together, here’s an interesting one because it wouldn’t be a wedding without flowers would it and we’ve got a question here from Denise who says “I’ve got a winter wedding coming up in January –

A: Congratulations!

K: Indeed, congratulations, best wishes from us on the Lifestyle show Denise. She says “I’m wearing white” – lovely to hear that – her bridesmaids are wearing a deep wine red velvet

A: Oh smashing

K: So what should she do, she wants them to carry flowers, what should she do, do you have some suggestions?

A: It’s – if she wants the brides to coordinate with her dress or if she wants a contrast what would be nice if she’s wearing white is to give the bridesmaids a white bouquet and reproduce the same one for her in a deep wine red, so it reflects. One thing that would be gorgeous and you only need a couple of stems, you could make something really big and dramatic or really quite small, depending on your taste and that would be amaryllis

K: Oh I love amaryllis, they’re stunning

A: Perfect at this time of year for when she’s getting married, and you can get them in a deep wine red and you can get them in a white and that would be ideal. I think that would be good. And another option as well which maybe she hasn’t thought of people often worry about the tables at a wedding, and we all say flowering plants are great for table centres and what might be nice in January is poinsettias are still around at that time of year

K: Of course

A: And they do, as well as red they do come in white and cream and they come in dark red and wine purples, so she might like to try –

K: Good suggestions there

A: Or equally cyclamen, beautiful flowering plant

K: And much smaller

A: Yes, much more dainty and probably much more feminine as well if you were looking for something for a wedding style. And again they come in white and they come in wine red, and they would be great for a table centre too

K: Well talking of what’s perfect feminine flowers for wedding styles we have a question here for Claire who says “what is the most manly flower?” She’s having a nightmare with her fiancée

A: Oh ok

K: Because she’s saying she wants him to wear roses as buttonholes and he’s saying roses aren’t manly! So what would you suggest, how can she butter him on, wear a bloom sweetheart

A: You see it depends how confident and secure you are in your masculinity but I don’t want to start an argument –

K: We don’t want to start that!

A: I would say if he wants something that’s very manly there’s a flower called eryngium and the best way I can describe it is it looks like a raspberry sprayed blue, wearing a thistle collar. Whenever we’ve shown that, men are quite happy with that because it looks kind of butch and tough and rugged and spiky but it depends what her colourways are really

K: Can you spell that for her just in case she didn’t get it because that sounds like quite a complex one

A: E-R-Y-N-G-I-U-M, eryngium

K: I hope you got that but if you didn’t you could always go to www.flowersw.org.uk is that right?

A: Correct

K: And find out a little bit more information and get some inspiration there, Andrea’s been working very hard putting some ideas on the website. Nathaniel says “my wife loves this kind of look”

A: Fabulous

K: She’s got good taste, incredibly. “I’d love to do something like this for Christmas for her” – what a romantic! “Can you give me a step-by-step guide for a fingers and thumbs man?” I mean he’s got the will and the intent but how does he actually do it?

A: The beauty with this trend is that it’s quite straightforward, as we’ve said often just a couple of stems in a vase will do the job. I can make a bouquet for him, if we make one later in the programme, keep tuning in and we’ll make one just to show the step-by-step

K: Do you want to start that now because we’re probably running out of time –

A: Certainly

K: So if you can start that we’ll take some questions and hopefully you’re a good multi-tasker and you can talk while you arrange?

A: I can talk doing anything, not a problem at all!

K: Well why you’re doing that Anthony’s asked a question, he says “when should we start decorating our houses for Christmas?” Now that’s obviously one that’s rumbling on in the press and all sorts of people are saying the lights are going on too early

A: Yes

K: The decorations, but clearly it’s not just about baubles and things and you don’t want your flowers to peak too soon do you if you’re doing Christmas arrangements?

A: Well I say if you’re getting in the Christmas mood now then start decorating now, it just means you have to buy more

K: You’ve got a hidden agenda here haven’t you, anyone would think you were promoting the Flower business!

A: If it makes you happy and it cheers you up why are you waiting until the week before Christmas? There are some things where it’s beneficial to wait a little longer, certainly say for instance with some flowering plants, poinsettias won’t be coming into the shops for a couple of weeks yet so be patient there

K: But they last a long time don’t they?

A: They do yes and they’re from Mexico so they don’t mind the central heating as much as other flowering plants either. A great option now if you’re getting in that mood would be orchids because they’re flowering right through, and what tends to happen is when they’re finished flowering they send up another flower spike, so you’ll get one now and then you’ll get one in the New Year to cheer you up when all the decorations are coming down and you’re –

K: Feeling a bit flat

A: Yes and the Christmas tree’s been taken down so that’s a good option

K: Right now you’ve got about a minute to put together an arrangement here so Nathaniel if you’re watching you can see how easy it is because Andrea is doing this very speedily and you can see that really it isn’t something that’s going to take you too much time or even effort because she’s doing a great job in showing us – you’ve got a little wilted carnation there – these are standard carnations remember, I’ve learned that today. The carnations with just the single head on them. And she’s wrapping them with this lovely metallic twine which –

A: It’s got a wire up the middle of it which is great which means you can just twist it together –

K: Very solid, you’ve got a beautiful arrangement there

A: What we could also do, if you’re feeling razzy –

K: Oh hello she’s got the sequins out!

A: I have! Chop those off. These were bought from a well-known department store so they’re readily available

K: And I’ve seen those at my local little haberdashery shop as well so you can get them in most high streets, the little strings of sequins here

A: So we’ll just –

K: Now Nathaniel, your wife’s going to love you if you present her with something like this at Christmas. Absolutely beautiful

A: Very straightforward

K: There you go

A: See that’s less than a minute – very speedy!

K: A very talented woman and I’m sure providing inspiration for everyone. If you’re looking for more ideas go to the website which is www.flowers.org.uk, that couldn’t be simpler, I’d like to say thank you very much to Andrea Caldecourt for joining us today

A: You’re welcome, I enjoyed it

K: For telling us all about flowers and plants and Vintage Glamour. Let’s take a look at some more wonderful ideas