Growing flowers for floral art

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32700, 1 September 1971, Page 6

Growing flowers for floral art

ideal for small posy bowls, which older women like to make.”

Many elderly couples who leave their family homes for flats find they miss most of all the main reason for the move their garden. “Oh, for a bit of garden to potter in!” is a comment often heard from flat-dwellers, deprived of a life-long hobby of growing their own flowers and vegetables.

Many fiats do have tiny, manageable plots of ground, attached. These are the places garden-lovers with limited energy should seek before shifting. What they should grow to make the most of a small patch and to get blooms for indoor arrangements needs careful planning, however. Mrs Josephine Oakley, of Ashburton, author of a new publication, “The New Zealanders’ Guide to Flower Growing and Arranging,’ suggests annuals. “Larkspurs, asters, and antirrhinums make a most successful combination for colour in the garden for cutting,” she said. “If there is any wall or fence space at a fiat, I recommend growing miniature climbing roses.” These roses are comparatively new and very easy to cut back, she said. They are not as subject to disease as bigger species. Mrs Oakley also suggests using puffer-type sprays, with a floral dust, on miniature cilmbing roses. This type of spray is easy to handle and cheaper to buy than others, she said. "Such roses make attractive arrangements and bring a delicate fragrance to a small room,”- she said. “They are

When Mrs Oakley talks of flowers, she thinks in terms of growing them for indoor as well as outdoor displays, as the title of her book suggests. Flowers for floral art is its theme.

Her flair for the art, clearly shown in her book, was awakened gradually. She was a commercial grower ’ with a quarter-acre of closely planted garden on her husband’s farm, when first one and then another customer asked her to arrange the flowers she sold them. “So I Cook a postal course in flower arrangement, then three years’ tuition from an Englishwoman who was visiting New Zealand,” she said. The next step was to try out her work on judges for comment. From then on, she collected awards at almost every flower show she entered. She won a premier award for a chrysanthemum (her speciality) at the Dunedin Horticultural Society's show and was honoured by being invited, there and then, to become a junior judge. And so began her career in judging flowers throughout New Zealand.

Requests snowballed for her services as a demonstrator at women’s organisations and garden clubs in Ashburton and Christchurch. About four years ago, she founded the Ashburton Floral Art Group. Mrs Oakley believes that most women can arrange attractively with some tuition and enthusiasm. ARTISTIC OUTLET

“For many women, it is their only outlet for artistic expression,” she said. “It gives them tremendous pleasure and is4he most relaxing hobby I know.”

True, flower arranging is time consuming. But, as Mrs Oakley points out, this is an advantage for women with too much time on their hands.

“Time just flies when you are doing flowers,” she said. “Few women who try floral arrangement ever give up. It becomes a kind of addiction.”

For those with limited time and only a few blooms to use, she suggests Ikebana, a suitable style for small rooms with modem decor.

“But it is important to set an Ikebana arrangement against a plain background in an uncluttered area,” she said. “For this style, you can use a plate, shallow bowl or even ovenware very effectively as containers.” VARIETY OF STYLES

Japanese floral art is men--1 tioned often in her book, I which covers all types of flower arrangements for show- , Ing and home decoration. ’ What makes the book parti- [ cularly valuable is that it I gives advice, accumulated from Mrs Oakley’s own ex- ■ perience, on how to make i plants which grow well in : New Zealand thrive even beti ter. She discusses annuals, ’ perennials, orchids, crysani themums, bulbs, shrubs, trees, I and roses. She has included i nothing about petunias and I begonias, for instance, as ■ these are not suitable for ■ floral arrangements, she said. I The book took her about

five years to write. But she felt there was need for it. After showing, judging, and demonstrating for so long, she realised that most women had no idea of how to get the best out of plants. She wanted to help them. "The New Zealanders* Guide to Flower Growing and Arranging," of 176 pages, is published by Collins and is beautifully presented: It is fully illustrated with colour plates and black-and-white photographs by Gordon Binstead, also of Ashburton. Drawings, setting out step-by-step instructions for arrangements, have been done by Elaine Power, An appendix, which gives an assortment of useful hints from sealing cut daffodil stems to making rose-petal jam, is included, as well as lists of New Zealand flower and flora) art societies and specialist growers.

Mrs Oakley-will autograph copies of her books for book-

sellers on Friday at Ashburton, where she is well known.

An English war bride, she was in the W.A.A.F. when she married Mr E. C. Oakley, then serving with the R.N.Z.A.F. in Britain. She went to Flemington, nine miles from Ashburton, with him in 1046 as a farmer’s wife, and became the mother of two children. For 20 years, she has been an active member of the Ashburton branch of the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers, she is now a vice-president of • the branch and has held office as president of the Mid-Canter-bury provincial executive. She is also a member of the Ashburton Community Centre Promotion Society, the Ashburton Horticultural Society, and takes a particular interest in local youth activities. Since Mrs Oakley’s retiremen from farming, they live in Bathurst Street, Ashburton. There, Mrs Oakley is kept busy reorganising the garden to produce more flowers and she is writing a sequel to her first book.