Instagram can be very annoying at times often suggesting and putting random pictures on your feed ‘because you liked’ some other post, story or reel in the past. It does this under the label ‘we think you’ll like this’ as it displays arbitrary pictures and videos. And, surprise, surprise more often than not I am not remotely interested in anything the algorithm suggests.
However, once in a blue moon the Instagram algorithm scores a goal. It did just this when it suggested I might like the account of florist, Graeme Corbett, at Bloom and Burn. Now, having seen lots of his lovely, contemporary flower displays I was inspired to have a go at his loose style using an old fashioned, painted vase with my own homegrown flowers.
Not quite in the free-flowing form of Graeme’s work, but I was reasonably pleased with my first effort. Then, I noticed a dark patch spreading across the black cloth and realised this old vase leaked. It was originally a charity shop purchase of my mother’s some 20 years ago and when I thought about it I couldn’t remember ever seeing it used for fresh flowers. Now I know why and so began the trial of the vases.
To immediately deal with the leak situation I grabbed the first vessel to hand which was a jug. It turned out that the free-flowing look and my trusty old Spode jug did not a fine match make. Something to do with the size of the bunch and the size of the individual blooms.
And, then, when I switched to a green, glass vase (a gift from my sister) the height of the vase required cutting something taller from the backyard. I found a white foxglove and gave it a try, but the whole arrangement still didn’t work.
Finally, I nipped upstairs to my bedroom where my grandmother’s lustre jug normally sits on a chest of drawers, emptied it of random bits and pieces and brought it down to the kitchen. Not to be caught out again I first filled it with water and checked it for leaks. After relegating the foxglove to the compost bin, I grouped the remaining flowers into a satisfactory arrangement.
Honestly, what a fuss to achieve an informal, free-flowing, ‘it just happened’ floral display.
Agnes Ashe 