We were totally honoured to be contacted by Phoebe, with a request to create something flowery for the town’s street party celebrations to mark his Majesty’s coronation, what an occasion. For us, everything looks and feels better with fresh flowers, so of course it was a huge YES!

We were aware that we wanted it to be something super special on several levels, we wanted something that looked beautiful, striking, and impactful enough, whilst also wanting it to be symbolic of the occasion. We were keen to include scent, and importantly we hoped it could span generations and be current. We hoped also to be as environmentally conscious as possible, especially given the King’s ideas and values regarding sustainability in the floristry.

With all of that in mind here’s how we decided what to create:

We decided to create something inside the monument, so whatever the weather our flowers could still be enjoyed!

In our hope of being ‘modern’ we created a photo booth, somewhere you could sit and capture gorgeous memories of the day, surrounded by beautiful blooms.

For our immediate inspiration we looked to the official Coronation invitation. We wanted to echo the beauty of the colours and flowers used, so as far as the aesthetic for the installation was an English country garden with a mix of native, woodland foliage’s.

We wanted as much of our installation as possible to be locally sourced, so our first stop was our gardens; cow parsley, blossoms, bluebells and foliage of beech, birch, hazel, and oak. Herbs of rosemary, both for scent and in remembrance of the late Queen, sage, bay, and the eucalyptus we used were also all home grown.

Representing the nations of Great Britain was another priority high on our list, with the tall green spires of Molucella (bells of Ireland). The spikey blue spheres of Eryngium (blue thistles). Both white and red roses for England, and the ancient royal houses of Lancaster and York, (both had to be included as I’m a Yorkshire girl and we’re on the border!) The yellow of Wales came from yellow ranunculus, a gorgeous spring flower, as all our narcissi and daffodils were finished.

The other flower choices all common in English country gardens, deep blue clematis, tall white gladioli, delicate scabious, nigella, and wonderfully scented stocks.

We had so much fun on Sunday morning placing and finishing off the flowers in the square, it was a hive of activity from around 8am with Market traders, volunteers and the great and the good of Kirkby Lonsdale all hoping to mark the occasion and make a really special day for all, I was so excited to show my children the installation when they arrived, my 9 year olds response: “hmmm they are OK, when are the alpacas arriving?!”