Flower Show: Call for Entries
If you have an unbridled creative imagination, enjoy experimenting and love the colour, scent and texture of flowers, then why not try your luck in our inaugural Port Eliot Flower Show? Go on, have a go, you might surprise yourself!
Curated and designed by internationally acclaimed production designer Michael Howells, the Port Eliot Flower Show pays homage to the traditional British summer flower show but is infused with Port Eliot’s own unique style and magic. The Flower Show will feature flower arranging classes, competitions, demonstrations, displays, music, art and fashion. A special tent is being erected in the Orangery Garden, with a stage built around the fountain that will feature talks and music from the likes of Tim Smit, Todd Longstaffe Gowan, Anna Pavord, Mary Keen, Stephen Jones, Tim Knox and Kitty Arden.
The competitions will not conform to the usual etiquette of Flower Shows as prescribed by the NAFAS Competitions Manual. Technical mastery and floral precision are not a prerequisite as the Port Eliot judges – Kitty Arden, Lady Boyd, Michael Howells and Lady St Germans - are interested in your creative imagination and a love of flowers.
Competitions include: “IN THE LIBRARY” (an arrangement of flowers depicting a great novel); “SAND IN THE SANDWICHES” (an arrangement for a seaside picnic); “FIVE GO MAD IN CORNWALL” (an arrangement of only five flowers); and “HOW GREEN IS MY VALET?” (an arrangement of foliage for a footman’s stag night)… Plus special children’s competitions including an arrangement in a thimble for a tea party of mice. There will be a total of eleven classes for adults and also three for children under 15 years.
>>Please download the Flower Show leaflet for more information and an entry form.
Deadline for entry forms: 17 July.
“I am incredibly excited about the wonderful array of speakers, performers and imaginative ideas we have brought together for this first ever Port Eliot Flower Show,” says curator Michael Howells. “There is something so gloriously British about village flower and gardening shows; they are perfumed with a heady nostalgia that recalls endless days of summer sunshine and hazy childhood memories of vast, vivid floral displays, impossibly giant vegetables, fruit laden jams and delicious Victoria sponge cakes all underlined by a fiercely competitive spirit.
“The Orangery is the perfect setting for a festival flower show and as with all things Port Eliot, this show will have its very own distinctive contemporary twist… I also cannot wait to see the creative efforts that people will go to for the competitions, I am sure there will be a lot of jovial rivalry!”
If you’d like to enter, please fill in the entry form and return it to the Flower Show Secretary before 14 July – details are in the Conditions of Entry section of the leaflet. You will then receive the necessary pass and information you will need to enter the festival on 23 July. Competitors will be able to stage their arrangements from 10am to 10pm.
If you’re a weekend festival goer who cannot bring flowers or equipment with you, we’ll be running a Box Scheme on Saturday. For £10 you can buy a box containing all the flowers and equipment you’ll need to enter the imposed class, “Country House Weekend”. Numbers are limited so come early to avoid disappointment. Prize giving will take place on Saturday at 1pm.
