my name is Sarah horn and I am addicted
to flowers so can I ask how many of you
have received flowers in the last week
the last month yeah the last year ah
wonderful that’s better I bet that made
you feel loved didn’t it yeah well I
want you all to feel the power of the
flower today so I’ve brought you all
along you’ve probably found it already a
very little gift with a very big message
it’s a Sweet William flower and the
meaning of Sweet William is to get lost
in a whole new world of wonder and
enchantment and that just felt very
appropriate to me to bring that for you
today so what exactly is the flower well
that’s easy it’s just the seed bearing
part of a plant that’s responsible for
reproduction so why are we so fascinated
by it why do we desire it so much you
see too many of us there’s a real magic
surrounding flowers they’re not going to
change the world just like that but
actually they do have the power to
change your flower lovers world so to
those of you who don’t yet feel it
listen carefully because it might change
your life
it might improve your love life you
never know because to a flower lover
these wonderful miracles of nature
represent total indulgence beauty for
the sake of beauty they’re absolute soul
food to us so beautiful arrangement will
absolutely capture the attention of all
who see it
and actually that’s not least because of
the transience of flowers you see we
have to enjoy them while we have them
they don’t last forever they leave
behind them the memory of the beautiful
colors and the beautiful fragrances but
actually I think what’s more important
to us is that they leave behind the
emotion with which the flowers were sent
and I think that is such an important
thing for us to be able to do that just
gonna place a few of these flowers in
here so you can see so when did the
fascination with flowers begin well i
found evidence that the ancient
Egyptians used flowers for special
occasions for ceremonies they’d having
them in bars they’d have them on tables
in medieval times the ladies would carry
a little posy of flowers but smaller
than that actually and it was fragrant
it was made up of herbs and fragrant
flowers and it was called a nosegay
sounds lovely doesn’t it a nosegay and
nosegay literally means to keep the nose
happy so you’ve probably a few steps
ahead of me here in realizing that in
fact the hygiene in medieval times was
non-existent not to put too fine a point
on it people stank so the ladies would
put their noses in their poses to combat
the smells not quite so pretty now is it
a nosegay a very useful thing I think
and then if we move on to Victorian
times the Victorians found flowers
incredibly important because you see
with their stiff upper lip culture it
was really frowned upon to have open
displays of emotion
of any kind of course they still had
those emotions and in order to show them
they did it secretly so they would
actually use the language of flowers so
every flower had a meaning in fact even
the hand that the flower was presented
in was significant so we all know today
I think that red rose means I love you
but in fact if you present a flower
upside down it has the opposite effect
it’s quite an interesting one isn’t it
and a lot of the other meanings of
flowers have actually got lost in time
but I’ve been doing a little bit of
research and did you know that if you
gave an orchid to somebody it could mean
because often there’s several meanings I
desire you seen a few faces out there
going oh my word I gave my auntie and
Orkut don’t worry it’s got lost in time
we’ll leave it there and I just find the
whole language of flowers incredibly
interesting so this arrangement that I’m
doing here has got a very powerful
message because of the flowers I’ve
chosen so these beautiful bird of
paradise tell us to give flight to our
dreams and I think that’s a that’s a
lovely strong message for us all and
then we’ve got it’s a very pretty
Bovada here and Bouvard yeah that tells
us that there are unseen energies at
force to assist our way so putting those
in here I think just feels right I’ve
been putting the hydrangeas low down
there and please don’t hate me for it I
know often people tell me off for
cutting flowers quite so low but if you
cut them down they last a little bit
longer so I do feel I’m sort of
extending the life a little bit and the
meaning of hydrangeas is to create our
own destiny and then I’ve got some
beautiful delphiniums here
and these delphiniums tell us of
infinite possibilities which again I
think it all comes together to be a
really lovely powerful message quite
nice for somebody starting a business
starting a new job having a new home all
of those things I think we can send that
lovely message so my next question
really would be I wonder what this one
means well I’m gonna I haven’t been able
to find the meaning of it so I’m
actually gonna send a few in to the
audience to sort of see if it makes you
think of some things I’m just going to
throw them out I’ve got a couple here
there’s some coming from the sides as
well there’s another one now if I tell
you that it’s the family of Scalia its
variety name is Moby Dick and it’s
common name it gets worse bishops balls
everybody’s throwing them out now aren’t
there they don’t want them I’m sorry
forgive me but I can never resist I just
think that one makes me laugh so much
and I’ve got another one here which is
an absolute beauty a tropical anthurium
and I do know the meaning behind this
one it’s irresistible and the common
name again always makes me laugh naughty
little boys that one but joking aside
flowers actually give us that wonderful
way of communication without words and
to give flowers as a token of love just
taps into our most primal urges it
brings out the instinct of
hunter-gatherer to find the most
glorious blooms and present them to the
object of our desire I think just sends
such a strong message of being able to
provide the best of everything and this
bouquet behind me would absolutely do
that I think and guys and girls because
a lot of men love flowers girls in case
you don’t know seriously if you sent
or returned home with it for a flower
lover then there’s a good chance that
whatever your question the answer would
be yes and it’s not actually about
getting the biggest bunch of flowers
either it’s just about finding exquisite
flowers one favorite flower beautifully
presented send such a strong message and
I think then the choice to multiply that
out and send more simply multiplies the
message out but to me the meaning of
flowers actually goes way beyond their
natural beauty and their hidden meanings
because they’ve been the vehicle of my
creativity now for over thirty seven
years my paint palette if you will and
through customer orders demonstrations
presentations exhibitions they’ve taken
me on this amazing journey I’ve been to
see great places I’ve made wonderful
friends my goodness I’ve been on a
learning curve like that
I’ve even got to stand on the Ted stage
it’s just such a privilege to work with
these beautiful things and I’ve often
arrived at a venue to do a demonstration
and I’ve heard a voice behind me hi
there I’m Carol you staying with me
tonight you might think that was quite
daunting but you know what every single
time that I did that I had a great night
finding about about somebody I’d never
met before realizing that we’d got
friends in common and that didn’t matter
where in the world I was flowers are
like that you know it just brings people
together once you’ve met somebody or
somebody knows somebody you’ve got great
friends but I could never have imagined
actually that through teaching at my
flower school I was going to end up on a
wonderful project to take this glorious
town to the Chelsea Flower Show
see one of my attendees with a garden
designer and she’d exhibited so
rhs shows but she’d always wanted to do
the big one and I’d been lucky enough to
have three gold medals from Chelsea Club
professional floristry I always wanted
to work on one of those big exhibits in
the great pavilion so we got our
inspiration of course from this
beautiful town and the gardens and we
called it the garden town of Shakespeare
land so it seemed appropriate to
approach the lamingtons bar bid and say
should we do it as a town project and
our journey began not only did I end up
working on a project of my dreams with a
fantastic team but I just learned so
much from it I was out of my comfort
zone in so many different ways and it
was it wonderful to come back to the
town with a medal and I have to say we
were incredibly relieved because it was
such a big project to do that but what I
hadn’t anticipated was coming out the
other side of it with a skill that I’d
always wanted you see we were asked by
the project manager to draw our designs
for the catalogue I have to be honest
here I was really nervous about this
because between you and me I failed my
art Oh level spectacularly I was loved
being creative I was wanted to be able
to draw but it just wasn’t wasn’t there
at that time and I tried several times
since still wasn’t there so when I said
I can’t draw I just heard nonsense it’s
just the same creativity you use in your
flower designs it’s just a different
medium so there’s no no answer to this
you know this is this is a project that
I really really want so many people had
put so much time so much money so much
goodwill into making it happen
I just thought I’ve got to find a way to
do it so I locked myself away in a room
with every medium I could think of and
set about trying to bring the designs to
life thankfully I got to a point where I
came out with something I was quite
pleased with
thankfully so was a project manager and
I discovered drawing and it just opened
up a whole new world for me I was very
surprised to find out that my medium was
the most unforgiving one it was ink you
see you can’t rub it out you have to
make every line count or you throw away
a drawing that you’ve been working on
for four hours it took pinpoint focus
and for those people who know me in the
room that was a completely new
experience for me at 47 pinpoint focus
but I loved it I absolutely loved it and
I think through realizing that for many
people the color of flowers was one of
the most compelling parts about them I’d
always been fascinated by texture so to
draw in black and white it sort of gave
me the opportunity to bring out the
lovely textures in flowers without them
hiding behind the colors and a
transiency is obviously a beautiful part
about them because when you have these
in your house you will look at them
every minute that you can because you
know you won’t have them forever and I
think that’s really special but actually
as an artist it just limited my
creativity I could only work on a flower
design when I had a purpose for that
particular design so I did find myself
in lots of situations of demonstrations
and competitions to do that but with
drawing I can draw anytime and I can put
it away and I can get it back out again
and I can carry on working on it and it
just opened up so much for me and in
fact it fed my floral addiction because
I just realized that the vehicle to
spread the power of the flower had
suddenly doubled and in fact it soon
trebled when I realized that the
drawings that I was doing were whilst
quite traditional had a slightly
contemporary edge to them and I thought
they’d look nice on things like fine
bone china and candle votives and
textiles and interiors just love
designing products and I’ve also been
drawing on ostrich eggs and designing
tattoos and I’m thinking wow where is my
botanical journey gonna take me next and
I thought some of my favorite botanicals
are trapped in bottles perhaps you never
know one day I might find a great mix of
botanicals and I might draw the bottle
none of us know that the accent but
actually one thing that I do know is
I’ve now become a flower graffiti rebel
I’m planting flowers in people’s homes
365 24 7 and I’ve realized that actually
the power of the flower it can never be
underestimated it’s infinite so I’m
really hoping that you’ll take your
sweet William and you’ll enjoy it and
that might be by putting it in a vows at
home and enjoying it there or you might
enjoy even more if you give it away to
somebody and that could be the next step
on your journey to exploring the power
of the flower
[Applause]
to flowers so can I ask how many of you
have received flowers in the last week
the last month yeah the last year ah
wonderful that’s better I bet that made
you feel loved didn’t it yeah well I
want you all to feel the power of the
flower today so I’ve brought you all
along you’ve probably found it already a
very little gift with a very big message
it’s a Sweet William flower and the
meaning of Sweet William is to get lost
in a whole new world of wonder and
enchantment and that just felt very
appropriate to me to bring that for you
today so what exactly is the flower well
that’s easy it’s just the seed bearing
part of a plant that’s responsible for
reproduction so why are we so fascinated
by it why do we desire it so much you
see too many of us there’s a real magic
surrounding flowers they’re not going to
change the world just like that but
actually they do have the power to
change your flower lovers world so to
those of you who don’t yet feel it
listen carefully because it might change
your life
it might improve your love life you
never know because to a flower lover
these wonderful miracles of nature
represent total indulgence beauty for
the sake of beauty they’re absolute soul
food to us so beautiful arrangement will
absolutely capture the attention of all
who see it
and actually that’s not least because of
the transience of flowers you see we
have to enjoy them while we have them
they don’t last forever they leave
behind them the memory of the beautiful
colors and the beautiful fragrances but
actually I think what’s more important
to us is that they leave behind the
emotion with which the flowers were sent
and I think that is such an important
thing for us to be able to do that just
gonna place a few of these flowers in
here so you can see so when did the
fascination with flowers begin well i
found evidence that the ancient
Egyptians used flowers for special
occasions for ceremonies they’d having
them in bars they’d have them on tables
in medieval times the ladies would carry
a little posy of flowers but smaller
than that actually and it was fragrant
it was made up of herbs and fragrant
flowers and it was called a nosegay
sounds lovely doesn’t it a nosegay and
nosegay literally means to keep the nose
happy so you’ve probably a few steps
ahead of me here in realizing that in
fact the hygiene in medieval times was
non-existent not to put too fine a point
on it people stank so the ladies would
put their noses in their poses to combat
the smells not quite so pretty now is it
a nosegay a very useful thing I think
and then if we move on to Victorian
times the Victorians found flowers
incredibly important because you see
with their stiff upper lip culture it
was really frowned upon to have open
displays of emotion
of any kind of course they still had
those emotions and in order to show them
they did it secretly so they would
actually use the language of flowers so
every flower had a meaning in fact even
the hand that the flower was presented
in was significant so we all know today
I think that red rose means I love you
but in fact if you present a flower
upside down it has the opposite effect
it’s quite an interesting one isn’t it
and a lot of the other meanings of
flowers have actually got lost in time
but I’ve been doing a little bit of
research and did you know that if you
gave an orchid to somebody it could mean
because often there’s several meanings I
desire you seen a few faces out there
going oh my word I gave my auntie and
Orkut don’t worry it’s got lost in time
we’ll leave it there and I just find the
whole language of flowers incredibly
interesting so this arrangement that I’m
doing here has got a very powerful
message because of the flowers I’ve
chosen so these beautiful bird of
paradise tell us to give flight to our
dreams and I think that’s a that’s a
lovely strong message for us all and
then we’ve got it’s a very pretty
Bovada here and Bouvard yeah that tells
us that there are unseen energies at
force to assist our way so putting those
in here I think just feels right I’ve
been putting the hydrangeas low down
there and please don’t hate me for it I
know often people tell me off for
cutting flowers quite so low but if you
cut them down they last a little bit
longer so I do feel I’m sort of
extending the life a little bit and the
meaning of hydrangeas is to create our
own destiny and then I’ve got some
beautiful delphiniums here
and these delphiniums tell us of
infinite possibilities which again I
think it all comes together to be a
really lovely powerful message quite
nice for somebody starting a business
starting a new job having a new home all
of those things I think we can send that
lovely message so my next question
really would be I wonder what this one
means well I’m gonna I haven’t been able
to find the meaning of it so I’m
actually gonna send a few in to the
audience to sort of see if it makes you
think of some things I’m just going to
throw them out I’ve got a couple here
there’s some coming from the sides as
well there’s another one now if I tell
you that it’s the family of Scalia its
variety name is Moby Dick and it’s
common name it gets worse bishops balls
everybody’s throwing them out now aren’t
there they don’t want them I’m sorry
forgive me but I can never resist I just
think that one makes me laugh so much
and I’ve got another one here which is
an absolute beauty a tropical anthurium
and I do know the meaning behind this
one it’s irresistible and the common
name again always makes me laugh naughty
little boys that one but joking aside
flowers actually give us that wonderful
way of communication without words and
to give flowers as a token of love just
taps into our most primal urges it
brings out the instinct of
hunter-gatherer to find the most
glorious blooms and present them to the
object of our desire I think just sends
such a strong message of being able to
provide the best of everything and this
bouquet behind me would absolutely do
that I think and guys and girls because
a lot of men love flowers girls in case
you don’t know seriously if you sent
or returned home with it for a flower
lover then there’s a good chance that
whatever your question the answer would
be yes and it’s not actually about
getting the biggest bunch of flowers
either it’s just about finding exquisite
flowers one favorite flower beautifully
presented send such a strong message and
I think then the choice to multiply that
out and send more simply multiplies the
message out but to me the meaning of
flowers actually goes way beyond their
natural beauty and their hidden meanings
because they’ve been the vehicle of my
creativity now for over thirty seven
years my paint palette if you will and
through customer orders demonstrations
presentations exhibitions they’ve taken
me on this amazing journey I’ve been to
see great places I’ve made wonderful
friends my goodness I’ve been on a
learning curve like that
I’ve even got to stand on the Ted stage
it’s just such a privilege to work with
these beautiful things and I’ve often
arrived at a venue to do a demonstration
and I’ve heard a voice behind me hi
there I’m Carol you staying with me
tonight you might think that was quite
daunting but you know what every single
time that I did that I had a great night
finding about about somebody I’d never
met before realizing that we’d got
friends in common and that didn’t matter
where in the world I was flowers are
like that you know it just brings people
together once you’ve met somebody or
somebody knows somebody you’ve got great
friends but I could never have imagined
actually that through teaching at my
flower school I was going to end up on a
wonderful project to take this glorious
town to the Chelsea Flower Show
see one of my attendees with a garden
designer and she’d exhibited so
rhs shows but she’d always wanted to do
the big one and I’d been lucky enough to
have three gold medals from Chelsea Club
professional floristry I always wanted
to work on one of those big exhibits in
the great pavilion so we got our
inspiration of course from this
beautiful town and the gardens and we
called it the garden town of Shakespeare
land so it seemed appropriate to
approach the lamingtons bar bid and say
should we do it as a town project and
our journey began not only did I end up
working on a project of my dreams with a
fantastic team but I just learned so
much from it I was out of my comfort
zone in so many different ways and it
was it wonderful to come back to the
town with a medal and I have to say we
were incredibly relieved because it was
such a big project to do that but what I
hadn’t anticipated was coming out the
other side of it with a skill that I’d
always wanted you see we were asked by
the project manager to draw our designs
for the catalogue I have to be honest
here I was really nervous about this
because between you and me I failed my
art Oh level spectacularly I was loved
being creative I was wanted to be able
to draw but it just wasn’t wasn’t there
at that time and I tried several times
since still wasn’t there so when I said
I can’t draw I just heard nonsense it’s
just the same creativity you use in your
flower designs it’s just a different
medium so there’s no no answer to this
you know this is this is a project that
I really really want so many people had
put so much time so much money so much
goodwill into making it happen
I just thought I’ve got to find a way to
do it so I locked myself away in a room
with every medium I could think of and
set about trying to bring the designs to
life thankfully I got to a point where I
came out with something I was quite
pleased with
thankfully so was a project manager and
I discovered drawing and it just opened
up a whole new world for me I was very
surprised to find out that my medium was
the most unforgiving one it was ink you
see you can’t rub it out you have to
make every line count or you throw away
a drawing that you’ve been working on
for four hours it took pinpoint focus
and for those people who know me in the
room that was a completely new
experience for me at 47 pinpoint focus
but I loved it I absolutely loved it and
I think through realizing that for many
people the color of flowers was one of
the most compelling parts about them I’d
always been fascinated by texture so to
draw in black and white it sort of gave
me the opportunity to bring out the
lovely textures in flowers without them
hiding behind the colors and a
transiency is obviously a beautiful part
about them because when you have these
in your house you will look at them
every minute that you can because you
know you won’t have them forever and I
think that’s really special but actually
as an artist it just limited my
creativity I could only work on a flower
design when I had a purpose for that
particular design so I did find myself
in lots of situations of demonstrations
and competitions to do that but with
drawing I can draw anytime and I can put
it away and I can get it back out again
and I can carry on working on it and it
just opened up so much for me and in
fact it fed my floral addiction because
I just realized that the vehicle to
spread the power of the flower had
suddenly doubled and in fact it soon
trebled when I realized that the
drawings that I was doing were whilst
quite traditional had a slightly
contemporary edge to them and I thought
they’d look nice on things like fine
bone china and candle votives and
textiles and interiors just love
designing products and I’ve also been
drawing on ostrich eggs and designing
tattoos and I’m thinking wow where is my
botanical journey gonna take me next and
I thought some of my favorite botanicals
are trapped in bottles perhaps you never
know one day I might find a great mix of
botanicals and I might draw the bottle
none of us know that the accent but
actually one thing that I do know is
I’ve now become a flower graffiti rebel
I’m planting flowers in people’s homes
365 24 7 and I’ve realized that actually
the power of the flower it can never be
underestimated it’s infinite so I’m
really hoping that you’ll take your
sweet William and you’ll enjoy it and
that might be by putting it in a vows at
home and enjoying it there or you might
enjoy even more if you give it away to
somebody and that could be the next step
on your journey to exploring the power
of the flower
[Applause]
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