Bryonia at Manchester Flower Show 2021

My first large scale, solo installation piece (minus a teeny bit of help from my papas to saw the copper pipes!)

For Manchester Flower Show I hand designed a bespoke, dried pampas & palms piece for their 9 day event. It was a great opportunity to showcase my installation work to a larger audience, and come together with the other amazing florists of Manchester for a special event.

This is my behind the scenes update on how I designed and created a dried floral copper archway…

The inital design concept…

How high?

I love a challenge, and for this event I really wanted to push myself.

In my flower studio, I had accumulated so many different textured grasses that I knew would look awesome showcased in a bold & dramatic setting.

Having spoken with the event organisers about possible locations, we decided that the black and white victorian tiles within St Ann’s Arcade would be the perfect backdrop for my ideas to come to life. As I wanted to work with dried flowers, it also provided a safe, sheltered and dry spot where they were protected from the elements.

I set off creating a Pinterest mood board, inspired by products to hand in the Bryonia Studio, and came up with this concept for the event.

My materials all ready to build the arch

Let’s go!

The next few weeks absolutely flew by, as I was away on workshops in Sussex, Bath & Cumbria, so minus a quick site visit the week before, before I could blink it was actually time to build the concept.

I brought a huge heap of textured materials with me, as I know these sorts of installations can eat up dried flowers like there’s no tomorrow.

There was multiple types of palm, reed grasses and pampas, with eco friendly copper mechanics to fix everything to the archway.

The building process:

Stretching up to slot in the palm leaves

Busy busy

Once the copper pipe frame was up and ready to go, I added copper mesh around the structure and started to slide in the various textured grasses and palms to build up a 3d effect.

It took a couple of hours, but the finished product was well worth the time! You can see the finished piece and your pictures below.

The Finished Archway

St Ann’s Arcade, Manchester

And all of your lovely pics so far…

Want to visit?

The Bryonia floral installation will be up until Sunday 6th June 2021, so you’ll need to be quick!

There are so many amazing florists showcasing their work, so it’s well worth a trip. To find out more details on all the pieces dotted around the city of Manchester, click here.

Hope you all love it,

Jenna x