In this year’s GardenTech, I am fortunate to be able to invite Mr Anson Low who is the principal of the prestigious Nobleman School of Floral Design and Mr Linus Loh from Seeds by K & L to come to HortPark to put up a special floristic showcase that is quite unlike those we usually see.
When it comes to flower arrangements, most people would think it just involves putting various colourful flowers together. For a little variation, a variety of fruits can be added to get a fruit and flower basket. Not many of us would think of using edible underground plant parts, like tubers, rhizomes, bulbs, taproots and corms in flower arrangements.
The team lead by Anson and Linus did just that. In conjunction with the geophytic plants showcase at the Lifestyle Corner at HortPark, the duo and friends used various commonly encountered food geophytic plant parts for their floristic arrangements.
On Sunday (16 Aug 09), visitors to HortPark were treated to a demonstration by Anson himself where he showed everyone how easily one can put a flower arrangement together. Many participants of the session were surprised by the creativity of Anson. He then helped to conduct a guided tour where he shared with his audience the concept he has behind each arrangement that was displayed in the showflat.
Visitors to HortPark during GardenTech 2009 would be able to see how carrots can be strung up to make a vase which one can stick orchids into it.
Rhizomes of the cooking ginger and turmeric are usually stored away from sight at home. Anson and Linus gave us a fine example of how we can make a pleasing arrangement for the dinner table by using these rhizomes. They laid a bed of cooking gingers at the base and then randhomly stuck turmeric rhizomes onto the former using toothpicks. To add colour to this arrangement, single blooms of a yellow Cymbidium orchid were used and were fed via a test tube of water.
Bulbs such as those of the onion, garlic and edible lily can also be used to complement flower arrangements. Onions and garlic, which are both tunicated bulbs, were laid as a carpet at the base of two flower arrangements. On the same note, my team exercised a little bit of our creativity by making a circle using dried edible lily bulb scales and fresh bulbs around one of the flower arrangements done by Anson and Linus.
Corms like cocoyams, stem tubers such as potatoes and root tubers of the sweet potato can also be used to complement our usual floristic creations as shown in the picture above. It is important to choose intact and undamaged geophytic plant parts for such work so that they look good and not emit a foul smell over time.
