Over the next few years the RHS Floral Decoration Committee produced lists of judges, teachers and demonstrators of flower arranging to help clubs organise their programmes and shows and by 1958 it was realised that a separate organisation should be formed. As well as exhibiting at Chelsea each of the now seven Areas (North East Area was formed in 1957 and North West Area soon after) held shows in their own regions to great acclaim. Huge queues to view the floral designs and this in turn led to an upsurge in membership of flower clubs. This led to the formation within the RHS of the Floral Decoration Society in 1955, delegates from 125 clubs attended the meeting and agreed to divide Great Britain into five large regions.Īt the Chelsea Flower Show in 1956 the RHS provided a large marquee for the five regional organisations to show their artistry, this was visited by both Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mother. On 7 December 1954 the President of the RHS, David Bowes-Lyon convened a meeting attended by representatives from 45 clubs from England, Scotland and Wales. Guidance from the Royal Horticultural Society was sought in 1954 when Mary Pope approached them for advice and help as there was a need to co-ordinate the many flower clubs being formed. Visitors returned home and clubs were formed throughout the country. The Colchester Flower Club, the Dorset Floral Decoration Club, the Leicester and County Flower Lovers Guild and the London Floral Decoration Society arranged 350 floral exhibits which attracted huge crowds and became ‘news’. The Flower Academy was an event staged at the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall in London when the four existing flower arranging clubs in the country joined to stage a floral arrangements exhibition. She went on to form a club in Dorchester in 1949 to encourage entries in the flower arranging sections of the horticultural societies and it soon had five hundred members. Of flower arranging for the increasing number of classes in horticultural shows. In Dorset Mary Pope, having returned from Canada where she spent some of the war years, set up a panel in 1948 to fill the need for more knowledgeable judges She published her first book Fun with Flowers in 1950. Julia Clements visited America and returned becoming active in lectures and demonstrations on flower arranging to Women’s Institutes and other clubs. Although the National Association of Flower Arrangement Societies was formed in 1959 it had its origins in the years after the Second World War when various ladies travelled to America and saw how the garden club movement welcomed flower arranging as something to be linked with plant growing.
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