Let me show you how to make a fully planted funeral wreath: no plastic, no wire, a miniature garden which can be put to grow on in a real garden afterwards.

We are taking funeral flowers to RHS Chelsea this year. When I say taking flowers I mean we, three florists representing The Farewell Flowers Directory, are creating an installation in the Grand Pavillion which is designed to inspire and enable people to choose 100% biodegradable funeral flowers. We’ll be using cut flowers, planting, and no plastic, to demonstrate lots of ways that funeral flowers can be a celebration of living life as well as fully compostable. So many churchyards these days are supported by the charity God’s Acre which recognises that graveyards are often havens for wildflowers and wildlife. If fully compostable flowers are laid on new graves in such places, then they will simply compost slowly, feeding the soil, and requiring no removal to landfill by church volunteers.

As part of the team taking funeral flowers to Chelsea this year I said I would make a few clips about the kinds of arrangements which you could make yourself for a friend or family member’s funeral, or which you could ask a florist to make for you. Here is the first of those clips. I’m making a planted wreath which you could leave to settle on a grave, or take home and take apart, putting all the ingredients back into the ground to flower each year at the time of the funeral, reminding you of the person who died, and the beautiful flowers they had at their farewell.

Clubbers, I give you the maths in this piece as well as the how to, because it’s always interesting to see where the money is, although, as in the case of all funeral flowers, being asked to make them is such a compliment it feels odd charging at all, even if you never knew the person for whom they are a tribute, or the person who loved them and who ordered them.

Enjoy!