We are actually continuing with Dallying and as I suggested it might feature some garden visits. Last night we witnessed a spectacular lightning show and storm and realized what a different and enjoyable experience it is from 13 stories up. I did have to go out this morning and restake a couple of my tall Pepper plants that the wind had played with.
Now back to original story, our visit to “Fleures de Villes” at the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington ON. As a sort of humorous aside everybody refers to RBG as being in Hamilton much to the annoyance of the smaller adjacent city of Burlington where it is technically located.
“Fleures de Villes” was a floral exhibit showcasing the characters from the Downton Abbey tv series. Most of the characters were life sized dummies but the spectacular part was their costumes which were entirely created out of floral
materials. These characters were distributed throughout the entire indoor building and greenhouses that constitute their main headquarters and that expansiveness was a good thing. When we arrived for our purchased start time of 11AM we had to park on the road as their large parking lot was overflowing. There were lots of people wandering the exhibit but it never felt really crowded and one of my interesting observations was watching everybody, very courteously, bobbing and weaving so that everyone was able to get clear photos.
So on to my photos. The start of the exhibit was an iconic British red phone both and the surrounding floral arrangements were a powerful indication of what we were about to see. Now I have to start choosing as there won’t be room for all of them.
The first character to greet us was “Lady Mary” and we just stopped and stared. The sign beside each character named them and the florist who had created them. The outline of the materials used was never complete and left us all discussing and guessing just what was what.
All in brilliant white was Lady Rose, where we saw one of the many interesting uses of floral material. The dress is mostly lace like and how did they create that. We are all familiar with how a Japanese Beetle will skeletonize our leaves, well, you can create a lacelike material by deliberately skeletonizing dozens of leaves and then colouring them white or whatever colour you desire.
Man’s clothing, while not as floriferous, was equally interesting and sorting out the materials used was always a challenge. Matthew Crawley’s military outfit is primarily made from Ti leaves with Statice and Eucalyptus used in ways that made it difficult to establish just where they were.
One of my favourite characters from the show was the dowager countess as portrayed by Maggie Smith and she appeared just as formidable in floral dress. I actually appreciated the back view more and, yes, all of the characters were dressed in 360 degrees. The large Dahlia like flowers in this dress are actually hand made flowers using the varying sized petals of other flowers. Just one of many examples of the hour’s long effort required to create this amazing display.
Lady Edith was always an interesting character with many layers as was her outfit. There is a row of whole Roses down the front but the main component was layers of individual Rose petals with more whole Roses used as accents.
No Downtown Abbey exhibit would be complete without Lord Grantham, the patriarch. His military uniform was primarily made with dried and dyed Bamboo leaves with an amazing collection of other interesting elements to make the trim and medals, that had us all speculating as to what they were. The hair was always interesting and we learned that some were made with coloured corn silk.
After a couple of dazzling hours we found ourselves at the exit, where they gave us an impossible task, voting for our favourite. It would have been easier with a single dart and a large dartboard featuring all the characters.
I am, of course, always available to speak to garden clubs or other interested groups and you can find some of my topics on my web page
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