Did you know, 500,000 trees are felled every week just for the Sunday newspapers? Our March installation at the QEII Centre, 'The Three R’s' aimed to encourage reducing, reusing and recycling our every-day products, such as paper. We feel recycling our paper produce is the cornerstone of environmental awareness, so wanted this to be a key message. 

When we were initially planning this piece we wanted to celebrate the glorious camellia which is one of our most revered plants. Unfortunately we were too late and it was no longer available as a cut foliage. Although this was a shame this is also one of the joys of being florists - having to wait a year to enjoy the camellia again makes us appreciate it so much more than if it was available to order and commoditised like so many other factors in our world today.

For the installation we used newspapers to create the trunk (using a technique some of us learned in primary school!) The details were very important and we enjoyed creating the nodules and unevenness that make bark so fascinating. The newspaper was used to highlight the huge price nature pays for our smallest whims. The catkins were used instead of the camellia and were beautiful with their hanging fruit, representing nature’s adornments decorating the countryside. 

Whilst the artificial grass is not exactly environmentally sound it lasts a long time and since we use it constantly we felt it best to use this instead of trying to use real grass that would constantly need replacing.