College florists strike gold at Harrogate Flower Show

Date published: 30/04/2007

A team of twelve floristry students from Hopwood Hall College’s Rochdale campus exhibited at the prestigious Harrogate Flower Show and won a gold medal! Out of the nine further education colleges to exhibit in the Floral Marquee at the town’s famous show ground, Hopwood Hall was the only one to receive a gold medal for their creative Japanese-style display. 

The group, accompanied by their tutor David Robertson, who himself won gold last year at Harrogate and Bronze at Chelsea, produced a fantastic piece of oriental inspired work, named after Arthur Golden's famous novel "Memoirs of a Geisha’. The display was made up from beautiful oriental flowers; orchids were weaved with beads to create screens, parasols, fans, but the centre piece was a fantastic hand-made model of a Japanese geisha girl made from bamboo.

Tutor David Robertson said: "I am delighted for the students that their work has been awarded the gold medal by the judging panel at Harrogate. What a fantastic achievement and a great beginning to their floristry careers. I have exhibited work here myself in the past and know how high the standard is. 

"Both our part-time and full-time floristry courses are increasingly becoming popular as the image of floristry is now more modern and appealing to young people with upmarket stores such as Jane Packer and Venus in Manchester City Centre. Floristry is "in vogue’ at the moment and can be a very lucrative and rewarding career for those with an artist flair and an eye for colour and design. The students are also taught skills in balloon art as part of the course, which is also a popular requirement at almost every special occasion, particularly for Asian weddings. 

I have created displays for many Asian weddings in my career as a florist and as a result have been asked to compete in an international floristry competition in Lahore, Pakistan next spring."