My Favourite Flower - Janice Issitt

A little bit later in the month than normal, due to the school holidays, but I am very pleased to be here to share this month's My Favourite Flower column. Before I do though, I just wanted to let you know that there are now some new workshop dates available, if you fancy finding out more, just click on the workshops menu at the top of the page. Right, on with the column, I 'met' my guest, the very lovely, Janice Issitt, when she first started joining in with #gatheredstyle. Despite being shy of colour personally, her beautiful and strong colour combinations just blew me away. Since then, I have met Janice in the flesh, and she is just as colourful in real life as her photos, I think she is brilliant in every way, and so I am thrilled that she agreed to share her favourite flower on the blog.

Here is what Janice has to say:

I'm crazy about flowers, there is always at least one vase of blooms in my home and I guess I get that from my parents who always did the same. Every change in season brings a new group of favourites so I'm finding it hard to narrow down to one, but shall talk about what I like at the moment and why.

Like Rebecca Jones who featured here in July, I'm growing David Austin Roses so that I can have a constant source of scented flowers in the house but they haven't really established yet, I'm hoping next year will be 'heaven scent'. I shall be ordering more roses to plant at the end of August and having seen Rebecca's recommendations I will definitely be getting some of those.

If I generalise about the flowers I love then it's got to be colours and shapes as these have the most impact in photos and interior styling. When taking photos of interior design I always add flowers and food, you can't go wrong with either as it's the finishing touch and detail that makes the difference. So probably the flowers I like are a bit like me; loud, bright and fun, with a dash of showoff - so, no wallflowers here.

My parents' garden had a great variety of plants which I was taught the correct names of, but the ones I remember the best were the peonies. They had several bushes of the really dark crimson ones although I prefer the pinks and peaches as they photograph better. I haven't been successful myself with growing Peonies so tend to hunt them down at the florists.

I have grown these giant Alliums in the past but somehow they have disappeared out of my garden, (wondering if a naughty squirrel snacked on their bulbs). When I saw these at the florist I knew they would look great in some of my retro vases. As these West German pottery vases are so structural in shape they look their best with a structural flower, like an Arum Lilly. When it comes to vases I try to use unusual things like coffee pots, cream jugs, jam jars and such.

And so now onto pressing flowers which happens to be one of my areas of expertise. I don't do it anymore but thought I would share some tips with you. I had a stall at Camden Market for many years where I sold frames and jewellery that I had made from glass and pressed flowers. I've met a lot of people who say they tried pressing flowers in books and they turned brown, this is because the flowers need air circulating around them but also because some flowers are just too moist to begin with. Larkspur, delphinium, hydrangea, forget-me-not and daisy all fair fairly well. A flower press is the best idea, using sheets of blotting paper either side of the flower with corrugated cardboard between provides the best environment.

I have recently found these frames at Holy Cow Home which are similar to the stained glass work that I used to make, these little frames make a perfect carrier for a little mixed media collage of memories. Photos can be enhanced with a few other little memories added to them like a flower picked from a field, or from a bouquet. When choosing a flower for pressing its hardest to get pink and white to hold their colour. I had my best results with deep blues, reds and oranges. I hope you have found some of my colourful ideas helpful, and thank you Emma for asking me.

All photos by Janice Issitt

Thank you so much for sharing a few of your favourite flowers with me, as always, I adore your use of colour, and wish that I could be so brave. Great tips about how to press flowers properly too, I have recently started doing it with Elvia, so your advice will prove very useful!

You can find Janice here:

Have a great week.

Emma x