Weaving a flower wreath as part of a funeral or memorial ritual
Deborah Boston, Periwinkle Barn and Katy Vigurs, Community Death Educator, DEAD GOOD Community Interest Company, North East England
Deborah of Periwinkle Barn, worked with me recently worked on a lively and bright ‘mock funeral’ photoshoot. This took place on Deborah’s County Durham flower farm, Periwinkle Barn, to showcase creative, eco-friendly funerals in the UK. It was a lucky meeting of minds: when Deborah heard about DEAD GOOD’s work with families to design personal, participative funeral and memorial rituals, she excitedly suggested:
“We could create a flower weaving ritual on top of a cardboard coffin that everyone can be part of.”
and this was exactly the kind of creative idea which DEAD GOOD loves, so that’s what just what we did!
Showing how a group of friends or family can come together to make funeral flowers as a creative ritual in funeral or memorial celebrations.
Periwinkle Barn is a vibrant small holding where Deborah grows flowers for her sustainable floristry business. The business is just in its second year but Deborah is already flowering lots of sustainable funerals in the North East. Together, we decided that we’d like lots of eco-friendly ideas for funeral flower arrangements to be represented in the photoshoot, such as seasonal, hand-picked and hand-tied sheaf bouquets, rustic jam jar posies, along with informal baskets of flowers
The creative and informal ritual of weaving a flower wreath
Deborah, Katy, Sarah, Hazel and Ruth picking tulip ‘Belle Epoque’ in Deborah’s cutting garden. It was great to use such local flowers grown right on the site of the photoshoot!
On the day of the shoot, Deborah took us, the group of ‘mourners’, around the flower farm so we could handpick our own choice of blooms for the weaving ritual. This was such a joyful and personal way to begin the weaving ceremony. It was a late April photoshoot so the tulips were in their element, but Deborah also collected a range of other florals and foliage for the weaving, such as sprigs from her prettily named Pearl Bush (Latin name exochordia for the gardeners amongst you) and from her lilac trees.
A large natural willow wreath was used as the base for the weaving, which was placed on top of the cardboard coffin. The ‘mourners’ then gathered around the coffin where Deborah gently encouraged us to work together to weave our handpicked flowers into the willow base.
Adding small sprigs of freshly picked white lilac to the sustainable, compostable woven willow base for this funeral wreath.
The stunning wreath which the process created shows just how beautiful and sustainable funeral flowers can be.
We all loved the collaborative process, and were stunned that the flower weaving ritual took only 10-15 minutes, and yet created a breathtaking eco floral tribute.
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Find out more about Deborah’s flower farm and funeral floristry. You can also find details of upcoming farewell wreath workshops on her website.
Find out more about DEAD GOOD Legacies
Photography by Sarah Johnson Photography