Special funeral flower ingredients - sailing boats and love

Karen MacKechnie, The Floral Goat, Pembrokeshire

A woven wreath decorated with seasonal late winter flowers and a small carved sailing boat, makes a fully compostable and natural final floral tribute for a man who loved wood-carving, sailing and the natural world..

I was recently approached for funeral flowers by the family of a local man who loved the ocean and woodlands in equal measure. A keen sailor and carpenter, he also carved numerous beautiful, tiny sailing boats from scraps of reclaimed timber which he treasured. It delighted him to reuse this and to give it another life which could be enjoyed by others.

Given his resourcefulness and love of nature, his family felt strongly that his flowers should be local, seasonal and completely naturally made, without the use of plastic or wire, so I created a woven base and tied on damp moss to support the flowers that decorated it. This meant that his funeral flowers would be fully compostable and eco-friendly.

It seemed fitting that the wreath was woven from woodland stems of willow, hazel and twining honeysuckle whose wild and fluid ways also give a nod to the movement of the seas.  To allow these woody characters to play their part in the floral tribute, the wreath was only partially decorated with flowers.

Blue is the colour…. tiny muscari and dried eryngiums make an undulating sea of flowers. Leaving the compostable wreath base made from woven woodland ingredients exposed adds to the charm and interest of this farewell floral tribute.

 
The man's favourite flower was agapanthus but at the time this floral tribute was made, agapanthus were hiding away in dormancy from February's winter wet and we wanted to keep the flowers local. Taking my inspiration instead from its rich blue colour, I was able to echo both this favourite bloom and the azure of the sea by including blue flowers like tiny grape hyacinths and the thistle forms of spiky eryngiums which I'd harvested and carefully dried the previous summer.  

In our conversations, the family and I came up with idea of placing a tiny sailing boat to bob upon this wild blue sea. A special one, carved by his own hand was therefore placed into the wreath on the day of his funeral. The boat in the photo is one of my own, used as a temporary placeholder just for photography purposes, but I hope it shows you that there are lots of ways that you can bring personality into sustainable funeral flowers and at the same time celebrate crafts and creations, made with love.

Karen grows and arranges flowers in Pembrokeshire, Wales. She is passionate about sustainability and loves making bespoke funeral flowers which reflect a life.