Young florist wins gold at Chelsea for fiery creation

A WOMAN from Sonning Common was named florist of the year at Chelsea Flower Show.

Lara Thorpe, 24, who also won a gold medal at the show, said she had not expected to win as she was the competition’s youngest entrant.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “I was quite surprised and a bit shocked.

“The other displays were amazing and with less experience than the other florists, I was quite taken aback to win.

“I found out on the Tuesday morning when my mum and I came and there was a gold medal on the display.

“Then a BBC camera crew came round the corner and I thought. ‘Here we go’. I was just speechless, which will shock people who know me. It still hasn’t really sunk in.”

Miss Thorpe was presented with her medal by Keith Weed, president of the Royal Horticultural Society, which organises the show, and was later interviewed by Monty Don, presenter of the BBC’s Gardeners’ World. She celebrated with her parents, Keith and Vivienne, and younger brother Laurie, 14. Miss Thorpe said: “They were all here when we found out and there was a lot of emotion from everyone. We treated ourselves to a glass of fizz.”

Miss Thorpe, who lives in Lea Road, is the manager of Wild at Heart, a florist in Mayfair.

She entered a floral display called Spectrum of Fire. This featured a range of flowers including red hot pokers, foxtail lilies (Eremurus), burnet, pincushions (scabiosa) and amaranth carefully arranged to imitate an open flame.

Miss Thorpe said: “I built it in advance. I had a pot of flowers which I had to make sure were conditioned properly and the flower heads had to be perfect.

“The theme was colour so my piece was called Spectrum of Fire. The flowers were yellow, orange and red, the colours of fire.

“It was a willow structure to mimic flames on a charred chemical base to represent the damage fire can cause. I used local wood from a sawmill and I used a blow torch to create the effect.

“I was inspired by all the wildfires that happened last year. Fire can be beautiful but also destructive and I think we all need to play our part in protecting the planet.

“My mum loved it. She was my assistant and was helping me out by supplying diet coke and cake to keep me going.

“It was a bit stressful at the time but I am not a person to get nervous. I work on adrenaline.”

Miss Thorpe attended Sonning Common Primary School and Chiltern Edge School before training to be a florist at Berkshire College of Agriculture at Burchetts Green.

She said: “I’m dyslexic so I knew that an academic kind of job wouldn’t be for me.

“I studied floristry at BCA, where I did my level two and level three diploma and then I worked in a shop in Caversham.

“I entered the show for the first time in 2019 and was awarded a silver medal. Then I got the job at Wild at Heart.

“I like the fact that it is quite creative and every day I am putting together orders from customers and lots of different styles and colour palettes.”

She was sponsored by the shop to enter the competition.

Miss Thorpe said: “I competed last year as well and my piece was vastly different. It was quite delicate but this year it was quite big.

“I like to stand quietly next to it and listen to what people think. You hear lots of passing comments. They all seemed to like the concept and the colours.”

She said she would encourage young people to give floristry a go.

“If I can do it they can too,” she said. “A lot of people I know who have competed at Chelsea have a lot more experience so to have more younger people showing their talent and skill here would be amazing.

“The floristry industry needs younger people. If they don’t get involved, it could become one of those trades that eventually dies out.”