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As part of our Christmas season, we are going behind the scenes with those who have helped ‘create’ Christmas at Harewood. Fiona Pickles from Firenza Flowers answers five questions here:

Where does your passion for flowers ‘stem’ from?
My love of gardening is where it all started. I adored working in my first garden, to the point of obsession! I transformed a small patch of a farmer’s field into a beautiful garden, with a wide variety of trees, shrubs and flowers. I became familiar with a huge variety of plants and flowers, their Latin names and most importantly their seasonality.

How and when did you begin your career in floral decoration/art?
I studied Print and had a good and enjoyable career in the printing industry, but I walked away from that in 2005 to retrain as a florist in London, then set the business up (named after my maternal grandmother Florence, known to all as Flo) I became a very successful wedding florist but gradually changed direction and focus, to utterly embrace my love of the landscape and seasons. I now enjoy creating large, striking designs and structures.

Where does your vision come from and how does it develop?
Everything I do is totally influenced by my surroundings and where I am working. I usually have a rough plan of the overall look and feel of what I am about to create, but the actual shape and style only comes as I work on each piece, they are totally dependent on the shape of each branch, flower, leaf and root that I use, meaning that every single thing I create is a one-off, never to be recreated or reproduced, no matter how hard anyone tries!

What skills are needed to create your designs?
I do have an ability to know what shapes are needed where, to elevate a design from something predictable and ‘samey’ to something totally striking, unexpected and dramatic. I also seem to be considering more engineering type issues as well as the obvious floristry considerations; weight, balance, attachments and fixings, which i actually relish. Fixings and stability are huge considerations, I am rather obsessed with hardware shops bizarrely! I try to work without floral foam too, so the main consideration in any design is ensuring everything that needs it has a water source. This is not always straightforward and I offer workshops and classes to other florists keen to understand this way of thinking.

How have you adapted to this changing world of online?
Having established a business pre-social media, I can recognise and appreciate the value of social media – believe me, it is so much easier, more pleasant, less times consuming and more focused to post an image on instagram with good photography and considered hashtags than driving a three hour round trip to attend a networking meeting, during which I might meet one person who may want flowers at some point in their life! I utterly embrace the effectiveness of social media and have met many fabulous people from around the world through it. If you have a business and want to find your ‘tribe’, you HAVE to make time for social media.

Firenza Flowers has created two large-scale wreath installations in the Terrace Gardens of Harewood. Visitors can see these as part of the Christmas experience.

Fiona is hosting a full day Stately Botanicals workshop, which includes a private, tailormade tour of the festively dressed House, making a bespoke wreath and a Festive Afternoon Tea.

We talk about the wonderful work of our volunteers, but this doesn’t even relate to the additional support that we get from the local community and businesses around us.

We have been working with HSBC Customer Services and this year a team of nine came in to spend their volunteering day at Harewood.

As the House undergoes its transformation for Christmas, it’s all hands to the deck. The team split into two, with half spending time icing some of the gingerbread people who will form a display of 500+ in the Below Stairs kitchen, and the other half taking to the ground in the Walled Garden and turning over the soil for the next stage of planting.

Sarah Kirk, volunteer coordinator, said “We were delighted to get the additional support from the HSBC volunteers, they have definitely provided a boost to our Christmas activity. There is always such a positive input from volunteers and hopefully they got something back in return, it was highly amusing to see Artistic Director Simon Costin judging their creative icing on the day.”

Carol Harper, from HSBC Customer Service, said, “We work as a team in an office, and it’s great that the Bank provides us with the opportunity to spend the day working as a team for the benefit of the community.

“It’s something the Bank has been passionate about for some years now. We go out to a charity and spend the day doing something that’s quite often outside of our own comfort zone, but will be a great help to them. Either in doing a job that might have been on a back burner, or something that’s going to be time consuming for one or two volunteers to complete. We go back to the office with a feeling of accomplishment.”

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Christmas means so many different things to different people. In part of a series of Behind the Scenes blogs, we asked the staff at the Harewood House Trust to tell us about their Christmas.

Christine Wardle is Head of Development, looking after Harewood Members and working with donors and corporate sponsorship amongst other things…

1. What is your earliest Christmas memory?
My earliest Christmas memory is of the smell of holly, wreaths and Christmas decorations, when I lived in a flower shop. We always have a real tree and real holly and mistletoe decorations. Always have a poinsettia. None of your plastic rubbish!

2. Do you have any specific Christmas traditions?
We have lots of birthdays around Christmas, on 21st, 25th and 26th December, so that’s a big influence on what we do. I love the Christmas shop in Salzburg and we have a selection of decorative eggs from there.

3. Which period from history would you have liked to celebrate Christmas in?
Not so much a period – more a place. Austria or Switzerland where it actually looks like Christmas is supposed to, but with none of the commercialisation.

4. What’s the piece of music that gets you in the festive mood?
Ooh lots of pieces of music. Sleigh Ride comes to mind. All the school bands play it.

5. What’s the nicest gift that someone has offered you / you have given?
Nicest gift? Poinsettia. Can’t start Christmas without one.#

Booking recommended for Christmas at Harewood on www.harewood.org 

Seeds of Hope at Harewood this summer, reminded us that, whether you were home or fighting overseas, everyone was affected by the First World War. Our hope was to tell the story of those who stayed at home, contributing to the war effort by growing food and cultivating the land. The sense of community and mutual support came across strongly through the letters, diaries and stories we unearthed from that time.

There were moments of hope, as the soldiers recovered in the convalescence hospital sited in Harewood House, the opportunity women had to develop new skills as Women’s Land Army in the Walled Garden, and the Naval Award recognising Harewood’s gardeners’ contribution to the war effort. To reinforce this sense of hope and renewal, we purposefully chose to plant 1,269 sunflowers, representing all of those recovering at Harewood. Sunflowers even in decay, promise new life, as the seeds emerge when the flower dies, and can then be replanted.

We worked with an incredibly talented team; Lord Whitney, who treated the subject with such sensitivity and wonderful storytelling, that you could truly imagine the Bothy Boy’s daily toil, or Mr Leathley, the Head Gardener’s reluctant acceptance that his roses must give way to a productive garden.

Human resilience and the power to renew ourselves, even in the darkest of times, is what keeps us all going. I like to think that Harewood today can still add to this sense of peace and rejuvenation. We may only be 7 miles from Leeds city centre, but when you are here, it can feel as though you’ve completely escaped from the stresses of everyday life. Next time you visit, take a moment to gaze across the lake, watch the Red Kites swoop over the walled garden and walk through the trees of a landscape created by Capability Brown over two centuries ago.

We hope our contribution to the commemorations of the end of the First World War and the community spirit here, was a just, sobering, but also uplifting moment of reflection and insight for every generation of visitor. It seems fitting to end with part of Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Futility’, which my 10-year old has been reading at school this week;

‘Move him into the sun –
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.’

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Children can discover a history Below Stairs at Harewood

Harewood House is delighted once again to become the recipient of the prestigious Heritage Education Trust’s Sandford Award, in recognition of the achievement of the Trust’s Learning programme.

An independently judged, quality assured assessment of education programmes at heritage sites, The Sandford Award assesses museums, archives and collections across the British Isles, with accreditation lasting for five years. This is the seventh time since 1979 that Harewood has been awarded the accolade.

An educational charitable Trust, Harewood offers a rich and diverse range of learning opportunities with indoor and outdoor sessions for all ages, from early years to school trips and Higher Education seminars. All three of the Trust’s Collections are integrated into the sessions, inclusive of the historic house, the natural landscape and the bird garden.

David Lascelles, Earl of Harewood, says; “This is very good news indeed. My congratulations and warm regards go to everyone who has contributed. Education is such an important part of what we do and to have sustained the standards necessary to receive the Sandford Award over such a long period, is a great tribute to the work done here.”

Harewood is one of over 500 institutions taking part in the annual awards, which focus mainly on formal, curriculum-linked education opportunities offered to schools, and provides a kite-mark for high quality education provision.

Jane Marriott, Harewood House Trust Director, says “I am delighted that Harewood has once again been recognised for this award, the seventh time in the history of its education programme, which dates to the 1970s.

“The education of our future generations is of paramount importance to us and the opportunity to explore art, culture, history, heritage and landscape that we have at Harewood, is central to our role as a charity. We are enriched by the generations of architects, artists, designers, collectors, gardeners, and individuals who have lived and worked here over hundreds of years, and most importantly, we highlight our commitment to maintaining the relevance of Harewood and the work of the Trust, both now and in the future.”

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