MAKING beautiful floral arrangements with the theme “animal, vegetable and mineral” might seem like an impossible task.
But not for Alison Elford and Mark Pampling from Alstonville Florist.

They recently competed in the State Interflora Florist of the Future competition (florists under 25 years) and The Australia Florist of the Year (open division).
 

Alison won the Florist of the Future competition while Mark, who is a part owner of Alstonville Florist, won the Florist of the Year NSW qualifier competition.

The competitions were held at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney.

This year’s theme, “animal, vegetable and mineral”, was a bit of a challenge, according to Alison and Mark.
 

"The first thing we had to do was create a bridal bouquet using wiring techniques,” Mark said.

“For the animal part we could use leather, feathers or wool.

“The minerals were represented by metal washers, clay and wire, and the vegetable part was the flowers.”

Participants also had to create a hamper with flowers, gourmet food, fruit and wine.

This section was followed by a “surprise item” – florists had 10 minutes to look at the items and then an hour to create something – and then a sculpture section.

“The whole competition is pretty full-on,” Alison said.

“We started at 6.30am and didn’t finish until after 3pm.”

Both Alison and Mark will now represent NSW at the national competition at Perth in October.