Day One: Arrival Cocktails And Welcome Dinner

Arrive in the afternoon and settle in to your room…. Meet your fellow guests- enjoy a cocktail or two- while we chat about all the lovely workshops we have planned for the next few days… And then relax and enjoy classic French dishes and wines at our Welcome Dinner

Day Two: Morning WORKSHOP -  Garden Blooms Hand Tied With Natural Dyed Silk Ribbons

Vicki and Lucy will chat to you about how to  colour silk ribbons in dye baths made from natural pigments.

Vicki from The Wildflower School will talk about her floral philosophy and demonstrate how she likes to create bouquets in an “undone” and painterly way. Then we will each create a beautiful hand tied bouquet with flora sourced from a local tiny flower farm.  Our creations will be evocative of the abundance of the season of Spring and the romance of the surrounding  French countryside. The bouquets will be particularly inspired by the earthy tones of the silk ribbons we earlier coloured in dye baths concocted with natural ingredients - and by the way blooms grow in a tangled secret garden- in organic clusters, naturally- “unarranged”-   wild and free!

Day Two: Afternoon ROAD TRIP:

In the afternoon we will head out on our first EXCURSION: we will explore some local BROCANTES- shops packed full of enticing French antiques and junk- our mission to find a beautiful treasure- a small vase each which we will fill with flowers in a workshop the next day…

Day Three:  GOURMET  ROAD TRIP

We will  spend the whole day exploring  the Dordogne Valley in the only vehicles that should be driven around French country lanes- a fleet of classic Citroen 2CVs!!

Our local hosts- winemaker Danu and Frenchman/foodie Michel- will take us to some of their favourite  local food and wine spots and we will lunch in a chateau restaurant.

The day will begin with a coffee and a slice of “Tourte de Meyral” prepared with natural sourdough in a boulangerie oven heated with century old wood. After either a “foie gras visit“ to a (kind!) goose farm or a “caviar visit” to a sturgeon farm , enjoy a wine tasting at an organic vineyard…  then a long lunch in a chateau. The afternoon will include a visit to a Walnut production site, a distillery of liqueurs and aperitifs in Sarlat or a place that makes artisanal Sarladaise biscuits

We will enjoy a long lunch and  lovely wines at  local chateau restaurant  Domaine de Monrecour…

Day Four: Visit To A Local Flower Farm

A few minutes away from Le Grelat is a beautiful small flower farm- LES FLEURS DE LA TERRE. In an idyllic setting in the verdant Dordogne valley you will find growing such a beautiful abundance of flowers: the most divine old-fashioned garden roses, queen anne’s lace, cornflowers, scabiosa, cosmos,  poppies, larkspur, yarrow, nigella, fox gloves, tulips…. all our favourites!

Day Four: Morning WORKSHOP - Garden Arrangement In Brocante Vase

On our return from Les Fleurs, Vicki and Lucy will demonstrate how to arrange flowers in a vessel: with the blooms we have just  picked, and inspired by the way flowers grow in nature, we will create “gathered from the garden” table centre arrangements in the antique vases, pots or jugs we have chosen at a local Brocante. These vases will later adorn our final feast…..

Day Four:  Afternoon WORKSHOP - Hand Made FLORAL Travel Journal

Vicki will share her Floral Travel Journal created after our 2023 Primavera workshop in Italy.

Using beautiful cotton watercolour paper and waxed thread we will each create a hand made journal bound with coptic stitch binding.

We will create a cover for our journals either from hand dyed silk- or with a watercolour painting and a background natural dye wash.

Lucy will talk about how to create your own watercolours from natural ingredients when you return home.

Vicki will share some tips on different techniques and layouts you can use after the workshop has finished  to later record all your own floral travel memories in your handmade travel journal…

We will look at some basic pen and watercolour wash techniques.  We will then practise capturing the beauty of a bouquet or  vessel arrangement- or painting a detailed botanical study of a single bloom- or a quick sketch of a local village or French countryside scene….

Day 5:  FLORAL OPULENCE WORKSHOP And FINAL FEAST

MORNING - PERFUME -INSPIRED FLORALS in large URNS

On the final day of  workshops we will all work as a group to design and create floral adornments for  our final feast.

First we will be enchanted and inspired by the words of perfume writer Danu Seith-Fyr as she introduces us to  sample scents from  three French niche perfumers….

We will then watch Lucy the Flower Hunter create a beautiful urn arrangement- she will take us through her  garden- inspired creative process and wow us with the her artistry and her ability to build an arrangement that looks like a small garden has grown naturally from the vessel.

Then, inspired by this urn arrangement and those evocative scents, we will create  large arrangements in antique French confit pots or urns- and they will be scattered around to adorn our final feast.

AFTERNOON: TABLESCAPE

Later in the day we will works as a group to decorate the FINAL FEAST TABLE- with swathes of our natural dyed silk and linen and our flower -filled brocante vases

Some floral installation inspiration from Lucy Hunter…. the urn arrangement she created - in the midst of a thunderstorm!- from blooms gathered at Puscina Flower Farm in Tuscany on our 2023 Primavera Workshop: garden roses including Rosa Mutabalis, Philadelphus (mock orange), cotinus (smokebush), phlox, hellebores and a little olive