On Wednesday 5th February the bloomers were out in force to plant a spring display at The Wedge on Thetford Road.
The new display launches our 2025 theme ‘250 years anniversary since the birth of Jane Austen’.
It’s a Valentine’s wedding display featuring plants that would have been found in gardens of the Regency era; Wallflowers, Primula and Dianthus.
The display includes quotations about love from Jane’s novels, a handmade planter, that’s been plastered and features clay flowers to represent a wedding cake. A wedding table set for a feast and 20 heart shape wreaths covered in knitted & crocheted flowers made by Brandon Yarn Bombers.
You might find our theme intriguing, since the author has no connections to Brandon. However, the regency period was incredibly important to Brandon’s history, because it was the height of our gunflint industry.
For over a century Brandon was the capital of the gunflint industry. All the gun flints used in the British guns, which wrought havoc among Napoleon’s cavalry and infantry, were made solely in Brandon. A Brandon flint was reckoned to be good for 50 shots, far exceeding its rivals. At the height of war, in 1813, Brandon flintknappers were supplying over 1,000,000 musket flints each month. Edward Bliss made his fortune in the gun flint industry. He selected Brandon Country Park as his country seat, building Brandon Hall, the arboretum and the walled garden, and is responsible for the initial planting of over a million trees forming Thetford Forest. Shaping our environment today.
Jane Austen loved gardens. She took a keen interest in flower and kitchen gardens, evidenced in her letters to her sister Cassandra where she discussed the planting of fruit, flowers and trees with enthusiasm. During her life, she had the opportunity to visit many of the grander gardens of England. For nearly every house mentioned in her novels there is some sort of garden, her love of the landscape, family garden and life outside are evident in her novels. Although for Jane Austen’s characters the gardens are much more than a source of food or flowers, they are places of refuge and spiritual refreshment.
Something Brandon in Bloom are keen to promote is how gardening powerful and therapeutic distraction to everyday stresses that can significantly benefit your physical and mental well-being. Studies show gardening can reduce mental health problems including depression and anxiety as well as being great for your wellbeing. Community volunteering with groups like ours can help you make new friendships, share knowledge, and create a sense of belonging. The collective effort creates a strong sense of accomplishment and purpose.
Our displays throughout 2025 will be inspired by Regency style gardens and Jane’s novels.
