Jersey - Day 3: Museum Visit

On our 3rd day on Jersey (Channel Islands) it was our day to look after Anita's mum and dad and they decided that they wanted to visit the Battle of Flowers Museum.

The museum was founded by Florence Bechelet (now 91 years young) a prolific exhibitor in the Wild Flower class for some 60 years. She only uses two grasses; Marram & Harestails, originally picked from the wild but now, for conservation reasons, she has to grow everything she needs.

After picking the thousands of grasses, each seed head is individually colour dyed before being glued onto a wire frame covered in material for each piece that makes up the whole display. In addition the wooden float base, which can measure up to 25 feet long has to covered. This has to be a labour of pure love and takes months to complete. It was incredible to see the detail achieved and that many of the exhibits are still dropping seeds from the grass heads. As you can appreciate rodent control is paramount to prevent damage but all the exhibits are also protected by chicken wire to stop visitors touching the flowers but this doesn't help when you want to take photos!

ArcticExplorer

A very colourful Totem Pole

'Caged' animals

Below a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II - impressive detail.

At the end of our tour Anita's mum and dad had another surprise as the museum owner, Florence Bechelet, who is secretly working on this years exhibit, came out to meet them for a chat.