Bee Garden Party 2023
Do as the bees do... Community. Teamwork. Partnership.
In the world of bees, you can never speak in singular form. Each of them makes an individual contribution, but the goal is for the common good. Such would be our approach to our marquee for this year's fundraising Bee Garden Party, hosted by Bees for Development.
Special events like this can take an immense amount of time and energy to pull together, crafting every element to perfection, ready for the big moment, but by their very nature events are so short-lived!
With the spirit of collaboration and a no-waste approach, we set about creating...
We envisaged our fabulous colourful beehives, taking pride of place in the marquee, stuffed to the brim, overflowing with wonderful pollinator-friendly planting, and bringing a little bit of super-nature to the day.
We found the perfect partners in the HUMBLE BEE GARDENERS;
Planting craftsmen with heart and vision, and a sustainable ethos, the Humble Bee Gardeners, Jenny & Frantisek (along with baby Ota) brought their magic to the day.
Keeping the majority of planting in their original pots so they could be re-used, cleverly layering and concealing them, overlaying them with sedums and wonderful herbs, pinned around recycled hessian coffee sacks, Jenny and Frantisek created truly joyful planting in and around the beehives and our up-cycled honey barrels.
The sight, and the smells were appreciated by everyone who came to enjoy our honey-tasting display, including Patron of the charity, Her Majesty the Queen who spotted her favourite plant, Alchemilla Mollis which she describes as “a must for every gardener”.
Upcycled. Recycled. No waste.
Freshly painted, our upcycled honey barrels were a huge success. We commissioned artist, friend and long-term collaborator with London Honey Co, Julie-Ann Pugh to adorn them with the same inspired hand painted flora as the colourful beehives she'd produced for us a few years previous.
The combination of them, with the planting, was quite spectacular and we were blown away by the wonderful feedback on the day.
A surface artist and designer, Julie-Anne specialises in outdoor spaces and gardening. In her own words "I aim to make the everyday unforgettable.”
From our Shropshire Bees to Uganda...
Bee Garden Party Honey
We chose our Shropshire Honey for the specially curated 'Bee Garden Party Honey' jar that we donated, helping towards the fundraising efforts on the day and ultimately helping to buy motorbikes in Uganda - a lifeline for the team there, allowing access to the most inaccessible homesteads deep in rural Uganda.
An unforgettable day, and an event with community spirit truly at its heart... the bees would approve!
