The Jeppe Girls’ Flower Show is held each year towards the end of February and attracts many visitors. An established tradition of the school, it is a visual and sensory feast that celebrated its 86th year in 2014.
Each girl in the school takes part in the flower show and is encouraged to unleash her creative and imaginative skills. Girls are encouraged to enter as many of the categories of the show as possible and there were over 1 700 arrangements and 455 individual blooms submitted this year.
The categories differ for the juniors (Grade 8 and 9) and seniors (Grades 10, 11 and 12). The junior categories included home grown blooms as well as “Legoland”, “Sunnyside Up,” “High and Low,” “Arrangement in a Tea Cup”, “Shades of Green”, “Petals and Lace” and “Magnificent Monsters” which are made out of fruit and vegetables. The categories for the senior girls ranged from “Shaking up Shakespeare”, “Local is Lekker” and ”Classic is Chic”, to “Celestial Splendour-Galileo”, “Great Heights”, “Clockwork Orange;”and “Come Dine with Me – Containers from the kitchen”. Props and accessories are permitted in individual arrangements, but the emphasis needs to be on flowers. House Table arrangements were also submitted by the girls. The theme for the junior house table arrangements was “Celebrating the life and times of Madiba” and that for the seniors was “Madiba magic”.
Each and every arrangement was judged and the girls were awarded points for their houses. Our judges are drawn from people who have been connected to the school and particularly to the flower show or people in the flower and garden business.
Girls are permitted to take their arrangements home at the end of the flower show, but many choose to donate their flowers. This year flowers were donated to St Giles, Arbor Village, Avalon, Edenvale Hospital, Kensington Clinic, Millennium Sentrum, the Anglican Children’s Home, St Georges Retirement Village, Bedford Gardens Hospital and the Linksfield Clinic. Fruit and vegetables used in the ”Magnificent Monsters” category was donated to Strathyre Girls Home.
A florist who attended the flower show for the first time was overwhelmed by the standard and number of entries and Miss Diane Heller, a former teacher at the school, said that this year’s show was as inspiring as ever.
