‘I always try to work intuitively,' says Cristina Colli, who created this flat lay of roses
One of the mixed blessings of gardening is the fleeting nature of so many flowers – we spend months dreaming, sowing, nurturing them and then their starring moment lasts just a few weeks or even days. But the Instagram flat lay – a collection of materials artfully arranged before being photographed from above – is helping to provide beautiful records of those transient moments.
It’s a 21st-century answer to the genteel arts of Edwardian ladies pressing flowers, or capturing them in watercolours, and is itself a well established format. Readers of RHS magazine The Garden will be familiar with the work of photographer Derek St Romaine and others going back decades. But it is Instagram that has breathed new life and relevance into the flat lay.