Painstaking process of a petal patchwork blanket

Award-winning artist Salma Zulfiqar worked with the National Trust on the project

An award-winning artist brought together a community to create a patchwork blanket using petals from two National Trust gardens.

Salma Zulfiqar invited school pupils and people from marginalised communities to create patches for the biodiversity blanket made from pressed and dried flowers from Packwood House and Baddesley Clinton on the border of Solihull and Warwickshire.

"We had almost 100 people working on this, so each piece you see if a reflection of their learning in the workshops that we did," she said.

Ms Zulfiqar worked with Packwood's head gardener over the last six months to gather, dry and press flowers for the project.

Local flowers from Packwood were used on the blanket

"We collected lots of flowers from the grounds which have medicinal value, and used them in the workshops to create the sections, which we call petals," she said.

"We wanted the blanket to reflect all of the beautiful flowers you can find at Packwood and help people learn about their value.

"I worked with young women from around the area and it gave them an enjoyable experience and help bring them together as a community."

A National Trust spokesperson said the flowers which were selected from the gardens were chosen because they are "useful as well as beautiful".

"Examples of this are pressed catkins from hazel plants - corylus avellena which produce edible hazelnuts and pressed hellebore flowers which are the source of compounds which are being researched as potential future medicines," they added.