We had a much needed weekend away from the garden this week which of course meant coming back to lots of weeds and jobs to do this week.
Biennial seed sowing will begin in earnest now I’m back in the garden and here to keep up with watering them. Foxgloves, white hespiris, hollyhocks, sweet william and canterbury bells are among some of the seeds which I will sow this week. In the hot weather seed trays dry out very quickly and I find that I’m often watering things in the greenhouse twice a day. Strawberry’s are now being picked daily- home grown strawberry’s are just unbeatable, so sweet and juicy and such an easy fruit to grow. I do grow some in strawberry planters but I find the ones in the ground, which are just left to their own devices do so much better!
Simon has been busy making a new range of glassware for us to use for wedding and event work. Bud vases in a deep, lustrous cobalt blue which look very special with the rich red roses and strawberry’s just ripening spilling out from them, a celebration of the fruits of summer. I love creating a bud vase because you can use all those special little bits that you wouldn’t otherwise pick- one of this and one of that to make something extra lovely. Roses mixed with mint, coriander, thyme and lavender for heavenly scent, paired with pretty Canterbury bells, small apricot foxgloves, sweet peas in bright reds and frothy nigella and bits of grasses to add movement and whimsy.
The garden roses are still spewing out their blooms, the scent filling the garden, my favourite one in the garden at the moment is called rock and roll, a large headed and sturdy rose- not overly productive as a cut flower but to its advantage just one or two of its blooms will transform a design; its smell is sweet, almost sugary and has red, white and pink striped petals reminding me of the big swirled lolly pops you get from the funfair.
Also this week, to coincide with the summer solstice we have begun back on our dried florals. I paired the daffodils which we picked and dried in the spring with the zingy alchemilla mollis and buttercups and added hint of blue from the forget me nots and grasses to soften the look. I love making my dried florals and the way they change through the season as different ingredients come and go.
I wish you a lovely week ahead.
Blessings from this patch to yours, until next time, Rebecca
It’s been a wonderful week in the garden with so much to pick and finally this evening a torrential downpour of rain just what everything has been waiting for. The days have been really warm which has meant a few very early starts, we always pick really early, just as it gets light which at this time of year is about 4.30, this is because flowers are at their most sturdy after a good nights rest and after the morning dew has rehydrated them, as the day gets warmer they dehydrate and won’t last well if picked. We pick them straight into big buckets of water and take them straight into a cool dark place to condition over night. During this process the stems fill with water and they become nice and strong for working with.
We picked for a beautiful marquee wedding this week, set in the Shropshire country side. The bride wanted a soft colour palette of whites and creams, the palest pinks and peaches with a little orange and just a touch of blue.
All our planning for this special wedding payed off as everything came into flower just in time we picked apricot and white foxgloves, lovely romantic creamy roses- one of my favourite David Austin ones called Desdemona, pink and white lupins, white and blue Nigella (love in a mist), soft orange calendula, pineapple mint- a lovely variegated cream and soft green variety with so much scent, the last of the blue and white forget me nots which for their age looked all the more whimsical, being nice and tall and seedy, heavenly scented white lilac blooms and pink honey suckle, orange geums, white peonies, bunny tail grasses, the sweet little pin cushion flowers of the Astrantia- great for boutonnières, the most pretty pale blue delphiniums, and the first of the sweet peas just for their scent. The bride dressed huge hoops suspended in the marque with Lots of draping foliage picked during the week from her family’s woodlands and the whole scene had a real sense of personality and magic.
With the ever increasing price of weddings. DIY wedding flowers or partial DIY flowers are a great choice if you are looking to save some money but certainly not for the easily overwhelmed. My lovely bride Olivia was super organised and had the help of a small group of friends with her flowers the day before her wedding, which made it a really special experience for her. I was also on hand to make sure she had everything she needed and make her bridal bouquet. Her bridesmaid even made her own bouquet which I thought was such a lovely touch!
I hope you enjoy seeing the few snaps I look below and I wish you a wonderful week ahead.
Blessings from this patch to yours, until next time, Rebecca.
LupinsDesdemona rose.Diy wedding buckets.Nigella and pink lupinsRoses and pineapple mintCalendula The brides bouquet coming together. And the bride having fun with her flowers in the background.
We have past one whole month of no rain here on the hill and down on the field and we are desperate for a drop now. But with none forecast for another week I am continuing to water seedlings which went into the ground last week, to give them a strong chance of making it through this dry spell.
As I mentioned in last weeks post, my two water butts down on the field have run dry, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that using the no dig method has proven a success in holding water deep in the soil, with the layer of cardboard and thick layer of mulch the soil beneath it is still damp, despite the beating sun and lack of rain. This is brilliant for the shrubs which have been planted through the cardboard layer, however seedlings planted into the mulch on top of the cardboard have needed some extra watering as the mulch on top of the cardboard really does dry out! It’s been an interesting learning curve so far.
In the garden the first few roses are being picked and dried as they open, to make up a big basket of confetti for a wedding next weekend. The gorgeous Blue for you rose and my favourite softest blush one; Desdemona, are being combined to make the most delicious looking and smelling blend. I pick the flowers when they are looking absolutely perfect and fully open and pop them on a sheet of paper in the greenhouse, in this hot weather they dry in less than 2 days, quickly making room for the next batch! What a joy!
Batches of confetti being dried in the green house.
There is certainly lots to be picking; foxgloves, peonies, white campion, the last of the sweet rocket, Alchemilla Mollis, lupins, sweet Williams and the first of the sweet peas. Did you see the strawberry moon? Maybe it coincides with the first pickings of the strawberry’s where you live but for us here of the hill, I think we have another couple of weeks to eagerly wait for those.
I wish you a wonderful week ahead, Don’t forget to stop and smell the roses!
With blessings from this patch to yours, until next time, Rebecca.
Peony Bartzella.Looking onto the rose patch.Loving the combination of the apricot foxgloves and organise geum.Lupins and iris. I think the foxgloves are my favourite.
Another glorious week of sunshine has meant lots of busy watering. The garden is filling out nicely. The roses are now giving their first precious blooms, the first foxgloves in apricot and white are beginning to open and the lupins are at their best; spikes in royal purple, bright pink and a more delicate pink which is my favourite aswell. The irises too have opened up they love all warm weather as their rhizomes like to be baked in the sunshine. My Strawberry’s are dropping their petals and tiny fruits are forming, whilst the first of the annuals- the bunny tail grasses are now in flower; their little fluffy tails lining the path on the mound. The poppies are just beginning to get into their stride- I’m hopeful there may be some left to pick for a wedding in just over a week. The laburnum is providing a joyous backdrop to it all this week.
There’s been tons to be planting out. Filling in any tiny gap I can find with annuals that I’ve nurtured from seeds. I always think I won’t have enough- then always struggle to find a space for them. So I am taking two big trays down to the field with me tomorrow to see what will work best down there. I only have two water butts down on the field and both are now empty, so I’ve been holding off planting any more seedlings until we had rain, however with none forecast for the next 10 days I’ve loaded my car up with a couple of large containers and I’m hoping that that will be enough to see them off to a good start.
So the greenhouse is now empty (apart from a few tomatoes and peppers I’m growing in there over summer.) which means I’m all set for sowing biennials in a couple of weeks.
And thanks to it being another bank holiday weekend we’ve had chance to catch up on tidying up jobs; sorting out weedy areas and dumping corners and edging all the beds. Simons been clipping the hedges and it’s looking lovely and tidy.
Anyway, I wish you a lovely week ahead!
Blessings from this patch to yours, until next time, Rebecca
As we enter the late part of May everything is picking up pace in the garden. The days are finally warm enough to be out until the evening in a T-shirt and seedlings are being kicked out of the greenhouse as fast as I can find room for them in the beds. I need the sheltered greenhouse space very soon for the all important sowing of biennials which will begin to be sown in late June; foxgloves, sweet rocket, sweet William are just a few of the seeds which will be sown in preparation for next years harvest. Last years biennial seed sowings are nearing their moment to flower now and I wait in eager anticipation, desperate for the bounty they will provide. The foxgloves in white and apricot bulking up nicely, already spoken for, for a wedding in just a few weeks time.
The birds are singing a cacophony of tunes and as I write this the cuckoo is calling in the distance. My few precious peony plants are now covered in fat buds, it won’t be too much longer to wait for them. The white lilac tree gracefully nods in the warm breeze, gently calling me to come and smell its flowers, the scent it so delicate. Happy little geums are providing me with plenty of stems to cut, the candy like lupins are growing strong and tall; every year they are a stalwart for cutting here in our garden. Clematis Montana takes over from the blackthorn blossom to provide a most enchanting backdrop to the garden in these final days of May; it reaches high up into the holly tree, very soon it will pass the baton onto the laburnum whose mass of cascading bright yellow blooms are just ripening up now. The very charming Aquilegia (granny’s bonnets) are looking at their best this week, also brilliant in bouquets to dance above larger blooms; they are so lovely and come in so many varieties.
It’s good to be outside and getting jobs ticked off the growing list. There’s been lots of weeding and staking this weekend. Staking, for the biggest of the flowers to come, like the statuesque delphiniums (fittingly named pacific giants!) the dahlias, which are only just sprouting up, (feeling accomplished to get them staked before they need it for the first year ever!) the Lilly’s and the sunflowers.
Anyway that’s all for this week, blessings from this patch to yours, until next time, Rebecca.
It’s been a steady plod this week, through wind and rain. Its easy to feel like you’re not making much headway sometimes, especially when you’re just doing an hour here and there whenever you can squeeze it in. But in fact it’s when you just keep slowly chipping away, that things start to come together. 65 bags of compost, manure and wood chip (almost- just a few more to go) have been carried by hand a bag at a time into the field. And I’ve begun spreading it nice and thickly onto the cardboard layers covering one half of the patch.
We managed to salvage and reuse some old chicken wire fencing and now the first 10 metre by 6 metre section of the field is rabbit proof.
I need to collect more cardboard this week to cover the second half of the patch and get that finished and then hopefully by the beginning of April I can start getting it filled with plants.
First half of the patch card-boarded and composted.
The patch will consist of 4 beds 1.5 metre by 3.75 metre and 2 beds 1 metre by 3.75 metre. With 75 cm paths of wood chip all round and a wider 1 metre path down the centre so I can get a wheel barrow through.
Bed 1 will contain annuals for drying
Bed 2 a row of sweet peas and annuals for using fresh.
Bed 3 will be mainly for dahlias and sunflowers
Bed 4 is a mix of perennials.
The two narrower beds will have roses, hydrangeas and pittosporums underplanted with geraniums and primula candelabra.
In between the busy week I had the most beautiful delivery of flowers from B J Richard’s in sunny Cornwall and made up a few very special Mother’s Day bouquets- full of parrot tulips, sweet Williams, little white narcissi and hellebores. My own daffodils won’t be long now!
Have a lovely week and keep chipping away towards your goals!
As I jot down this blog entry it’s evening on Thursday 9th March, this morning we woke up to a garden full of snow, enough to keep us home, at least for the morning until the rain came in and began to turn it all into sludge on the roads and we could carry on with our busy routines.
Snow day 1. 2023
By the evening, a new book I’d ordered only last night had arrived (thanks amazon) and as the rain poured outside I jumped right into the story of another florist, flower grower and gatherer, living in the here and now, working with the seasons and creating joy with all that nature has to offer- in the moment. Beautiful, simple, childlike joy. So, I recommend this book – Flower Philosophy by Anna Potter of Swallows and Damsons.
You may remember from last weeks post that just four days ago my baby sweet peas got planted out into the beds in the garden now they are sleeping under a blanket of snow with temperatures forecast to reach as low and minus 7 tomorrow night, I’ll be sure to let you know how they hold up, or not as the case may be…..
The sweet peas in the snow. Thursday 9th March 2023
Friday 10th March, more snow had arrived overnight. I always get excited to see snow when I open the curtains in the morning, I don’t know why, but I never expect it, even if it has been forecast and the excitement I feel now, is still the same as when I was little. I rush to get ready and run out, to just be in it. So I rushed out this morning to make the first footprints in the garden and then the first foot prints down the lane and then after another cuppa, the first foot prints into the woods. Some people love being in the woods, they find comfort, almost cosiness in the woods, in the same way some people find comfort on the coast. I prefer being in open spaces and on the hills, I don’t love being in woods, I find them eerie, but in the snow, for some reason, the woods are where I love to be.
Snow day 2. Woodland wandering. Friday 10th March.
Back in the garden, the branches of the pine trees were so heavy, completely encapsulated in ice. As the sun came out by mid morning icy casings of tree branches began falling to the ground like glass. By dusk the sweet peas were still under the blanket of snow, maybe it will protect them from the now updated forecast of minus 9 overnight low for tonight? I’ve covered the seedlings in the greenhouse over with fleece just to be on the safe side. Germination is really slow this year, I don’t think it’s been quite warm enough to get everything going. I’m learning that it really wouldn’t hurt to wait a little longer.
Pine trees encased in icy snow.
Saturday 11th March, still snow on the ground, the sweet peas are still hidden under it. The yew hedging for the boarders that Simon had prepped last week arrived on Thursday and we couldn’t wait any longer to get them in the ground. So we ventured out today and in the sleet and snow we got them in. Hooray!
Snow day 3. Yew hedging in. The neighbours must think we are crazy!
Im eager to get going on the field but I’m still waiting for compost to be delivered for the new no dig beds, so there is no update on that at the moment, probably next week.So while things are a little quiet because of the weather I thought it would be a good idea to give my thoughts on sustainability in floristry- particularly about floral foam as I have been asked quite a few times – did you use flower foam to make that? And the answer is no and so I feel the need to share my thoughts…
I really strongly believe that the flowers we consume, that we gift to our loved ones and that we use to mark milestones in our lives shouldn’t contribute to the harm of the planet and needn’t. I see despair in a bunch of roses in March filling the entrances of our supermarkets, roses, which have travelled halfway across the planet, that are sprayed in pesticides and treated with silver nitrate to preserve them for their very long journey. If you’ve stuck your nose into them whilst you stood in the queue to pay you know there is no scent in them, there is no movement to their stems, and then theres the plastic wrapping, does the buyer even really see their beauty I wonder?
If you are a florist or flower grower and on social media, I’m sure you’ll resonate with me on this one- we don’t need to see another post on why we shouldn’t be using single use plastic especially floral foam, right!? And it’s true, I think the industry is preaching to itself and I also wonder is the message getting out to the customer?.. So, if your a florist or flower grower that loves working with what the seasons offer and like me, you despair at the sight of roses jabbed into a block of floral foam or wrapped in swathes of plastic in March, you really don’t need to read this post! But if you are wondering how I arrange my flowers and why I don’t use single use plastic for them (including floral foam) then this post is for you.
Thankfully, there is a huge shift in the floral industry that has been happening in Britain over the last decade, in both floral design and in flower farming. Networks such as flowers from the farm have led the way- championing, locally grown, seasonal flowers all over the country, connecting local growers with each other and their customers and sharing ideas on how to make the floral industry more sustainable and seasonal. Social media has certainly also helped, because of social media the amateur and professional can share design ideas and practical methods, information is freely available and generously shared. I don’t have any formal floristry training or horticulture qualifications, yet I, and many like me feel equipped to grow flowers for cutting and arranging in a sustainable way. The sustainable way of working with flowers is simple. In fact, I wonder if this lack of training helps the ‘florist’ feel freer in their work, where the trained florist who learnt their methods using floral foam may now find it more of a challenge to design without it? Unfortunately floral foam methods are still taught in colleges today. I believe that floristry should be available to anyone who wants to have a go, it can, of course be elaborate, and if you desire it should be – flowers are for beauty and your pleasure after all, but it should also be quite possible, for a stroll with some snips around your garden to result in the most enchanting of floral arrangements fitting for any life event!
I also think it’s really important to acknowledge at this point that so much emphasis (especially in the case of plastic floral foam) is put on what happens at the end life of a product, it’s also important to consider what are the methods that go into producing the product not just what happens to it after it’s been used. It could be that the production of floral foam for instance is less resource draining than say a reusable plastic vessel? Food for thought…
It’s also worth reminding ourselves that sustainability isn’t the only consideration in any business it’s just one small part. It’s the florists job to create something beautiful for their client and something that realises their clients vision not just their own- of course they can, and should explain why they would prefer not to use plastic foam in their work if that is their intention. However there might be an instance when the thing the client would like cannot be achieved in any other way than to use foam and even after having a discussion with the client they still want to go ahead with that particular design! So that being said, for the florist who relies on the job to pay the bills and put food on the table, it would certainly be wrong to shame them for their use of floral foam in that instance- this is sadly the kind of mantra currently on social media.
For me right now at this early stage in my business I’m in a privileged position where I don’t rely on the income from my flowers to pay my bills so I can strictly say I don’t use floral foam in any of my work, this may mean turning down some jobs in the future but for other florists this may be more tricky.
So with all that said, I want to share with you how I made this arrangement that is on my homepage; the church arch. I used flowers grown in my garden such as delphinium, corn flowers, roses and ammi. And foliage such as Himalayan nutmeg, ivy and jasmine. It was my first attempt at a large installation and so there is of course much to improve upon but I just wanted to have a little record to show it is completely possible to do without the use of single use plastics or floral foam. Of course this is just one small way of using less plastic in our designs but I think worth sharing because I don’t think anything is compromised in the overall finished result by not using foam. The whole structure can be used many many times and adapted if needed for many events. I hope you find something useful from it.
Wedding arch with foam free mechanics.
Here’s how I made it:
First I chose a branch, it needs to be pretty chunky, straight at the bottom with a nice arching shape at the top. My branch was hazel but you could use what ever you have an abundance of. I then set my branch in an old flower pot using cement.
Next I wrapped my branch in a couple of layers of chicken wire using string and cable ties, to secure it.
Next I nestled plastic grave vases into the chicken wire, these hold water for the flowers in the design that wouldn’t cope well being out of water. By using these vases in the design, it would also be possible to make the flowers that go in them as little hand tied bouquets, which guests could take home and enjoy after the event.
Then I packed moss into the chicken wire to begin to cover it over. The moss can be watered when in situ to help keep any greenery fresh.
chicken wire, moss and grave vases added. Also see how the whole thing goes into a water bucket and then the decorative basket.
Once in situ, the whole structure was put into a larger bucket of water into which flowers and greenery can be added to give the effect that the piece is growing up from the basket. The bucket of water was then put into a basket to make it pretty. You will then need to secure the structure to some thing stable or tie it down somehow-for this particular job I was able to use some sturdy wire to attach it to the wall from some hooks which were already in place.
Now the mechanics are in place you can start adding your greenery, it’s a good idea to have a helping had at this point. Someone prepping the foliage and passing it to you so you don’t have to keep hopping up and down from the hop up.
Once you’re happy that there is a good base of green and most of the mechanics are covered you can begin to add your flowers. And then finally add any smaller buckets of flowers around the main installation and soften any edges with moss to finish. Ta da!
Building up the greenery Focal flowers going in.The finished result.
If you are interested in finding out more about foam free mechanics in floral design, there are a few great books I can recommend:
The flower hunter by Lucy hunter
Flower philosophy as mentioned above, by Anna Potter
A guide to floral mechanics by Sarah Diligent
Floral evolution by Catherine Foxwell
On Instagram you could also follow @sustainablechurchflowers for foam free ideas and @greenwashtheflowers to learn more about sustainable floristry.
On podcasts Vic and Jess of The flower girl podcast, do a brilliant interview with Stephanie Gillespie of Smithers Oasis (episode 61) all about the ins and outs of floral foam and their newer more environmentally conscious alternatives.
And on YouTube and Instagram Georgie Newbury of Common Farm flowers provides all round advice on working in step with what nature has to offer and creates the most beautiful, honest floristry straight from her garden.
Thank you for checking in this week, it’s been a bit of a long rambling one in the end but please do leave your comments, I’d love to chat with you and learn what you want me to be posting about in my little corner of the web!
