This Week
Everything softens
As Henry rattled off with his trolley for collecting leaves this morning, taking the dog out, the sun was rising behind the apple trees and beginning to spread a warm orange glow across the far fields, but the air was still very cold and it felt like autumn; it didn't take us long to fill the little trolley with fallen golden brown oak leaves and little bits of twig. Now the sun is...
fresh wild colourful wedding flowers
For Rhia and David's marriage at Bromfield Church at the weekend we picked all our freshest, juiciest-coloured flowers in the garden: a rainbow of pinks, corals, shades of orange, palest lemon, cream, white, some bright greens and a sprinkling of mauvy blue. The wedding party bought buckets of our garden flowers with which to decorate the marquee, and asked us to decorate the church with...
foamy flowers
For a wedding in Wales this week we created foamy, frothy flowers in soft shades of pink and cream, with generous foliages in the form of fronds and tendrils. Fluffy white-and-pink hydrangeas, globular old-fashioned roses, sparkly panicum grass and creamy phlox creme brulee all featured strongly. It was sheer girlish pleasure to create! For a smaller wedding at the magical...
flower crown
We are always learning things about ourselves. I used to think that I didn't like making flower crowns, but it turns out that I just don't like not being able to make nice ones - I don't like to do something I'm not good at! If brides ask for flower crowns, however, of course we have to make them, so I have had some practice over the last few years and, guess what, now I find...
sunflowers
Along with zinnias and the brightly coloured dahlias, another flower which seems to be positively thriving in this heat is the sunflower. This year we have grown two varieties: Valentine, a shortish, stocky lemon-yellow variety, and Autumn Beauty, a mix with each plant producing individual softly blended flowers in shades from warm cream to chocolate brown. Both varieities are...
big deliveries
The backbone of our business has become flower deliveries, in water, to other discerning florists. This suits us perfectly because not only do we now spend proportionally more time in the garden, which we love, but we also like to think of our carefully grown and much cherished flowers going out into the world to give delight in many different settings. The florist we supply every week in...
pervading romance
The continued heat and drought slowly stifles the garden with an air of languorous, heavy-lidded romance. Too hot to work in the middle of the day, Barney begins his flower picking at five or six in the morning, and I go there in the evening to pick again. Some of the plants seem to be unaffected by the lack of rain. One variety, thankfully, is the hydrangea paniculata ...
sun bleached prettiness
These weeks of endless sunshine have had the interesting effect of bleaching the flowers of some of our longer flowering varieties, such as yarrow and larkspur. The peach variety of yarrow, which usually fades with time to a soft apricot, has this year turned a very pale parchment colour, almost cream. As cream is perhaps the most asked for colour amongst our customers, we are...
sweet peas
It was difficult to choose what to write about this week. Looking through our photos, there are so many lovely things to share, but by their nature the flowers are fleeting, and what we can pick in all its prime of perfection this week may well be going over by the time I next come to write, and something else be growing up to take its place. I've made three bouquets that I am...
gently colourful with a fairground feel
For the last two weeks the delphinium bed has been working very hard, throwing up huge spires of blue and white flowers. There are two shades of blue in there: a pale translucent one (maybe "Summer Skies"?) and another much darker variety. Summer skies is a lovely easy colour to mix with other pastel shades and we've found it easy to use. The dark one, however, seems to clash...