Do you want to learn how to make wedding flowers? Would you like professional-looking flowers without the huge price tag?
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The join us for our DIY Wedding Workshops on Friday 11th September.
💐Part 1: Bouquets & Buttonholes
🌸 9:30 - 12:30
£100 pp
~ We teach how to make a hand-tied bouquet, which is the basis to make all the wedding party bouquets. After a coffee break & yummy refreshments we teach taping and wiring, used to create buttonholes, corsages & floral crowns.
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💐Part 2: Reception flowers
🌼 13:30-16:30
£100 pp
~ We’ll begin by focusing on table decorations, from simple decs to bud vases & tablescapes.
After our afternoon break we’ll focus on your own specific arrangements offering a Q&A & demo; this could be pedestals, floral hoops or garlands.
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**If you book both workshops you receive 10% off..just email us first for a discount code **
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Any questions, drop them below ⬇️
Booking via our website, link in bio.
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#diyweddingflowers #howtomakeweddingflowers #diyfloristry #weddingflowerscourses #diybrides ...

What a complete eye-opener it was, going to visit Birch Farm / @joshua_sparkes in North Devon. I’ve been dying to visit for some time, having heard great things about the place — and its approach to growing — for sometime. Our friend @thehappyhermit had worked there for a few months during her horticultural travels and the head gardener is the lovely Josh Sparkes who said hermit had worked with at Sissinghurst.
To say it’s a far cry from Sissinghurst is an understatement — it’s a whole different approach to growing, and growing food in particular.

There’s too much to summarise here — you really should book on a tour (and lunch at The Farmer’s Arms part of the @collectiveatwoolsery — but the overriding theme is a ‘food forest’ where fruits, nuts and herbs are grown together in a multilayered ecosystem that’s super wildlife friendly too. In principle there are seven layers of vegetation: canopy, understory, shrub, herbaceous, ground-cover, root & vine layers. It involves minimal intervention — and shade, particularly in our changing climate, is key.
Our ‘take home’? Don’t be ashamed of your weeds, experiment with inter-planting and learn to love shade.
I’m definitely going to be reading up on this incredibly interesting subject — and our garden at home is going to be transformed!
Thank you Josh, Jay and the team. We felt welcome (as did the Blooming Dog II) ...

It was a lovely semi-surprise to appear in yesterday’s Times Weekend alongside some amazing fellow pick-your-own businesses — mostly fruit — but also flowers including @whitegooseflowerfarm, @theflowerbelt , @writtle_sunflowers , @peterleymanorfarm and @rhossili_sunflowers . The resurgence of local flower growers & florists continues.

It was a fantastic little review — the only slight error being the suggestion that we grow ‘wildflowers’. They are obviously missing their in-house countryside advisor (my self-prescribed job title when I worked there). We always try to explain, politely, that all of our flowers are cultivated by us, for cutting. They may appear wild & rustic — a bit like my hair this morning — but they are not wild. Many are native, and also appear in the wild, but they’ve been seeded by us.

Many years ago, Bek and I went to a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) in Sevenoaks Weald, with permission, and gathered a Kangoo van’s worth of green hay, which we then brought back to Blooming Green and spread liberally along the grassy margins of our flower plot. It took many years to get established but we now have some fantastic strips of wild flowers — which visitors can pick if they feel so inclined!

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone, and if you do get a chance to look at yesterday’s @thetimes , the PYO article is worth a gander. There are some great places around the country you can visit this summer, especially if you’re looking for a relaxing activity to do with your kids ...