Mothers Day Flowers

Mothers Day is one of our busiest weeks, it is very hard work but also extremely rewarding.  It is so nice going out delivering bouquets of flowers, to all those well deserved mums. The looks of surprise and wonderful smiles we receive when we knock on the door are priceless. Being a florist is certainly a career that creates happiness.

£38 bouquet created in a kilner jar.

Mothering Sunday falls a bit early in our growing season, its 15th March this year. We do have our home-grown foliage, some cheery daffodils and  anemones, but the rest of our flowers are purchased from other British flower growers in the south.

               British Narcissus

Our bouquets for Mothers Day are truly British, along with our flowers, we use British printed and designed cards, as well as British made kilner jars to display the flowers in.

We hand deliver each bouquet to our local area, we are taking orders up to Thursday evening this week, and delivering on Saturday, and Sunday morning. If you would like to order a bouquet for delivery in West Lancashire please take a look at our website www.theflowerfarmflorist.co.uk If you are looking for British Flowers in other areas, take a look at the Flowers From The Farm Website a great resource for finding your local flower grower.

Happy Mothers Day, to all those wonderful mums, working hard around the country, remember that this Sunday is your day 🙂

Mother’s Day Flowers Facebook Competition

Hello Everyone!

I’m Alison, Clare’s business partner. She introduced me so nicely in her last post I thought I had better do a post to say hi! What better way to do it than to offer you the chance to win a beautiful bouquet of British Blooms for Mother’s Day. It’s creeping up on us very quickly, 15th March will be here before we know it.

Take a look at our Facebook page. Like, share and comment on the competition post and you could win one of our stunning bouquets for your Mum, or anyone you would like to treat this Mother’s day.

You can order your Mother’s Day flowers on our website anytime now, to be sure your mum doesn’t miss out.

Watch this space for more news from The Flower Farm Florist.

New Year, New Business

Over the last few months I have been completely re-organising the business. I have streamlined things to work as efficiently as possible. The Flower Farm as you know it will now be concentrating on just two things – growing flowers and creating beautiful bespoke wedding flowers. I have an updated website, with new branding and logo, (any feedback is much apprecated).

All aspects of floristry work – bouquets, funeral flowers, demonstrations, workshops, etc will now be under a brand new business called The Flower Farm Florist. I have started this new business in partnership with my dear friend, and super florist Alison Matthews (look out for her posts in the coming months). It now means that we can offer a complete local floristry service.

We have a new website, that we hope is simple to use. Our bouquets will still concentrate of championing British products, we will use our own flowers when ever possible. They will be handmade and hand delivered, no courier’s will be used, meaning that the bouquets are delivered with care, and without any excess packaging. Each bouquet will be created as a hand-tied design, it will come in a reusable glass container (British made or recycled) with flower food and  with a British printed and designed, good quality card (Prices start at £18). Our prices will remain the same through out the year and peak periods like Valentines day, Mothers Day and Christmas.

              £38 Bouquet

Funeral flowers is an area that we haven’t really concentrated on in the past, due to time commitments, but something that we would love to build on. We are on the look out for local undertakers wanting to work with a florist that produces something different from the norm, someone who loves local produce and traditional English flowers, who wants flowers that are hand-picked and individually arranged to their requirements.

                              Wreath

We are also planning to run a series of one day workshops, where you can watch a demonstration, create a design of your own and have a fantastic locally produced lunch. (We are looking for suitable venues to hold these.)

Bright and cheerful vintage inspired wedding

At the end of August we created some flowers for an amazing bride called Heather who is pictured above having her make up done, whilst modeling the comb of flowers we created for her hair.

The bridesmaids each carried ‘just picked’ look, mixed hand-tied bouquets of home-grown English flowers.

Heather married the love of her life Matt, with a civil ceremony at beautiful Heskin Hall in Eccleston, Lancashire. For the ceremony / signing  of the registrar table, Heather sourced these two rather hansom looking swans, which we filled with brightly coloured, home-grown flowers.

For the wedding breakfast the couple had decided on afternoon tea, so their flowers couldn’t take up to much room on the tables. Heather hunted high and low in charity shops and online for the vintage vases shown below, which will filled with bright and cheerful informal hand-tied arrangements.

On the top table we had blue glasses and tea cups filled with flowers,the giraffe in the picture below was one of the place-name holders. Everybody had their own gold animal – such a fabulously, unique idea!

This amazing tower of cakes was created by Annalise at www.one-sweet-day.co.uk

There were several different types of cupcake, all with unique flavours chosen by the bride and groom.

After the wedding Heather sent me an email she wrote  “We got married on August 23rd and you did our beautiful flowers. The flowers really where one of the most important things to me and I think you did an amazing job, they really brought Heskin Hall to life. Thank you so much to you and your team for doing such a wonderful job. I loved the swans!! “

Friday Flowers

Friday Flowers

We have recently teamed up with a beautiful gift shop called Angels of Churchtown.

They are now taking orders for our flowers throughout the week, and we deliver them freshly picked each Friday morning. We are currently running two sizes, a small posy at £3.50 and a larger bunch at £5.

The flowers used are all homegrown and vary every week, no two weeks will be the same, so there is always something new to discover.

Friday flowers waiting to be delivered.

If you are ever in the Southport area, do take a visit to Churchtown. It is a very pretty village, with lots of independent shops, great pubs and restaurants. Angels is on the main street with free parking directly outside.

Mixed bunches of flowers

Book Review – Vintage Wedding Flowers by Vic Brotherson

I have to say that this book is beautiful, I squealed and cooed over every page when it arrived yesterday. It has stunning photographs by Catherine Gratwicke, of Vic’s highly inspirational designs, along with amazing wording  that really sums up the different types of vintage wedding flowers available. The book covers bouquets, buttonholes, table settings, headdresses and lots more floral creations.

Most of the designs use the traditional English flower varieties that we grow here on the farm. Flowers like sweetpeas, cornflowers, larkspur, ammi majus, dahlias, roses, cosmos, astrantia and herbs are all used throughout the book.

It is divided into six different themed chapters, each showing bouquets, table flowers and other designs that fit with the theme. The last chapter has detailed  step by step instructions to make a number of designs including a hand-tied bouquet, wired buttonhole, pomander and hair garland.

The book explains how important flowers are to a wedding day, and how they can be incredibly personal to the bride and groom and their families. “Everyone has wonderful stories that can woven into the day through the flowers, creating a modern interpretation of a very ancient ritual.”

I would say that this book is an absolute must have for brides looking for vintage inspiration, British flower growers, and wedding florists.

 

The Cut Flower Patch – Book Review

I was very excited this morning to receive a book through the post that I have eagerly been anticipating for weeks. It is called The Cut Flower Patch and is written by Louise Curley, who is perhaps better know as Wellywoman for her fact-filled, flower growing blog.

The book covers all aspects of creating your own cut flower patch, it is written in a very easy to read, practical way and is packed with wonderful pictures by Jason Ingram. It covers everything from choosing an area, designing your patch and maintaining it, to useful tips on growing all sorts of annuals, biennials, wedding flowers, foliage, bulbs, corms and tubers.

There is also a section on how best to cut your flowers and then how to arrange them, it has lots of ideas for creating beautiful, simple displays. At the back of the book is a very useful cutting patch calendar and favourite resources section.

I haven’t managed to read the whole book yet, much as I would have loved too if time allowed.  But it’s the sort of book that you can easily keep dipping in too.

I would say that this pretty book, is a very inspirational and practical guide for anyone thinking of having a go at growing their own cut flowers.