Musings of a flustered florist: June

“It’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than you were yesterday”

— Anon

I was recently nominated in the Muddy Stilettos awards to be Devon’s Best Florist.

Yes, it is exciting and flattering to have been nominated (I don’t know who started that for me but whoever you are - thank you)

I’m not normally a fan of this type of awards as they are based purely on a voting basis and therefore become more of a popularity contest than based on any actual business acumen.

But it did get me thinking. What would make me the “Best florist in Devon”

How do you define “the best”? Especially in relation to a florist?

Do I have the best qualifications? No I don’t. I don’t have a level five in British Floral Association qualifications. I don’t have a City and Guilds in floristry. I’m not sure I even got a girl guide badge for flower arranging. I do have a degree, a post grad diploma and grade five tap dancing - but none of which makes me the best florist.

Is my business the most flourishing? The best turnover or profit? Doubtful. I have a tiny shop (too small) I don’t have a team of staff. I don’t have any staff. It just little old me. And no offence to Bideford but it’s not the most thriving or affluent town in Devon.

Do I have ten of thousands of followers on social media? Would that make me “the best” It’s a tough business keeping on top of social media. There is a pressure to be posting the best photos, the best stories and now the best reels (don’t worry I don’t really get it either) and you can’t help but stare at your follower numbers willing them to increase. (Why? I honestly don’t know. Maybe because it will make me feel “better”)

Do people flock from all over the country to buy my flowers. Nope.

So how do we grade things “the best”. How often have you described products or businesses as “the best”. “It was the best chocolate brownie I’ve ever had”. I had the best nights sleep ever”. How do you know it’s the best chocolate brownie? You’ve not tried every chocolate brownie in the world? But at that moment in time that brownie tasted the best. You enjoyed it. It hit the mark.

But it is ultimately a matter of opinion. We don’t all like our chocolate brownies the same. (The degree of gooey is crucial) The surroundings in which you ate your chocolate brownie influence your statement. Your frame of mind. Your company.

Your opinion.

So I don’t know who originally nominated me for best florist in Devon. I don’t know who also then subsequently voted. But I do know that at that moment in time those people (2,3, 299 - I don’t know how many) but at that moment in time in their opinion I was the best florist in Devon. At that is truly humbling, amazing, gob smacking and honestly - slightly unbelievable.

I didn’t get enough votes to go through to the next stage. I know my social ineptness prevents me from the popularity contest part. But I will more than settle for the opinion of a few that I was fleetingly “the best”

Thank you.

(Congratulations to Amelia’s Flower Farm who was ultimately awarded Devon’s Best Florist. She is “the best”)

Musings of flustered florist: January

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

— T S Elliot

New year. Fresh start. Clean slate. Big ideas. High expectations. Let’s do this…….

Of course that was the vibe in week one. Well, week two actually as I took an extended Christmas break to recover from the whirlwind of 2021. It was a very intense year and it almost broke me, definitely a learning curve not to be repeated. New notebook and great intentions were the way forward for 2022. 

The first problem was that the 2021 me wasn’t notified of this mindset and literally did a runner from the shop on the 23 December. Cue opening the shop door two and a half weeks later to be greeted by what can only be described as a scene from the “morning after the night before”. The floor was strewn with foliage, orange slices were still trying their best to freshen the air and of course pine needles everywhere. And I mean everywhere! Pieces of paper with random cryptic notes written on them and fairy lights twinkling half heartedly. 2022 me was not impressed. Not the fresh start I was hoping to embrace. 

A week of cleaning, mopping, sorting and tidying and the shop has once again taken on the look of a vibrant fresh space. Lots of new houseplants, bulbs, pots and vases. Perfect for filling those spaces left in your house when Christmas trees and decorations have vacated for the year. 

January is notoriously a quiet month in retail. Not a lot of footfall to break up the day. There has been a very repetitive, too frequent playing accordion player on the street - but trust me when I say that doesn’t float my boat. But there has been weddings. Actually five weddings in the first month, all small affairs, but a good gentle introduction to the year. Wedding one was a gorgeous dried flower event. It was also rather nerve wracking as the bride-to-be was a wedding photographer - and a very good one too - so of course she has seen a lot of wedding florals in her time and knows exactly what she wants hers to look like. The bar may have been set high but I leapt it well. They looked great and needless to say to the bride loved them! Weddings are a go go for 2022. 

Burgundy, coral, white and ivory were the colour themes for the rest of the months weddings and it’s been wonderful to have some variety and play with seasonal offerings in what is sometimes seen as a “difficult” month. British spring flowers are coming through so expect to see plenty of them in the shop over the coming weeks. 

The key word for January has been “admin”. I don’t mind confessing that admin is not one of my favourite pastimes. Why spend time typing emails when I could be playing with flowers. But emails don’t go away if ignored, therefore many an hour has been spent catching up on correspondence, quotes, invoices and consultations. It’s the backbone of what I do and definitely one of my resolutions to improve on in 2022. In all honesty I probably could do with a VA to help with email management for me so if you know of any admin angels that could help please send them my way?

I have many grand plans for 2022 and lots of new initiatives and adventures scribbled in the new notebook. But I’ll drip feed them out to you as the year goes on. No point in telling you everything now as have to keep the suspense up all year!

I have found some new exciting suppliers for this year. Boy, I can get carried away over a beautifully photographed trade catalogue. I’ve got some draft orders put together so hopefully there will be amazing new stock in during the spring.  Think French brocante style for inside and out, revamp that outdoor space or even just a windowsill. And there are new designs and ranges coming of the already popular botanical gifts I stock. I’m so impatient to see it all come together. One of my plans for 2022 is to increase my non plant and flower offerings. As hopefully the high street comes back to life after the “covid pause” we can tempt more people to shop local and support all the fabulous independent businesses Bideford has to offer. 

Scarily, January is pretty much been and gone. Yes it’s a cold and quiet month but sometimes we need that pause in the mayhem to stop and evaluate where we are. Look at where we’ve been and where we want to go. As I said at the beginning I have big ideas and high expectations and I’m relying on the 2022 me to deliver them. She better not let me down!

“Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn’t give in
When the dawn comes tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin”

— T S Elliot (Cats)

It's the Shops First Birthday! ...but is it all Pooh?

“Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

— Winnie the Pooh

Today is my shops business birthday. A year ago today I opened my doors of the little blue flower shop on Mill Street, Bideford. 

To be honest I feel a little like Eeyore on his birthday. Little bit sad, little bit forgotten. No cake, no candles no “whoop whoop”   A gift of an empty honey pot and a popped balloon would be fab but instead I’m in the shop bleach cleaning buckets. 42 of them so far. It’s a glamorous life!

Of course I would have to have been bleaching buckets even if I was open - it’s not a self punishment thing. But hopefully it would have been in-dispersed with customers and at least been in a shop full of fresh flowers and glorious plants everywhere. Because that was the vision when I opened a year ago. 

“What’s wrong with knowing what you know now and not knowing what you don’t know until later?”

— Winnie the Pooh

Oh the dreams and the plans. The Pinterest board and the books full of ideas. It was all there. But of course the world changed. It was changing as I opened. A glimmer of gloom on the horizon. I think we were all in optimistic denial. And then “BOOM” 8 days after opening we went into nation Lockdown 1.0. 

“Could be worse. Not sure how, but it could be.”

— Eeyore

Except we didn’t know it was Lockdown 1.0 - to be followed later that year with Lockdown 2.0, the sequel and then Lockdown 3.0 the dire unwanted further sequel. 

So a year of having the shop has been more stop and start than the number 73 bus in central London. But those times I’ve been open have been great. I’ve loved it, you’ve loved it - the dream was real. So yes it was heartbreaking every time that got taken away from me, but I’ve tried so hard to hold on to that dream, to keep it going and to dream bigger for when we start to move forward again. 

“If the string breaks, then we try another piece of string.”

— Owl

I’ll concentrate on the positives - it’s so easy to be an Eeyore and be full of gloom. I already spoke in my previous blog about the thanks I have for the people who have continued to support me during the last year. Local deliveries have definitely kept me ticking over in the lockdown months. 

“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

— Winnie the Pooh

But the other bonus it has given me is time. Time to stop and think and plan. To fully asses the times I was open and see what worked and what didn’t work. What sold well and what else I could sell. Moving stuff around - changing my merchandising. 

“I always get to where I’m going by walking away from where I have been”

— Winnie the Pooh

Would I have had that opportunity if I’d been trading 6 days a week, week in week out?Would I have just have been working rather than planning? Who knows. But I have enjoyed the time to plan, to dream, to dream bigger. 

“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”

— Winnie the Pooh

So as we hopefully enter the last few weeks of lockdown I am continuing to build on my ideas but with the added advantage of a little bit of experience. There is new stock lines ordered. Some new products and plenty more of what there was before. A little shop shuffle and a lot of cleaning! 

Then a deep breath, feel brave and get those doors open again so hopefully this time next year I can be properly celebrating another business birthday. 

“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”

— Christopher Robin

Choosing the best wedding florist for you. (Me of course!)

“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”

— Roy E Disney

Happy (!) New Year!

A bit late to the party and I’m sure we can all agree it’s not got off to the most fantastic of beginnings but hopefully for some lucky couples it is the start of something exciting…….

Did your partner ‘pop’ the question over the festive season? If so, then a massive CONGRATULATIONS! And now the fun can really start as you begin to plan your big day (Or not so big under current restrictions). You’ll have plenty of choices and decisions to make over all sort of details you haven’t even thought of yet but it should be a fun and not stressful pastime.

One of the most important decisions is choosing your florist, Obvs! So I could write a fantastic blog about how you should go about this, or I could just use one already written by the tremendous Anthony Lyons of Special Day Wedding Photos! Anthony is a talented local North Devon photographer who I have had the pleasure of working with. (Most recently on a photoshoot at Moreton House just a week before Lockdown One - How little we knew then….)

Anthony contacted me towards the end of last year asking for some input to a blog he was writing about choosing a wedding florist. As he was so kind to incorporate so many of my thoughts, I feel it is only right to share his take on it rather than my totally biased opinion.

Of course it goes without saying that if you looking for a wedding photographer for your North Devon wedding then Anthony should be at the top of your list!

Read on for his opening gambit - and then click on the link to find out what wise words I offer up on choosing the right florist for you.

…….Planning for all aspects of your wedding day is very important. You want it all to come together into a glorious vision you will never forget. Choosing a wedding florist is one of the most important tasks for planning any wedding. Choosing an experienced florist that can help you plan how to use and decorate your space is really important in achieving your dream look. There are many things to consider when hiring a wedding florist, such as, can they work with your budget, have they worked at your venue before, or can they produce a style of wedding flowers that will suit the theme of your wedding? There are many things to consider and hopefully some of your questions will be answered below……..

Read more - including my input - at Special Day Wedding Photos

Adapting a flower business in a changing environment

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change”

— Charles Darwin

I am a florist

I love flowers

I love creating beautiful things with flowers

These statements are the “root” of my business. They are the “seed” it has all started from. I had no real business plan when I started in how exactly my life would pan out. I had no five year goals or written documents. I loved flowers. I wanted to work with flowers. Let’s just take it from there....

But my floral business has taken a number of changes of direction along the way. And not always of my choosing. 

Although I’ve always loved flowers and had a pipe dream of being a florist, it was just a lucky chance that got me in. My main career path was as a Marketing professional for a number of companies in London and France but an amazing opportunity came up when I was living in London fifteen years ago that saw me go from almost zero experience to having my own business on the King Road, Chelsea. It was a steep learning curve but with the uber rich and famous as my customers it wasn’t hard to succeed. I mainly sold loose flowers, a few last minute weddings at the Chelsea Registry Office across the road. Some commissions for Keihls and Heals department store and the Manila Blanik Store.  Add a sprinkling of Russian oligarchs and some top A listers (Bob Geldof, Mark Owen, Tara Palmer Tompkinson, Felicity Kendal to name drop a few) and I had myself a decent florist business. I often worked 7 days a week, three of which started at 3 am to visit the flower market. But I learnt loads - sometimes the hard way - but it was an amazing grounding. 

Then twelve years ago we moved to North Devon and the concept of a luxury florist to the rich and famous wasn’t really going to work! No offence but it is a different environment! 

I went back to the “real world” of Marketing but missed my flowers. 

It was the chance reading of an article in a Sunday paper that got my mind whirring again. I read about flower farms and people sowing and selling British flowers. I loved the idea and read everything I could about it. We had the land, we had the polytunnel, I loved flowers - I just needed to persuade the husband this was a viable business idea (not having a husband previously meant I never had to justify my actions but now it seemed a husband was as bad as a business manager!)

I sowed, I grew, I failed, I grew again. Friends asked me to do their wedding flowers and bit by bit there was another “seedling” of a business. Fast forward three years and I have really “branched” out. 

You’ll need to read my previous blog to see where the florist business was in 2019 and how far it had “grown”

But then 2020 came along and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the current plan is starting to “wilt”. 

My crystal ball was not performing as it should when I decided to open a florist shop in Bideford in March. I’d always worked from a workshop at home but after a very successful pop up Christmas shop in Bideford (see another previous blog!) the time seemed right to go High Street full time!  My little blue flower shop opened its doors on the 7 March....... and then closed them again two weeks later on the 22 March (at least I saw Mother’s Day!)

I had around 40 weddings on the books for this year - with enquiries still coming in and then…..

Lockdown.

So, no shop and of course no weddings for the foreseeable. Was this another attack of the aphids on my flourishing floral business ideas?

Initially I turned my back on it and went back to being a full time mum and “teacher” ( oh and catering manager - who knew two boys could eat so much!) but I found myself reading so many heart lifting stories of businesses that had adapted to today’s environment and changed the way they worked, their product offering, their way of working. From Dyson hoovers to ventilators, Tarquins Gin to hand sanitiser, the local pub doing home meal deliveries - it seemed that the best business owners were standing up, brushing themselves down and thinking “right, what next?” They weren't sitting in their pjs watching Joe Wicks, they weren’t scrolling mindlessly through pointless Facebook posts, they weren’t justifying buying more wine as “essential”. They were looking at new business opportunities.

Overnight it seemed the world went online. There were videos, podcasts and tutorials galore. Could I be part of that?  My tech skills are rather limited, resources low and I don’t have the confidence to appear on camera for all to see. I wrote a blog (yes another one for you to read!) on creating your own Easter centrepiece. Give it a go - it doesn’t just have to be for Easter! I feel static image tutorials may be limited as flower arranging is such a visual and creative pastime. So although I have a few more in draft, I’m not sure it’s the right path for me at the moment. 

The turning point was that my fabulous supplier had too adapted and could courier flowers to me. As a big commercial grower of British flowers they had the stock and the means of transporting it. 

The BFA (British Florists Association) had consulted the Government and confirmed that florists could still operate using online means and practise safe delivery methods. I set up new payment systems so I can take money via secure links in texts and emails and looked at the safest delivery practises.

The result: Hand tied bouquets of beautiful British blooms delivered on Fridays across North Devon. No plastic is used, obviously great for the environment, but delivering them straight from water meant they were safe to handle. 

Ideal for birthdays, anniversary day, miss you days and thank you days. In these tough times we all need a bit of cheering up and it’s a three way thing. The sender feels happy they can send some joy, I’m happy to be back with my beloved flowers and the recipient? Well, the smile on their face says it all. 

I’m also doing more funeral work, not that I didn’t before, but it was hard to fit in around all the weddings. I actually enjoy funeral work. It can be very therapeutic, very creative, and you are doing something that again is made with love and brings joy. I speak with the families and learn about the one they have lost. There is often a story behind the flowers that are used; the husband who had no idea of colour and would wear clashing clothes - reflected in a bright and bold casket spray. The grandmother that loved the primroses in the hedgerows and now has them in her wreath.  And it’s not the sad, topical deaths that we hear the daily statistics about. It’s very much the “tide comes in, tide goes out” funerals which just reminds us that life, and death, goes on regardless and there is something strangely comforting about that.

I am a florist

I love flowers

I love creating beautiful things with flowers. 

Make your own Easter centrepiece - foam free!

“When creatively melds together with global issues, I believe you can bring the world together”

— Virgil Abloh

Now, I’m not saying that making an Easter centrepiece is going to change the state of the world right now but hopefully it will inspire you to get creative and make something new. 

Like you, I’m in lockdown at home. We’ve not been out now for over 10 days. Unlike many other instagrammers and bloggers I’ve been watching recently, I don’t have a stylish workshop space at home, I just have a very battered iPhone 6 and only access to limited materials. But that’s all that was needed to put together what I hope you will find an easy fresh flower Easter centrepiece - and most importantly it’s foam free too!

Go on... have a go. It’s not like you doing anything else at the moment!

Materials:

• A pasta bowl (cereal bowls or other shallow bowls will work just as well)

• Some chicken wire

• Scissors

• Candle

• Foliage and flowers 

A pasta bowl is the perfect size and depth for this arrangement. It keeps it low enough on the table and can hold enough water to sustain the arrangement. As you can see I only have plain boring pasta bowls, to be honest you don’t see much of the bowl in the end but a prettier more stylish bowl can only add pizazz to the final look. No pasta bowls? Then a cereal bowl or any other bowl will work just as well.

We are going “foam free” so to have support for our stems we need a “grid”. Chicken wire is perfect - just cut a piece a bit bigger than your bowl and scrunch the edges over to form a flat ball that fills the bowl.

If you can’t access chicken wire at the moment then you can easily make a grid on your bowl by using tape - pot tape, insulating tape, surgical tape - any of these will work.

Candles are optional. I desperately wanted a long taper candle but don’t have any at home! The size of the arrangement really needs it but in these “make do” times I’ll just have to get over it!

Add water.

Foliage:

Have a forage round the garden or on your Government approved daily walks (sneak scissors in your pockets!)

I used: sage, rosemary, veronica, pittosporum, eucalyptus, some new beech leaves and lleylandi. The good thing is you only need short pieces - around 4 inches / 10cm long - so some gentle pruning is all that’s required.

Strip any leaves that would be below the water line and then fill your bowl with greenery. Keep it low but natural looking - dangling over the edges is good but make sure the stem stays in the water.

Flowers:

Again I have stuck to flowers that you may easily have in your garden at the moment or can find in the hedgerows:

Daffodils, muscari and primroses are all I used. You may be lucky to have camellias out and other blooms, but I don’t like to show off!

Once again you only need short stems so wind damaged stalks on daffodils and even little primroses work a treat. Dot the flowers throughout the arrangement - to keep the natural look don’t be to regimented in how you place them. Start with the biggest blooms and fill in spaces with smaller flowers

I added a few feathers and some blackthorn blossom to finish it off. All that’s missing is that long taper candle! 

Keep the water topped up with fresh. The foliage should last at least a couple of weeks and it’s easy to replace the flowers once they go over. 

Now it’s your turn. Give it a go and make sure you share pictures of your arrangements with me.

Tag me on Facebook or Instagram @churchparkflowers - and I’ll share them out. But if they are better than mine - or if you have better candles - then I won’t be happy! 

Confetti - and the value of “Green”

“Red and yellow and pink and green. Purple and orange and blue. I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too! ”

— Arthur Hamilton

When I was a little girl I was a very eager, but very average, pupil at the Brenda Stevens School of Dance. Twice a week I would skip happily along to classes in tap, ballet and modern theatre dance. I, along with millions of other little girls (and boys!) would dream of being a ballerina and twirling in a beautiful pink tutu on stage.  

Now, every four years the dance school would put on a full school recital at a local theatre. There would be months of rehearsals and mounting excitement. I would have been around seven years old when our tap class number was to be the “sing a rainbow” song. There was seven of us in the class and we were arranged in a line in descending height order. Now, not only was I average in dance ability but I was also average in height so I was right in the middle of the line. Our costumes were home made little dresses from satin lining material (oh so flammable!!) Starting from red on the left - I was to be ........ green! 

Suzanne, tall, leggy and blonde, was in striking red (coz she needed to be noticed that little bit more) Then sunshine yellow - all happy and shiny, Pink - every girls dream and envy (I had to stand next to her whilst looking like an offspring of Shrek! - actually Shrek hadn’t been invented then so it was more like kermit!) Vibrant purple - just like the Brazil nut in Quality Street, Orange (maybe not my second choice but at least it’s cheery!) and then cute little Melanie with her curls in a baby blue dress. Being average is not what it’s cracked up to be - it’s obviously stayed on my mind all this time!

Green as a colour in the natural world is everywhere. Trees, grass, leaves and stems. But it’s the other colours in nature that stand out and provoke memories:

Red rose petals - symbolic with love and romance. The cheery and vibrant yellow marigolds. Soft pinks of the elegant larkspur. Heritage sweet peas with hues of mauve and purple. The stand out orange candulas and the ever blue of the most popular cornflower. These are the flowers that make the real floral rainbow and all were growing in profusion this summer in my cutting patch  

The long hot summer put most of the flowering plants into overdrive. Bloom after bloom kept coming but they would also start to go over so quickly in the heat that it was sad to see them come and go without realising their full potential! So why not capture that beauty in an everlasting way by drying the petals to make natural confetti? 

Home grown and hand picked, the petals were dried either in racks in the greenhouse or in a dehydrater to fully dry without losing the natural colour.  

 Each colour way is stored separately so that they can be mixed to create different combinations. Custom mixed to match your wedding themes and colours. But the best thing about this confetti is not it’s colours but the fact it is totally 100% “green” and with no guilty conscience of the pretty littering they will leave behind.

If only my seven year old self knew the true value of “green” 

So don’t let your wedding be average - instead throw a rainbow of colour into the air like you just don’t care and sing that rainbow loud! ***

(***whilst being green and proud!)

Spring time wedding on the 'farm'

“In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours”

— Mark Twain

Who doesn’t love spring? After the dark, cold wetness of winter we all love the fist glimpse of the sun, the first feeling of warmth and the first sighting of roadside daffodils. 

Spring flowers. They are just so god-dam cheerful. Bright cheery daffodils, bobbing bright tulips, scented hyacinths and the delicate ranunculous. What’s not to love. Put them altogether and they really are everyone’s favourite flowers.  

So take a bouquet of spring flowers, a sunny day, a beautiful ‘bride’ and (best of all) a cute four day old lamb and you get the happiest photoshoot ever! Or actually as we had the brilliant Katie on board it was the “best day ever”

Grace and Elegance supplied the bubbly smiling Katie with one of their beautiful bridal dresses. Wedding Belles and Isabella Grace worked their combined magic and produced pure gorgeousness. 

The Big Sheep were our hosts of the shoot and had built a brilliant straw and hay backdrop. The best.day.ever styling van turns up and like a Mary Poppins carpet bag, produces the most spot on props and styling. Add a good sprinkling of spring flowers and the result is the perfect setting for our star of the show: “Lottie the lamb”. He really was the most chilled out cuddly lamb ever. Stole the show with not a spot of lippy required.  

We were especially blessed to have Gavin Warland on board to capture all of this spring sensationalism.  

There's not a lot more I can say but just let these fabulous images do the talking.