‘Wet’ doesn’t even come close to describing the situation at the top of the plot this past month. Underwater for over a week, and yet the fritillary are coming through like absolute troopers. We’ve started cutting these now that the stem length is increasing, to add to the narcissi in our offerings.

White corncockle: currently looking like this (1st pic). These were sown last autumn and planted out without any protection over the winter, they’ve got off to a great start! Successional sowing of these means that we’ll have them flowering from late spring all the way through the summer.

Peonies - how they’re looking today versus how they’ll look towards the end of May and into June. A perennial favourite with brides, I’m already looking forward to being able to cut stems for weddings this summer.

Mostly an admin day today as the wind and rain continue. At least there’s some colour to look through the windows at now.

Repurposing Wedding Flowers It’s always good to repurpose as many of your arrangements on your Wedding Day. The ‘long and low’ flowers that perhaps graced your ceremony/signing table are a great example as they can then be used on the top table during the wedding breakfast. Images from June weddings with all British flowers and foliage.

Bang on cue the pussy willow is starting to explode. If you’re in need of any really long lengths of this next week for your events please get in touch. Can pretty much cut to any length you can get in your vehicle 🤔.

Big blousy tulips, we can’t wait to see you again! It’s always a joy to see the tulips. Especially when you don’t look at your list and can’t remember what you’ve ordered. 😉

Did you know that as well as creating bouquets, we can supply you with buckets of cut flowers and foliage so that you can get creative yourself or with some friends? Whether that’s for a wedding, a celebration or just because you want to have a go arranging flowers, please get in touch to discuss. These are usually available between May and October. Often fragrant, always beautiful.

Looking forward to every unique stem I can grow here this year. It’s still too early to get the seeds out to start sowing, but it’s been a good day to be inside checking what new varieties to grow and which old favourites need a top up. What’s on your list for this year?

Well here’s to @sophie.wardle.art for being my best liked pic from 2023! And here’s to all the other weddings that we got to be a part of, gift bouquets we were able to deliver, farewell flowers that we were privileged to be asked to make and buckets of stems that florists bought. Really looking forward to 2024 and the flowers. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas to you all, may your days be full of whatever you wish.

A new to me ingredient this year in wreath making was my naturally dried and sun-bleached wrinkled cress (the off-white stems with little round seed heads). Fortunately it had dried with a delicate curve to the stems, making it ideal for using around the curve of the wreath. Have you found new materials to use this year in your creations?

A departure from my usual mustard shades for this years wreath. It feels good to have made a start with the wreathing.

Well that really is the end of our fresh flowers for this season. With proper frosts forecast for tonight nothing worth cutting will be left. Thanks to everyone who has purchased flowers/ foliage/bouquets/buckets or whole weddings from us over the past year - it’s so very much appreciated . We’ve already started the prep for next years blooms - and we’ve got some exciting things in the diary already - can’t wait!!

Looking back to September when we had some beautiful flowers to create for M & J's wedding near Cheltenham. Gorgeous photos from the very talented @indiahobson

Taking advantage that the ground was soft enough today to start getting the narcissi planted (with the help of the bantams obviously)! The bulbs are planted along the fences and paths around the plot making a joyous sight in the spring. There are so many different varieties to choose from these days, and I’ve added a few more yellow, yellow and orange and whites. Do you have a favourite variety you’d care to share?

Sowing your own collected fresh seed should pretty much guarantee great germination. These blue cynoglossum seeds haven’t taken long to get going at all, so I started pricking them out and potting on today, and they’ll overwinter fine, to provide early flowers next early summer.

Dead heading the dahlias before the high winds and rain (again) gave me a chance to bring some flowers in the house and arrange some stems which weren’t good enough to send out in bouquets, but will last well enough for me. Included in here are Pam Howden, Josudi Mercury, Ryecroft BlackBerry and April Heather - all supplied by the excellent @hallsofheddon . It also does as a focal point in the fireplace before the fire gets lit - which hopefully won’t be for a while yet.

I love it when couples choose places off the beaten track for their ceremony.

The dahlias have loved all the weather that has been thrown at them this year, and we’ve been rewarded with plenty of strong stemmed blooms.

Roses: Lichfield Angel We’re on the second flush for this stunning rose - always something I look for when purchasing roses to cut, together with fragrance, obviously.

Hanging jars of joy.

Favourite things to be cutting at the moment - zinnia queen lime mixed, together with josudi mercury dahlia. Both have loved all the rain we’ve had recently interspersed with some sunny days.

When you’re in the throes of flowering a wedding, taking photos is sometimes way down the list of things on your mind, so I was pleased to see a few of the bud vases grouped together when I went to clear down this morning @merriscourt and thought that they deserved a photograph. I am sure that the professional photos taken by Lou @thegeorges.co of the stunning Olivia and Rhodri will be well worth waiting for, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you.

It felt distinctly autumnal at 6.30 in the garden this morning cutting for todays order! A bit of a chill in the air and very heavy dew on the flowers despite the sun being out. I hope we’re not going to bypass Summer altogether now. Can you spot the wildlife in the photo?

Wedding Flowers - bride and bridesmaids bouquets. Happy first wedding anniversary to Susie and Ollie @susiehetheringtonpatterns . I’m sure that you have fond memories your day, and also decorating the church and marquee with family and friends using buckets of locally grown flowers from myself and @amberleymeadow .

A gift bouquet for today. Ingredients include perennial scabious, cosmos, drumstick allium, apple mint and Daucus dara. The bright pink is a new to me perennial grown from seed sown in February this year - Dianthus Carthusian pink, and I’m looking forward to be able to cut plenty more in the years to come. If you’d like to order a truly seasonal bouquet please message me here.

How stunning do Natalie and James look at their wedding @owlpenmanor back in May. They chose to have all dried flowers for their bouquets and buttonholes, and then a mix of fresh and dried to decorate the venue. (I'll share more of these later) Photograph courtesy of @lillywilsonphotography

The first of the perennial Rudbeckia to flower this year is this beautiful R. laciniata. These multi-headed stems are currently flowering between 4 & 6 feet tall so are useful for larger installations as well as bouquets and urns.

June flowers - the best of them in todays bouquet.

Spent a fantastically indulgent day yesterday putting together some flowers for #britishflowersweek with @wildlybeautifulflowers and @organicblooms on their workshop @actoncourt . What an absolute treat it was to get to use an abundance of beautiful british flowers that I hadn’t had to cut myself! It’s an amazing place to visit if you get chance this week.

June abundance. All the best flowers that you can choose to make a bouquet in June.

I’ve been walking past this discarded pot for several weeks now thinking ‘I must clear that out as the fern isn’t thriving any more’. On closer inspection today there’s plenty of foxglove seedlings to rescue from there and pot on for some of next years bounty - happy days. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be too tidy in your garden - let nature do it’s own thing and you may be well rewarded.

The relief.

A quick clip of the meadow boxes that we designed last month for N&J. I love creating these and adding all the little twiddly details. They’re a great option for couples who need to decorate a couple of different spaces in the venue as they’re easily moved.

Yellow. 💛 Some pretty yellows currently being used for events and bouquets. Bearded Iris - sorry no name Achillea Moonshine Dutch Iris Autumn Princess The humble but mighty buttercup Geum Lady Stratheden Are you a yellow lover or not so much?

Foxgloves. Unfortunately I lost quite a few plants over the exceptionally cold winter, so any that have survived are very precious as they’re my all time favourite plant. Are they in your top 10, or even top 3?

A snippet from one of the meadows created for the very chilled N & J’s wedding @owlpenmanor yesterday. Created using fresh and dried flowers, including brunnera, oxeye daisies, delphiniums, buttercups, dried poppy heads, apple mint, lemon balm, stocks, cow parsley, dried briza, dried lavender and my one stem of Veronica Tissingtons White 😉. All foam free of course, instead using chicken wire in reusable troughs weighted down with gravel in the bottom. Thanks to Fiona @cotswoldcountryflowers for the extra white Hesperis and Gill @stanleyhillflowers for pretty blue camassia. I’ll share more venue photos later in the week when I’ve sorted through them.

I'm so excited to be have been asked to join in with over 80 growers from all four nations of the UK in providing beautiful, scented spring flowers to decorate Westminster Abbey. It was certainly a glorious site seeing all the buckets of flowers in the workshops of @organicblooms before they made their way across to London. I am so proud to be a member of @flowersfromthefarm and to be able to collaborate with such amazing people on this project.

Many congratulations to Gemma and Luke on their first wedding anniversary (yesterday). Hope you’ve had a blast. What a difference a year makes in the flowery calendar too - the sweet peas, astrantia, clary, beech foliage and nepeta wouldn’t have been here for them this year, but fortunately won’t be too long.

Pretty Spring bouquet for today heading out to a baby shower - it’s a thing these days. Ingredients include tulips purple elegance, black parrot and Paul Scherer. First of the narcissi poeticus, Tellima grandiflora, apple mint and bluebells.

Still in peak tulip mode here this week, which is all so exciting. Followed closely by blossom watch - apple pic2 and pear pic 3. Still waiting on the crab apple and cooking apple to make an appearance.

The tulips started performing last week, after what seemed like waiting forever. Here’s two of my favourites - Brown Sugar and Ollioules. I’ve also got some new varieties trialling this year which is always exciting. Fingers crossed they flower over a couple of weeks and not all at once as has happened previously.

Wishing you a peaceful Easter Sunday.

After a couple of days of glorious sunshine it’s strange to think that these fritillary were most happy up to their knees in water after the relentless rain of past weeks. Right plant, right place keeps everyone happy. Ready for cutting now if you’d like them in a spring bouquet - get in touch.

Baby steps, but spring flowers are on their way. I think we’re at least 2 weeks later than last year, but although the wind and rain have been annoying this week (understatement!) there have been pockets of sunshine to brighten the days too.

I thought I’d bring a bit of what’s flowering inside today ahead of the predicted low temperatures overnight. It’s challenging when it feels as if we’re going back to chillier times when you’ve had some glorious sunny days - but it seems to happen every year so I shouldn’t be that surprised. Ingredients include blackthorn blossom, forsythia, pussy willow, twisted hazel, various narcissi (sorry don’t have varieties) and the first of the muscari.

Looking forward to the sweet peas in a few months time. This photo is a close-up of part of a table arrangement for a wedding at the beginning of June last year, and I loved the colours so much that I’ve grown similar this year too. Swipe to see how the sweet peas currently look. On the left - autumn sown and overwintered in a cold greenhouse. On the right - sown in January in the cold greenhouse again.

Whilst the growing season really starts to ramp up now with clearing beds, prepping new ones, seed sowing of perennials and hardy annuals, take time out each day to focus on what’s actually in bloom right now. Whether you bring a few inside or just appreciate them in your garden is up to you.

Farewell Flowers It’s been such a privilege to be able to create farewell flowers for M. Although I’d never met her (covid regulations in care homes meant that wasn’t able to hand over flowers in person), I felt as if I did know her a little, as I’d been providing birthday bouquets for the last few years from her relatives who weren’t local. A foam free arrangement created on a moss base using 100% British foliage and flowers.

How fabulously happy do this very stylish couple look?! I loved putting the florals together for Sophie and Paul last month. The brief was for eucalyptus and ivy foliage with added teasels and pops of blue (from statice) to which I added some poppy seed heads and honesty. 100% British grown foliage and dried additions. Wishing them a very happy life together.

The pussy willow is ready for cutting! Get in touch if you need some this weekend. Lovely branching stems, which can be cut 6 ft plus. Perfect for larger installations and arrangements.

What a difference a week makes! It won’t be too much longer before I can create bouquets with my home-grown flowers such as these pictured. After an inspiring day spent at the #flowersfromthefarmconference2023 on Saturday with flowery friends, being able to get out into soil which is no longer frozen was an absolute joy this morning.

Another week of freezing overnight temperatures. There’s not a lot of colour in the garden at the moment - but there is beauty in the twisted hazel, hawthorn, verbena hastata and bronze fennel. Yesterday the fog didn’t lift at home all day, but a relatively short trip up the hill and we were in brilliant sunshine - what a difference that made.

Happy New Year - if that’s still a thing!? Just a quick snapshot of some of the autumn sown seedlings growing in the greenhouse today, and the flowers they’ll be giving us further along the way. There’s not a lot of sowing happening this month apart from a few more sweet peas, it’s just too early, but by mid Feb I’ll be itching to get started.

How bizarre! My most like photo from this past year, and it’s not even flowers! Perhaps people really do want to see the face behind the business after all? Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Now that we’ve passed the winter solstice, it’s all about the optimism that spring-flowering bulbs that we’ve planted give. As growers of cut flowers, a huge dose of optimism is always useful and I’m definitely a glass half full person. Longer days and shorter nights will bring the flowers ever closer, and for now wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and New Year.

I’m so done with this cold snap, how about you? With temperatures falling to minus 10 last night I was fearing the worst for everything in the greenhouse, but they’ve perked up again okay. The sunrise caught through the snowball bush this morning was pretty though.

The wreath is on the door. Created from foliage and dried elements all grown here over this past year. Might be feeling a tad more Christmasy now 🎄.

Finally I’ve been able to make a start on the tulip bulb planting. With fantastic varieties such as Brown Sugar, Ollioules and Paul Scherer to mention a few I hope you’ll love them as much as I do. Do you have a particular favourite or colour?

I’m imagining that this moment was captured when the groom saw his beautiful bride coming to meet him for their wedding ceremony. (Swipe to see said bride). It was an honour to provide the bouquets and then buckets of flowers for the couples friends and family to get creative with earlier in the year. They also did their own buttonholes too. Also loving the tonal photographs.

Don’t be too keen to tidy up your annual beds! These larkspur self seeders will be moved into some more useful spacing when they get just a little bigger, and we’ll have some beautiful spires next year. This bed was mixed colours, so not sure exactly which ones they’ll be, but all very welcome. 💕💜💙

We’ll that’s a wrap for the fresh flowers from me this year. Thank you to all the individuals, couples and businesses that have bought bouquets, wedding flowers, flowers by the bucket and farewell flowers. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Currently working hard to provide the best possible flowers and foliage for 2023.

The beech hedge is starting to put on its fabulous Autumn display 🤎🧡💛. Inexpensive whips planted about 6 years ago and added to a couple of times it’s really getting to be a great resource for cutting in both autumn and spring. It’ll never get trimmed into a neat hedge - and that’s fine by me.

So many crab apples on our little tree this year. There will be plenty for jellies and the equally important Christmas Wreaths.

A beautiful White Onesta waterlily dahlia tucked into this autumnal birthday bouquet.

Not a particularly exciting photo, but these boxes contain some of the bulbs that we’ll have flowering next spring an summer. Some new varieties of narcissi, camassia, allium, Dutch iris and tulips. We just need some rain now so that I can make a start planting them - the ground is still rock hard here 😣.

Cosmos Dazzler. They’ve been growing away really well over the past months and have just started flowering this past week - most welcome, and better late than never. Fortunately we don’t have any frosts forecast just yet.

To ensure that we’ve got cornflowers for you from May onwards next year we’ve started sowing seeds ( first pic), potting up the self-seeders (second pic) to provide you with beautiful flowers in blue, purple, pink and white. They’ll be quite happy being planted out in the raised beds by the end of the month and putting down some strong roots before the winter. You’ve always got to be thinking ahead in this game.

Bouquets are definitely looking more autumnal now.

Ukraine Independence Day Sunflowers - the national flower of Ukraine. To show our solidarity and let them know that we haven’t forgotten them.

Loving the poppy heads that have been bleached naturally in the sun. They’ll be squirrelled away for some projects later in the year. If you’re buying dried flowers, seed heads and grasses please enquire as to how they’ve been preserved, and please don’t buy artificially coloured ones - nature does the best job with them.

Always such a privilege to provide flowers for ‘A Celebration of a Life well lived’

Is this the best stage of Daucus? Perfectly valid to use this in bouquets and arrangements . Love it or no thankyou?

A selection of this years dahlias, which are just getting going now. I know I’ve said it before, but they’re not my favourite flowers - I’d much rather have something a lot more airier and delicate to use in bouquets, but I do like these colours. Are you a dahlia fan? Do you have a favourite? Brown Sugar Gerrie Hoek Copper Boy Sweet Nathalie

Pretty pickings from the garden late last night. It feels as if we’re working an early shift and then a late shift outside at the moment - and looks like it will be for the foreseeable future!

Fave bucket of the week so far 🤎🤎

Achillea - what a fabulous filler this flower is! They’re coming in thick and fast now in a range of pinks, creams, orange, yellows and whites. Just waiting for the reds to colour up. Available in this weeks mixed buckets or by the stem.

Just look at the depth of colour on this cosmos apricotta! May there be hundreds more to cut this summer. Great germination on the seeds from @gandgorgeousflowers

Taken last night, what a fitting end (nearly) to #britishflowersweek2022. It’s been a really busy week here - all be it with a few hiccups along the way - but thanks to everyone who bought buckets or bouquets of beautiful, fragrant , seasonal flowers grown here in glorious Gloucestershire.

🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 If you’re in Cheltenham this week why not pop into @johnlewis and grab yourself a posy or bouquet of locally grown British Flowers and help support small businesses in Gloucestershire. It’s British Flowers Week all week - an initiative started by @marketflowers to highlight all growers of flowers - large and small - in the UK. 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

June: So many flowers to love in June, but as I was cutting for orders this morning I stopped to appreciate these Strawberry Foxgloves. Grown from seed a few years ago, they are fairly reliable perennials with the most amazing colour and shaped bells. Do you have a favourite foxglove, or just love them all ?

Some new plant supports made by Ian from our standard willow cut back at the end of April. Better late than never 😣. Have you got all your supports in place? The second pic shows what the willow looks like at the moment, and it’ll grow about 5ft before the end of the year and the pretty silvery catkins form.

Just a couple of pics from today’s wedding for G & L @theoldlodgeweddings. As usual I seem to be so focused on actually delivering the flowers that I forget to take photos 😣. Hopefully I’ll be able to share some of the professional pics in a while. Very happy that the sweet peas were able to join the party along with all the other #britishflowers

The odds and sods border. A real mix of perennial and annual plants that weren’t planted with others at the time. I like the way it’s looking so far this year, but as always it’s all up for cutting - nothing precious here! Highlights so far include the pimpinella, astrantia and foxgloves, but there’s plenty more to come. How many different types of flowers can you list?

Very pleased to report that the wisteria is finally coming into bloom! I wasn’t sure it was going to recover from the late frost that put paid to it blooming last year, but thankfully it’s looking okay - and smelling divine.

Just a few pics from a fabulous lunch out yesterday @belmondlemanoir with family. The vegetable garden is also a thing of beauty (forgot to grab any photos 😣) If I wasn’t a cut flower grower I would definitely be expanding the vegetable patch at home to include more varieties. May is such a key time in the garden whether you’re growing flowers or veg, and a day away from my own growing space is such a luxury at the moment - but well worth it yesterday.

Did you get proper rain this morning? It was very much needed here as I’d had to start watering the raised beds by hand, and you’re just keeping things alive rather than them thriving. That combined with the sunshine now forecast will mean that the autumn sown hardy annuals and the perennials will really get going. Happy days.

Went away for a weekend with friends and came back to some beautiful perennials starting to bloom. I believe there was a little rain here in Gloucestershire which would have been most welcome.

If you’re expecting an email from me, please check your spam as my business email is still being temperamental and I’ve had to send out via personal email (julie2barn@hotmail.co.uk). Hopefully it’ll be fixed soon 🤞. In other news, the tulips are colouring up nicely so if you’d like a bunch, bouquet or bucket please DM me here where I’ll be sure to see it. Photo is of Tulip Flaming Springtime.

Wishing you all a peaceful Easter.

I hope this birthday bouquet brightened up the recipients day, even though it was very gloomy outside. Featuring (amongst others) the fabulous tulip Brown Sugar which has a fragrance similar to freesias. You won’t find tulips like these in the supermarket, but you might if you try your local flower farmer - check out the interactive website www.flowersfromthefarm.co.uk

I’m really hoping that the tulips get going next week. These are just a few that I cut today to add to other flowers for a bouquet. Just love them. What’s your top three varieties- because I know you won’t just have one?!😉

Let’s hope the cold weather snap doesn’t hold up the flowers too much as we’re just getting used to having flowers to cut again.

I hope that the plum blossom isn’t knocked out by the colder temperatures forecast later in the week. We hardly had any last year due to April frosts and they’re such a nostalgic fruit for me. I remember picking and eating them straight from the tree at Nan’s house - absolute bliss.

How perfect are these Fritillaria uva vulpis which are just starting to pop today! I’ve grown them in buckets this year as they were getting decimated by critters out in the field. Not the longest of stems but too good not to grow.

Ranunculus Acris Citrinus Really looking forward to having these flowering later in the year. Grown from seed from @greenandgorgeous and sown last Autumn they’ll give meadowy style bouquets little highlights of yellow 💛.

Narcissus Jetfire brightening up the end of the week - and the sun made an appearance too.

What a glorious day to be outside and make more progress on clearing the perennial beds and see where we can divide and make new plants. Also to take time and appreciate everything nature has to offer right now.

Valentines Day love to everyone with a home grown anemone flowering today. #grownnotflown