Summer flowers

On the windowsill

Rose-a-rama
Buckets of Delphiniums

Mock up of little centrepieces for wedding

A very special flower in the garden

The Secret Life of Flowers

So this is what happens when you buy a bouquet on the interweb from "Cheep Bowket FlowErz"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3pzV4vunGo

And below is the lifecycle of a bouquet from ME!

Flowers from the garden get picked...

Turned into an attractive bouquet...

Once wilted, get collected...

And put on the compost pile...

Where they become lovely compost to dig into the soil to help new flowers grow...

Helped on with rain water collected in waterbutts...

So that new flowers can make new bouquets!

Now isn't that a nicer story?

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

Flotos

Salad days

The cutting garden is now completely re...well, I was going to say 'designed' but that sounds a bit too Chelsea flower show. I have no water features, just compost bins made out of pallets from a builders yard. No yew -edged walkways but I am half way through making a nice sort of herringbone path through the flowers (have run out of bricks). No pergolas but the greenhouse needs repainting. The door to the shed doesn't shut unless you wedge it in with an old chimney pot. The top to the slug pellet bottle fell off mid sprinkle so now there is a mound of blue pellets at the top of one bed. In short, I don't think Country Living is going to be featuring me any time soon. But the good thing about plants is that they don't mind. They'll grow in cracks in supermarket car parks. They flourish down dank alleys that people are too scared to walk down. So they are all very happy growing in my newly dug, well manured but 'sculptural focal point' free cutting patch. Hooray for them. Here are a few photos of the garden (will take some of the cutting garden once it is in full bloom and not looking quite so new and unsure of itself) and the back of my car as I trundle off to a wedding. Enjoy. Comment. Faint in disbelief and repulsion.

You May kiss the Bride

Oh dear. Have been very remiss about updating The Blog. There's just too much else to do! Even now the sun is shining and the cuckoo is cuckooing and all my little seedling are out of the greenhouse and into the big bad world, so I feel a bit naughty sitting in front of a computer in a dark room... Anyway. Here are some photos from a wedding last weekend. Stunning calla lillies for a stylish London wedding. Callas are a great wedding flower, as they look amazing in photographs, last all day and can be used in all sorts of ways.

April Bridal Showers

To Cambridge, for a wedding in none other than King's College Chapel and Great Hall. I could not BELIEVE I was lucy enough to do the flowers for these venues. The Chapel is so amazing that there was simply no sense in trying to compete, florally, so it was just buttonholes (18! that's 52 individually wired and taped leaves. Bear that in mind ushers, when you accidentally sit on your coats during the speeches...) and bouquets. The Great Hall, no less stunning, was decorated with masses of glowing candles in sparkling glass jars, and fresh fragrant greenery. Simple but stunning.