Hello!

I hope you are all well and this year is being kind to you so far.

Firstly, a little update from the farm…

Last year was a tough one to say the least and I wanted to touch on that aspect with some honest reflection. Along with the extreme heat and drought of last season, we were also training Lenny our flower farm dog, who joined us just over a year ago, and it turns out training a puppy Bernese Mountain Dog is really hard work! With the pressures of everyday life, studying and not forgetting the day job on top of this, the farm had a terrible season on par with year one, it was really unsuccessful / unproductive last year and I fear customers may have thought that after 7 years, the time had come to say goodbye, but that is not the case, it was just a bad year.

Personal circumstances changed and although I had always dreamt of taking the leap of faith with a career change from Health to Horticulture when children came along, I hadn’t envisaged working full time as a healthcare manager with a full time hobby farm on the side for this long. I was being practical with our risk taking but at year 5 the big plan had to alter, I needed something to keep me determined and so I decided to review my business plan and goals after I hit a crossroads, slowly growing the business and waiting for that right moment that never came was difficult to deal with. However the farm, growing and nature is still a huge passion of mine and my dream is still very much alive, there’s just a few more boxes to tick. 

I’m pleased to also say Lenny is growing into the most beautiful dog and continues to fill us with joy everyday.

2026 is laden with new goals and targets which is really exciting. One of my goals was to open the flower cart in the village on St. Brigid’s Day, celebrated on February 1st, which marks the beginning of spring, fertility and renewal. It signifies the end of winter, honoring themes of hope, new life, and protection. We didn’t quite get the new flower shed together on time but it didn’t stop me. As I don’t grow under glass at the moment I am reliant on other British growers this time of year to help me out which means for me to continue to stick by my business model of beautiful fresh cut flowers at growers prices for all, it’s extremely hard to make profit this time of year and there is a big risk making losses with the cost of cut flowers soaring. It’s a tough decision to make for a small business but this year it forms part of my marketing strategy to open every weekend February to October and I’m pleased to say that due to our loyal customers the cart continues to be super popular and orders online have started trickling in again - so a big Thank You.

I’ve had a big push to have some of our own luxury flowers for Mothers Day and I’m thrilled with how well they are doing, we have Ranunculus, Anemones, Stocks, Tulips and Narcissus on the way but we are expecting another cold snap so fingers crossed we achieve this goal.

In other news in January I had the pleasure of visiting Collison Cut Flowers in Norfolk, a family run business since 1994 where they are using some amazing technology to grow a range of cut flowers. One of my essays for my degree was on growing tulips hydroponically so it was an absolute pleasure to see the process from the bulb all the way through to delivery. It also gave me a different perspective on supermarket flowers and supporting British growers in its many forms, I met some fabulous people and learned lots of new things and it was all thanks to Helen at Evolve flowers for organising, more on this soon as there is so much to share but for now here’s a few pictures from my day…

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little update 🌸 I look forward to sharing more with you soon