floral designer Ellie
image by Laura Williams Photography
Our Sustainability oath:
Seasonal Blooms
Plastic
Soil
Waste
Seasonal means grown using low impact methods, in this country, within the parameters of the natural seasons. We use entirely seasonal locally grown blooms in our work and during the colder months when flowers are low on the ground, we make the most of the varieties available, stack arrangements with a wealth of gorgeous British foliage, dried flowers, seed heads, lichen branches... dreamy!
Why choose seasonal blooms?
Like anything flowers can be mass produced. In the instance of flowers artificial environments are created to encourage a much longer growing seasons and "perfect" blooms. This process uses chemicals, energy and takes a natural product and makes it unnatural. The Guardian in 2019 reported 86% of flowers purchased in the UK are imported, the stems you see in our supermarkets and from wholesale floral supply stockists travel from as far away as Ecuador, Kenya and Holland. Each flower's Co2 and water footprint is hugely increased in these methods and it becomes very negative to the environment. Imagine such a natural product being a detriment to the environment. The mind boggles.
Support locally grown flowers and still have a huge variation of species to bring us equal if not more flowery joy!
We do not use single use plastic in our work. Our flowers will never come wrapped in celeophane and we will never use floral foam which is a non biodegradable mirco-plastic. We use wire, twine or paper tape in place of celotape and cable ties.
All our reusable plastics are well looked after and reused again and again. When we buy new we look for non plastic alternatives.
We are constantly growing our knowledge on better more sustainable ways to grow our flowers, we use no dig methods which avoid breaking the soils surface as we now know this releases carbon into the atmosphere, disturbs the soil food web and micro organisms living beneath the surface. Our flowers are grown using organic practices without pesticides or synthetic materials. We use growing methods that are kind to the soil and replenish what nutrients we take from it to grow our blooms. We use locally made peat free compost, manure from our neighbouring horses and straw from our neighbouring fields.
We do not waste stems, anything left over or extra is dried and used within our work or composted to feed the soil and grow next seasons flowers. We save dried stems for out of season (October - April) work-.
We live by the mantra reduce, reuse, recycle... an oldie but a goodie!
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