When we visited England four years ago we got to see Rachel’s beautiful farm, and Chris and I both came away so inspired by what she and her partner Ash have created.

I’m excited to welcome Rachel back to the blog (you can read our 2015 interview here), this time to discuss her newest book, all about perennials and shrubs. 

Rachel, I’m so happy to have you back on the blog for a new interview. Can you please tell readers a bit about yourself and your wonderful business? 

Thanks, Erin, I am delighted to be back. The idea of Green and Gorgeous developed in 2002 when I began work in a walled garden on a country estate growing cut flowers for the big house. 

Over 6 years I immersed myself in floriculture and how to arrange in a natural style. I was convinced that these garden-grown beauties needed to be shared with a wider public. So when the opportunity came to rent a 2-acre organic market garden I decided to take a leap of faith. 

My aim was to grow everything I needed to create border-to-vase arrangements guided by the seasons and the growth habit of plants. I wanted my flowers to “leave an indelible memory of their fleeting beauty.” 

Fifteen years on and my garden-led approach is still at the heart of how we grow and sell our flowers. We have grown to 5 acres and now have a team of ten growers and florists producing thousands of stems from March through November for our weddings, shop, and courses.

When you first started Green and Gorgeous, the slow food movement was on the rise and sustainable floristry was still a novel concept. Can you share a little more about the evolution of the local flower movement in the United Kingdom and where you think it’s headed?

The shift has been huge. Local, seasonal flowers did not really exist, and the idea of calling myself a flower farmer would not have even occurred to me. We now have hundreds, if not thousands, of growers out there, and many florists are keen to buy British. 

Hopefully, the future is bright but with climate change, there are many challenges ahead and I think a shift towards growing the more weather-tolerant plant groups—perennials and woody plants—will be necessary.

The Cut Flower Sourcebook is one of the most beautiful and practical books I’ve read in such a long time. It’s precisely what gardeners and farmer-florists have been asking for for ages. Can you share what inspired you to write it? 

I am so pleased you like the book and I think it has come along at the right time. I had been thinking about writing on this subject since around 2018 when I started to make the switch from predominantly annuals to perennials and woody plants. 

They have always been plant groups that I am very comfortable with because of my background in garden design, in fact, they were the first plants I put in when we were setting up the farm in 2007. I think they translate really well to both the hobbyist cutting from their garden, where perennials and shrubs are a natural fit, and to the flower farmer who might find the only way to scale up labour-wise is to go with low-maintenance plants.

Writing a book is no small feat. Can you share a little bit about the experience of creating it? 

As I am sure you know, writing a book is a daunting prospect and initially, I struggled with self-doubt. Thankfully my publisher Anna Mumford of Filbert Press offered a calm and steady hand, guiding me through the process with plenty of positivity and encouragement. 

The part I really enjoyed was the photography. I focused on capturing all the plants in the directory whilst Eva Nemeth worked her magic on the arrangements, garden, and working shots. 

In the introduction, you share “Working in a garden every day, particularly a productive one, makes you appreciate that there are actually more than four seasons. The ancient Japanese were onto something when they developed 72 micro seasons, each just five days long.” I love the idea of celebrating these micro seasons. Do you have a favorite? 

My favourite micro season would have to be April 5 through 9, Tsubame kitaru—Swallows return. We have a pair of swallows that return at this time every spring to nest in our floral studio/shop. It is always a very special moment when they come swooping in. 

Their arrival heralds the beginning of the season. All of our flowery hustle and bustle is accompanied by their chatter as they busy themselves with nest-making and raising their young.

One of the things that stood out to me most while reading The Cut Flower Sourcebook was the images of your arrangements. What do you love the most about arranging flowers and what advice would you give someone who wants to step outside their comfort zone and create something that pushes past what they would normally make?

I tend not to have any preconceived ideas of what my arrangements will look like. I let the garden take the lead, by choosing a peaceful moment to go for a wander and see what captures my imagination. This is usually first thing in the morning when I am accompanied by birdsong and my whippet Jesse, it feels like quite a meditative process. 

I start by searching for the flower that really inspires me at that moment, which always seems to be something different. I then use this to guide me on what else to pick. I am generally drawn to harmonious colours and contrasting forms and textures.  

To ensure my designs are well balanced and to give me some parameters, I try to include plant material from the four elements of an arrangement, which I outline in my book—framework, supporting, focal, and the final accent. 

These building blocks will not only help to create an engaging design but also make it easier to put together.

The Plant Directory section of your book includes 128 of your favorite bulbs, perennials, climbers, grasses, trees, and shrubs. I think it might just be my favorite part and is something that gardeners all over the world will find incredibly useful. How hard was it to narrow down this section and decide what made the cut? 

As a plant addict, it was hard to narrow down the plant selection for the directory. It helped to focus on the tried-and-tested varieties we grow here on the farm. It is by no means a comprehensive list on the subject—my intention is to highlight the attributes readers should look for in a plant that makes it a good candidate for cutting. 

Everyone will have different growing conditions and floristry styles so hopefully, this directory will act as a springboard to finding their own trusty performers with a relaxed attitude and natural style. 

In addition to growing cut flowers, you also have a specialty seed line, teach workshops, and open your farm to the public. Can you share a little more about these offerings?

We are open every Saturday from April through October for our farm gate sales. 

Our workshops range from growing for business and pleasure to arranging with garden flowers. 

I have a couple of new offerings this year which focus on the subject of the book. One is a growing day and the other is about using perennials and woody plants predominantly in arrangements. 

Our seed shop will be reopening in early autumn with fresh stocks and hopefully some new lines that I am trialing this season.

I am working on an online flower farming series with Garden Masterclass, which is being filmed throughout the year.

Thank you so much, Rachel, for taking the time to share about your beautiful new book with Floret readers. It is such a helpful resource for gardeners all over the world. 

To celebrate the release of Rachel’s new book, The Cut Flower Sourcebook: Exceptional Perennials and Woody Plants for Cutting, we’re giving away five copies. For a chance to win, post a comment below telling us about one of your favorite shrubs or perennials. 

This giveaway is open to everyone, regardless of where you live, and winners will be announced on June 27. 

To learn more about Rachel, be sure to visit her website. You can also follow her on Instagram and Facebook. The Cut Flower Sourcebook is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org.

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The post Author Interview: Rachel Siegfried appeared first on Floret Flowers.

I am so thankful to have gotten a chance to know her and am so inspired by how fully and generously she lived her life. 

You’ve had a very full career and an even fuller life—first as a botanist, then a teacher, then a sailor, a general contractor, and then a rosarian and a writer. Can you tell me a little bit more about your very diverse life path?

I have had a very full life and while much is owed to the length of my life, my longevity, likewise, probably benefited from having a full, diverse life. Life-long learning and growing keeps one engaged. 

It would probably surprise many of your readers to know that I used to consider myself a prisoner in my mother’s garden. We lived in Morro Bay on a high bluff. As a young child of three, maybe four, I used to run away—down the trail, that certainly wasn’t made for children, as fast as I could go down to the water. I’d get down there in the sand and there would be crabs and herons that would be fishing—so many wonderful things to see.

My mother would come screaming down after me, drag me back, and tell me to stay in the garden. The water is where I wanted to be and I managed to sneak out often until my mother put up THE fence.  My mother had a wonderful garden considering those times and her means. It was always about nature though. My appreciation of flowers came later.

My life could have played out very differently if not for losing my first husband in World War II. He was such an amazing man—very handsome, very good to me, and talented. I ran away from home to be with him and get married. He entered the military and became a fighter pilot in the 1st Air Commando group under Colonel Cochran, with the mission of flying behind Japanese lines to supply and evacuate troops and materials as well as provide fire.

My husband completed the ‘Thursday’ mission but died shortly after because of his airplane’s mechanical failure. This left me as a 19-year-old widow and new mother who had to find her own way in life. If not for this tragedy, I would have most likely had more children and settled down into a role very different from the many I’ve had since that time.

One thing that isn’t mentioned above, but is very dear to me, are the numerous volunteer and board positions I’ve held, especially co-creator of NOAH, the Northwest Organization for Animal Help, in Stanwood, Washington, which is dedicated to ending euthanasia of healthy, adoptable, and treatable homeless dogs and cats. Our humble beginnings consisted of volunteering once a week to answer phones and match the people who had lost their animals to those who had found animals on the Island.

As a result of the ever-growing need to save more animals and serve the community, we expanded adoption and a transfer/low-cost spaying and neutering program. In coordination with over 50 other shelters, NOAH transfers animals at risk of euthanasia to continue to work on giving them a second chance. I was on the board until my husband Max needed more care to stay in our home at the end of his life. However, I still donate to this important cause and others that lessen the suffering of animals, both domestic and wild, and work to conserve biodiversity on our planet. Much more work needs to be done in these areas.

In the introduction to Ramblers & Other Rose Species Hybrids, you say that “fortunate circumstances” led you to start a small rose garden. That small rose garden evolved into 5 acres of nearly 1,000 unique varieties (which eventually became the largest private collection in North America). Can you tell Floret readers a little bit more about this fortunate circumstance? What was it about roses in particular that put you under their spell? 

I just love them so. I’m a very visual person and the beauty that roses bring into my world gives me great joy. The “fortunate circumstances” I referred to in my book on ramblers was that I read an advertisement about a nursery in Oregon that was going out of business and having a big sale.

The ramblers were a really good price, and I came back with a truckload of them which I put on the fences around the property. I also put some into trees by building trellises to help support their growth. There was something wonderfully mysterious about roses growing up the trellises and into the trees to make the tree look as though it was blooming.

You’ve written five books on roses, but have a deep love of rambling roses. What do you wish others knew about this amazing group of plants and why they should consider growing them in their garden?

Ramblers are easy to grow. Once they are established, they need little care. They grow tall and are excellent for covering fences and arbors, and for growing into trees. They provide a quick and easy way to add color to the garden.   

You’ve scoured the globe for rare rose varieties. What are some of your favorite specialty nurseries? And besides your own wonderful books, do you have any other books or resources that you’d recommend for beginning and experienced rose growers?

While I have traveled the world, I like to support local, small business owners as much as possible. Their work is hard, and we have lost many nurseries, especially those that focus on old roses. Vintage Roses used to be the best but went out of business. I enjoy going to Christianson’s Nursery & Greenhouse in Mount Vernon, Washington. Two others are Hortico in Canada and Rogue Valley Roses in Oregon.

As for books, Classic Roses by Peter Beales is a very important reference book if you are serious about roses. Another one that was very helpful to me in the beginning was David Austin’s English Roses by David Austin and Michael Marriott. 

I always hate it when people ask me what my favorite flower is because there are too many treasures to choose from, but if you could only grow five roses in your garden, what would they be? 

I really don’t have a favorite. All of them are so unique and bring something special with them. If I must choose one, I think it would have to be Hybrid R. Moyesii ‘Geranium’. In my book, Ramblers and Other Rose Species Hybrids, I mention that mine had grown to 10 feet (3 meters). That was in 2016. It is now running way up into the trees and spills over in a striking cascade of scarlet red in early summer. It fills the view from my dressing room window.  

Pictured above: Anne visiting our rose garden this past summer

Your passion for roses started much later in life. Do you have any advice for someone who feels like it’s too late to pursue their dreams?

I remember when I turned 60. I thought 60 was so old. That was almost 37 years ago, well over one-third of my lifetime so far.

At almost 97 years old, it doesn’t seem that my passion for roses started all that late in life. It’s been over 30 years since I began this journey—longer than the careers of many. I pursued many dreams after turning 60, including starting my own contracting company and building over 25 (mostly Victorian style) houses, traveling the world, and my study of the older roses. It is never too late to act on your goals and dreams. 

My advice is to keep moving, stay out of bed, go out to lunch and visit with friends and family (don’t isolate yourself), read and stay up to date with current events, be open to new ideas, and commit yourself to life-long learning and skill development.  

In fact, I am about to launch my own website and blog. I’ve always wanted my own website and I don’t think it’s too late to do this. I bought my own domain last week.

In your book, A Voyage of Determination, which chronicles your incredible adventure sailing your beloved boat from New Zealand to California, you share your formula for achieving any difficult goal, which I found incredibly inspiring as a woman who has big dreams. You write: 

“When I was alone I spent much of my time thinking about the fantastic trip I had been privileged to experience. It was of great value to me in a way that was quite separate from getting the boat back. I had learned that I was capable of accomplishing very difficult goals. I was able to face considerable hardships and even extreme danger when it was necessary to achieve those goals. Without being quite aware of it I had developed a formula for greatly improving the chances of achieving any difficult goal. It consisted of three main parts.

First, don’t let being a woman stop you from doing what is traditionally seen as a man’s job unless you really need a constant supply of testosterone to achieve your goal. Ask yourself if the activity requires big biceps and a beard. If not, go ahead with your dreams and fight the prejudice where you find it. Look carefully for the same prejudice in yourself. It could be lurking there without you realizing it and could cause you to not believe in yourself and to restrict you from following a difficult goal. If you are a man you are not apt to encounter prejudice in life’s goals because of your gender, but if you do don’t let it stop you. 

Next, you should try to know yourself, your talents, and limitations, but be careful to not underestimate what you are capable of doing. Becoming a rocket scientist will be a difficult goal if you struggle with math, but maybe some remedial instruction in math would help you overcome the problem. I learned to navigate the old-fashioned way with a sextant even though I didn’t learn my number combinations when I was a child because of constant moving and now I compute manually with difficulty.

On the other hand, you might want to pick something that comes to you more naturally. A passion for a particular hobby might be an indication of a special talent that could be pursued and turned into a rewarding career. Then, be willing to spend some time and energy preparing for what you want to do. I owe much of my success to this one.”

I put some things in the Voyage of Determination, and you have to do all of them. Determine what it is you want to do and then acquire any skills or knowledge that you are going to need, get the books, take the classes. I bought three books when I decided to build the house on Camano Island; how to frame a house, how to wire it, and how to do the plumbing. You need to study and become an apprentice.  

You can do anything a man can do except those things that require a lot of strength…I think I said ‘big biceps’ in there. However, you can even figure out how to use mechanical means to overcome that. For example, I bought and used a wall jack on a house I was building to lift the walls into place all by myself.  

You can meet and exceed your goals if you prepare yourself over time. You can’t become a rocket scientist without a great deal of study, and neither can anyone else. 

You have so generously shared what you’ve learned with so many and I would love to know how myself and Floret readers can support your work into the future. How do we ensure that these rare and heirloom rose varieties live on? How can we pick up the torch and help carry your legacy forward?

Keep them watered, fertilized, and in a place with lots of sunshine. Roses, especially the old roses, are very easy to grow. However, inviting people into your gardens and sharing is perhaps most important. Don’t be stingy. To inspire and introduce people to the beauty of old roses and sending cuttings of roses into their home gardens, is an act of love … of friendship. This is the greatest legacy.  

Max and I used to have people over all the time to enjoy the property, and many friendships as lovely as the roses developed. I couldn’t do that for a while, but now that my son and his wife are restoring the gardens, we have been able to do this again on a very limited basis (and keeping public health recommendations in mind). It’s such a joy to see old friends again, such as you, Erin. I believe you were a young lady when I first met you. So many memories tie us all together.

I have given many roses away over the years—to individuals, nurseries, and to other special collections and demonstration gardens. Recently I was notified by Claude Graves, curator of the Chambersville rose garden in Texas and the Anne Belovich Rambler Garden there, that the American Rose Center Committee voted to begin the process of replicating my entire rambler collection in Chambersville into a new garden to be constructed at America’s Rose Garden at the ARS Headquarters in Shreveport.

It is a comfort and honor knowing that my rambler collection will be duplicated and conserved in a permanent internationally-acclaimed garden. I am grateful to Dean and Carol Oswald and Claude Graves for their dedication to and hard work on this large project. I am also grateful to my friends who have watered, fertilized, and put one of my rose cuttings in a place with lots of sunshine and continue to share cuttings with their friends, both old and new, and younger family members.

In addition, consider organizing volunteer efforts to help out in rose gardens that need extra hands. What we consider older roses now can be found in many home gardens that were started by people in their younger years. The work of weeding, fertilizing, and pruning can be satisfying but enriched by stories, expertise, cuttings, and new friendships. We will have our first pruning party in February with area-old garden rose enthusiasts and garden clubs. Consider these kinds of events in your local community.

You can learn more about Anne on her website, where her family has begun publishing blog posts that she wrote before her passing. 

I had the opportunity to interview Anne’s daughter-in-law Teddie Mower who is now caring for her extensive collection of ramblers alongside her husband Rick, Anne’s son. In the interview, she gives an update on Anne’s roses, information for those interested in visiting the property, and how we can all help carry on Anne’s legacy. 

If Anne’s story has moved you, please consider adding one of her books to your library. Proceeds from the sales of her books will help support the preservation of her rambling rose collection.

Gallica Roses by Anne Belovich

Large-Flowered Climbing Roses by Anne Belovich

The Little Book of Alba Roses by Anne Belovich

Moss Roses by Anne Belovich and Harald Enders

Ramblers and Other Rose Species Hybrids by Anne Belovich

A Voyage of Determination by Anne Belovich

I thought it would be fun to give away Anne’s complete library of books to three lucky readers. To enter to win, please share what part of her interview inspired you the most. This giveaway is open to both U.S. and international readers. Winners will be announced here on May 30.

Update: A huge congratulations to our winners: Michelle, Pam Blinten and Carrie K.

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The post A Rose Story Part 4: An Interview with Anne Belovich appeared first on Floret Flowers.

This past fall (spring in the Southern Hemisphere) Zoë released her first book, Lost & Found, and I was fortunate enough to get a copy to review in advance. Lost & Found is like nothing I’ve ever seen before—it’s like the seek-and-find books I loved as a kid, but made for flower lovers! It’s so wonderful to see Zoë’s unique perspective through her camera lens.

Today, I’m excited to publish a new interview with Zoë and get the opportunity to share about her work and wonderful book with you, which is a must-add to your flower library. 

Thanks for joining us again Zoë, and congratulations on your new book! It’s been quite a while since we last interviewed you—can you give an update on how things have changed since we last spoke on the blog?

Thank you so much for inviting us back. Well, one thing hasn’t changed, it’s still just me and mum working away in the field. I would say the direction of our business has shifted from just supplying flowers wholesale to now creating with our flowers. Whether that be through our event work, local bouquets, workshops, or now our book. The farm is an ever-evolving story—it’s always a surprise the places it leads you. 

Lost & Found incorporates two of your biggest passions—flowers and photography—and is an absolute feast for the eyes! It’s such a joyous, playful book and it was fun to spy some Floret seed packages woven into a few of your stunning images—we appreciate the love! How did you come up with the concept? Did you enjoy seek-and-find books as a child?

Yes, as a child I loved seek-and-find books. They inspired my imagination and play so much. I would get drawn into their worlds as I searched the pages. I wanted to recreate that very same joy I’d felt as a child but with a grown-up twist, incorporating my love of flowers and nature, but still holding onto that playfulness.

I think that the simple act of searching for objects has a way of slowing you down, as if walking through a garden, taking in every little detail. I think that’s the magic of this book. I imagined people revisiting the pages and each time finding something they may have overlooked, the page revealing itself more with each viewing.

It seems like many of these “imagined creative characters” and their lovely vignettes are inspired by your own life. It’s so hard to choose, but I think “The Beekeeper” flat-lay is my favorite. Did you have each character in mind before you created the seek-and-find photo or did they reveal themselves in the creative process? 

I had a list of characters, more than I needed. Many were inspired by my own life, others by fellow creatives around me, like the “The Beekeeper,” “The Artist,” “The Potter,” and “The Musician.” I would walk through the field and the flowers would start to reflect their stories.

The honey-toned roses for “The Beekeeper,” sepia chrysanthemums for “The Photographer,” fluffy peonies for “The Florist,” muddy bearded iris for “The Potter”—their worlds slowly revealing themselves bloom by bloom, in form, texture, and colour. It was very organic in that sense. We collaborated with the lovely Julie Atkinson-Dunn who would take each vignette and write a beautiful story inspired by it, adding another layer to each character.

I know your flower farm and design studio Field of Roses is a true family affair. Was your mom Sue at all involved in the making of Lost & Found?

Mum was most definitely involved, she’s the sounding board for all my ideas. She’s great at helping to grow them, asking the right questions, and she sees things I so often miss. I would start laying out the flowers, weaving the objects in, flower by flower. I’d get as close to finished as I could and then I’d call out to her, “MUM!” She’d be somewhere in the field keeping things ticking along, usually weeding, that’s her favourite (literally). I needed her fresh eyes on it as we made the final adjustments. We were running back and forth from the field getting those last little bits until we were both happy.

I adore all of the color palettes and the beautiful collections of flowers you showcase throughout the book. Do you have difficulty getting these unique varieties since you live in a more remote location? Can you share some of your favorite sources?

This is definitely a book that I could only do now after years of collecting plants from various places. It can be a real treasure hunt here in New Zealand, tracking down that elusive plant you’ve been eyeing in photos from the Northern Hemisphere. I would say it’s starting to become easier with more seed suppliers and nurseries catching onto the trends.

I will give a big shout-out to Sarah Hawkless of Emerden, who I have bought seeds and plants from over the years. She sources the most beautiful ranunculus, anemones, and cut flower seeds from overseas. I feel like she really helped change the flower landscape here, making it that much easier for us to get our hands on those special varieties that we could only ever dream about before.

You’re in the thick of summer in New Zealand as we’re closing out winter here in the Northern Hemisphere. Have you made any discoveries this season that you’re excited about? I’m especially interested to hear if there are any new rose varieties you can’t live without!

Over the winter, we pulled out lots of roses that were underperforming. I said we were downscaling, but we ended up using it as a good excuse to source more. I really want to have a beautiful collection of New Zealand-bred roses throughout the field, so I’m trialing a lot of new varieties from Matthews Roses. Bob Matthews is a renowned rose breeder here, and his plants are always the healthiest in our block.

It’s been a hard season for the roses, so I feel like my new additions didn’t quite get to shine like they normally would. But my all-time favourite of his roses so far is ‘Ziggy’ (pictured above), a multicoloured rose with a golden apricot base and flecks of burgundy and strawberry-red—you can really create some fun designs with it. I have a soft spot for anything with multicoloured flecks—roses, dahlias, zinnias—I love them all.

I saw on Instagram that you teamed up with Flora Forms for a Spring Urn Workshop that looked pretty magical! Can you tell us more about that experience and if you have any upcoming workshops people in your area might be able to attend?

Yes, this season we collaborated on some workshops with Rhonda of Flora Forms, who has a farm about 20 minutes from us. We met at a flower farmer’s conference a few years back and have enjoyed working together ever since. I think all things are so much more fun when you collaborate, it’s the perfect recipe for ideas to flow.

We pitch our second-hand Raj tent and fill it with flowers from both of our farms. Rhonda is a potter and makes the vessels, and mum is a great cook so she whips up a soulful meal for everyone. It’s a beautiful day, yet relaxed and down-to-earth, the perfect recharge.

We had planned for more workshops this season but the weather has been against us, so we now have our eyes set on early Spring and are making plans for September.

Thank you so much, Zoë, for taking the time to share about what you’ve been up to and your beautiful new book with Floret readers. I am so excited that copies are finally available for us here in the states. I know that was quite the feat for you and your publisher and so many gardeners here will be grateful for your efforts. 

To celebrate the release of Zoë’s new book, Lost & Found, we’re giving away five copies. For a chance to win, simply post a comment below telling us what type of book you were most interested in as a child and how it’s helped shape who you are as an adult. Winners will be announced on March 7.

To learn more and connect with Zoë, be sure to visit her website and follow her on Instagram and Facebook. Lost & Found is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite bookstore.

A huge congratulations to the giveaway winners: Camilla Herold, Erin M, Sarah Tatley, Jessica Marigold, and Jill Green

On February 12, tropical storm Gabrielle hit the North Island of New Zealand, causing gale-force winds, mudslides, and severe flooding which has displaced thousands of people in rural communities. We reached out to Zoë to see how we could help and here is her response.

Cyclone Gabrielle hit our region last week causing devastation to the Hawkes Bay, East Coast, and Northland regions of New Zealand. The scale of damage is beyond anything I have ever seen, so many have lost everything and many are still cut off with no access in or out. The images and stories coming out from these places are truly heartbreaking. Donations can be made to the Red Cross New Zealand Disaster fund or I have a link to a list of various organizations directly helping those in more rural communities.

As for our farm, we count ourselves lucky, our family is safe as is our flower field perched on the top of a hill, however, the river flats of our property were hit by flood waters. My incredible dad has been working hard, opening up road access, moving silt, and rebuilding broken fences and pipelines, we’d be lost without him. There is still a lot of work ahead but compared to others we are incredibly lucky and count our blessings.

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The post Author Interview: Zoë Field appeared first on Floret Flowers.

For those of you not familiar, Jamie Beck is a photographer and visual artist who lives and works in Provence. In 2016, Jamie left her busy life in New York City for a one-year sabbatical in the south of France and never turned back.

Jamie’s work has the ability to transport you into another world. It’s like falling down the most beautiful rabbit hole, getting lost in an entirely different time. In addition to sharing her beautiful work with the world, she also generously shares her creative process, which I absolutely love.

Jamie just published her first book, An American in Provence, which is described as a “beautiful collection of exquisite portrait, scenic, and still-life photography.” Jamie sent me an early copy a couple of months ago and I finished it in one sitting, clutching it as I moved from room to room. As soon as I set it down, my mom picked it up and devoured it with equal intensity and it sparked a series of really meaningful conversations about how we spend our days and what truly matters.

This book has quickly become one of my all-time favorites and I highly encourage you to order multiple copies, one for yourself and for gifting.

I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview Jamie for the blog about the book and her creative approach. Get ready to be inspired!

An American in Provence is absolutely overflowing with inspiration, from breathtaking photography to candid storytelling, seasonal French recipes, and expert photo tips. There is so much to take away that it’s hard to know where to start! How did this book come about?

It all happened unintentionally if you can believe it! When I came to Provence I did not have goals in mind other than to just experience the culture and a different way of life that had captured my imagination. As I set out on my first year in Provence, I took notes in my journal of the observations I was experiencing, from the changing natural landscape to the provencal experiences of markets and how it felt struggling through a foreign language, what it was like living in a village 2,000 years old and without air conditioning, to the changes that begin to take place within me I had not expected to come from my year in Provence. I made these notes all the while photographing everything I was discovering. Eventually, the photographs became little visual stories of these lessons. This book, An American in Provence, is the culmination of these written lessons and visual art stories of what is now, the past six years living in Provence!

The book is organized by season, and reflects “a rhythmic cycle of life” you seem to have rediscovered in Provence. Can you talk more about the significance of reconnecting with nature?

Nature in Provence is EVERYTHING. It is what gives us the unbelievably incredible food ingredients sold at local farmer’s markets, the flowers, the wine, the bees, and butterflies. It’s all completely connected here and surrounds you in a way that folds you in. When I moved to Provence I became bewitched by nature and the closer I looked, the more magical the discovery. But it’s not just the pleasure of witnessing life unfolding before you, but, the way it feels when you live harmoniously, seasonally, with it too. I found it, for me, to be a healthier way of life allowing each thing to have its moment; an ebb and flow. That way you appreciate what is good in the present and it leaves you with something always to miss, and in turn, always to look forward to. 

You thoughtfully share about listening to your gut and your decision to move from New York City to the French countryside and note that “by removing everything I knew, I allowed myself to live in each moment.” What about leaving a city in the U.S. and living in a small village in France has allowed you to embrace that?  

First and foremost, you have no choice but to be stripped of your routine. On my first Sunday in Provence I remember walking outside, hungry, ready to get some food … and there was literally NOTHING open. Thankfully I still had some leftover cheese and baguette from the previous day that I could eat and picked figs off the tree in my garden. France is not about being accommodating and certainly does not live to make money like the USA, which forces you (thankfully, and rightfully so) into their culture. I came because I wanted to experience their culture but I didn’t know I would also have to participate in it! It’s funny now to say that, but I think as Americans we just assume access to everything all the time because that’s what we know. France is always and only just being France, which forces you into a way of life foreign to you and you have no choice but to embrace it—which is a wonderful thing! When you “give in” to another culture, it really feels like being a little kid again, having to learn all over how to act, what to do, and how to survive. You have no choice but to be present in each moment and each moment feels so monumental because it’s laced with discovery and survival!

You were able to discover so much about yourself and how to feed your passion after moving, but you share that “Your own artist’s journey can happen anywhere, at any time—you just have to show up and have courage.” What are some ways to encourage finding a bit of that Provençal magic and creating a life you love?

It’s really simple, find what you love—whatever it is! Whatever you are into and just do that! Have the courage to focus solely on your passion. I feel as if we are taught that the things we are passionate about are our “hobbies” and not our “work,” which is why you need to have the courage to say, “no, this is what I am into and THIS is what I want to focus my life on.” That can be anything! It’s really up to you to define. Define your life by your passions, not by what is expected of you, which you can do anywhere in the world, at any stage of life. 

Your work so skillfully highlights the beauty in nature that is all around, from the “Terre de Lumière” of Provence to the seasonal food, flowers in every stage of life, and even bugs! You draw so much from the area you live in but I know you also have your own garden. What things do you enjoy growing yourself?

My garden is my second baby! The garden, which is a small interior garden (about 35 ft by 35 ft), is located in the center of the village and surrounded by old buildings. It has one stunning, large, fig tree that shades our old Provençal farm table. There is a bed of ancient lavender that grows in wild swirls like curly hair rather than the traditional manicured rows of stick-straight lavender. I have a lemon tree, a pergola of white wisteria vines, more than 17 different roses (a mix of climbing and shrub), a stunning section of hydrangeas that do surprisingly well, and a handful of mixed garden bed shrubs and flowers that I just planted. I can’t tell you the names because they are all in French and are wildly complicated to try to remember! I also have a collection of beautiful mixed herbs in terracotta pots: basil, rosemary, thyme, mint, etc. I’m not that interested in growing things to eat because the local farmers here have been doing that, organically, for so many generations. I would much rather eat what they produce!

In An American in Provence, you talk about visual storytelling and “writing your photograph first.” You dive deep into some of the unique techniques you use, including combining multiple photographic plates and painting in detail. Can you give a general overview of the process to compose one of your photographs? I know one photo can sometimes take an entire day!

Some of my more ambitious projects have taken weeks to edit! However, for most posts, I create one photograph a day. Typically, I start with a concept. This can be wanting to capture what was at the market that morning or growing in the garden. Sometimes, as with my self-portraits, they are autobiographical based on a particular season of my life. I then forage for my subject matter and props, looking for what speaks to me and stirs emotion or excitement to create! I bring all these elements together, whether it’s in the studio or at a predetermined location outside, and begin to compose my photograph. There are many layers to my photographic process where I take multiple images I call “plates” and then composite them in post-production Photoshop. This allows me to build out compositions or create scenes that might not otherwise exist in real life, but hopefully, feels natural in the final result. There are also days when I don’t have a subject or concept in mind but rather let the day unfold around me until that moment of inspiration presents itself. The easiest way to find myself in that state is to simply take a walk through my village or in nature. 

Your creations are so abundant and romantic—from the self-portraits to the Impressionist-style landscapes to those that look like 17th-century Dutch still-life paintings. It’s often hard to believe they are photos at all! Do you have a background in art? How did you find your way to this type of stylized photography? 

I have always been artistic and drawn to art. I’m also someone who sees art in everything—from a music video to the way someone dresses to the packaging of a product. Art is everywhere and art is always an option. I am always creating. Every detail of a day, like getting dressed, is a way for my mind to create a story. What is the character, what is she doing, what is her message today about life? When you look at Dutch still-life paintings, every object is placed with intention and carries a story, a meaning. I think we have become blind to the world around us, the mundane things we touch and interact with on a daily basis. In my work, I try to reexamine those objects and their place in our lives. That sort of approach is very connected to past art movements when people had less in general and objects carried great significance. As far as my photographic style, I really do feel as if I paint with the light, and it is that painting that I believe makes my photographs of another time yet completely relatable to every single person’s human experience. 

You generously share so many helpful photography and styling tips in your book. What would you say is most important to keep in mind when taking a photo of a natural landscape or capturing floral arrangements?

To have fun! I think we get caught up in the rules of photography and one must remember to always play. It’s when we are playing that we are enjoying and then, no matter the outcome, it was time well spent. 

I loved the #IsolationCreation series you dreamed up and shared on Instagram during the lockdown where you created one piece of art a day, made prints from that work, and donated a portion of the proceeds to the Foundation for Contemporary Art’s Covid-19 Emergency Grants Fund. Can people still purchase your prints now?

When we entered our lockdown in France it was not only a scary time because of what was happening in the world, but also because I couldn’t travel to do my commercial photographic work for the foreseeable future; which is how I made my living for the majority of my life. I couldn’t control what was happening outside but what I could do was create something positive every day—to share this experience we were all navigating through while also raising money to support other artists impacted by the pandemic. We retired the series earlier this year to make space on the website for new photographic works where I have available posters, prints, fine art, floral paperweights, nightgowns, and a beautiful stationery series handmade in Provence. 

Will you talk about the impact you’ve felt since Instagram began to prioritize videos and Reels over images? Do you see artists and creators shifting to another platform to share their work?

This has been really a tough transition as a photographer. My love is for the still image and Instagram has been a champion of the artful up until recently. It is a sentiment a lot of photographers, painters, and writers have had in conversation with me—that our work is what we want to share, and having to shift focus to animating that in order for people to see our posts not only adds another layer to the job but is not the job we want! I think the community of Instagram did a great job having our voices be heard about what we want, and for the moment they have listened. It’s not a surprise that social media is moving to video content, I think analysts have been saying this for a decade. The problem is in the algorithm that made us feel forced instead of inspired. With that said, being creative is also about adaptation and sometimes great things are born out of forced or constrained circumstances. Photography by its very nature based on technology and from its birth has been in constant evolution, so we must be too. 

Between your photography projects, a new book, an online shop, and your beautiful Luxe Provence clothing collaboration, it seems like you’ve been busy! Are you working on anything new right now or enjoying a period of rest?

Kevin, my husband, and I always laugh when I say, “Next year I’ll rest,” and then next year never comes because there are just too many wonderful things to try to do in life and such little time! I absolutely love challenging myself, but even more than that, I love learning.

Thank you so much, Jamie, for taking the time to share about your incredible book with Floret readers. It’s such a gift to the world!

To celebrate the release of Jamie’s new book, An American in Provence, we’re giving away five copies. 

For a chance to win, please post a comment below telling us if you were untethered from all responsibilities, where you would go, and what curiosity would you follow? Winners will be announced on Tuesday, November 15.

Update: A big congratulations to our winners Kate Riley, Cam Roberts, Charina Cabanayan, Kristina and Susan!

Learn more and connect with Jamie:

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Milli’s first book, From Seed to Bloom: A Year of Growing and Designing with Seasonal Flowers will be released here in the States on June 21. I was so excited when she sent me an advanced copy to review! I invited Milli to share more about her book, her approach to seasonal floral design, and what she’s up to next. 

Congratulations on your gorgeous book From Seed to Bloom: A Year of Growing and Designing with Seasonal Flowers! It’s such a celebration of the joy you’ve found in growing something from seed. The easy way you break down design techniques and the seasonal floral arrangements you share are so inspiring. This is the first book you’ve written and it’s packed full of practical information—what called you to bring it into the world?

Thank you, Erin! I’ve loved every minute of working on it. It came from a place of becoming increasingly fascinated by the relationship between the land and the grower—there’s something incredibly intimate about that relationship, and a lot of the books I have voraciously read and loved on cut flowers, floristry, and growing were missing some of that intimacy. Every bit of land is so different, from the soil type, the climate, where the wind comes from, and where the sun touches it, that there’s never going to be a perfect textbook to follow when it comes to gardening. This journey of learning the land has felt much more personal than anything else I’ve done, and much more nuanced too—much like getting to know and understand a new friendship. 

I’ve not been growing flowers for very long (this is only my sixth year growing commercially) and embracing that I wanted to write in a way that made the practical elements as accessible and easy to understand as possible. I wanted to bring a book into existence that not only was practical, useful, and encouraging if you’re just starting out growing flowers, but celebratory of the personal too—a book that motivates the forming and strengthening of a relationship between a garden and a gardener.

In the book, you encourage people to ask themselves a simple question at the start of each season: “why am I growing flowers?” Can you speak a little more about why you’ve found that important to think about when planning your garden for the year?

This is one of the best (of many) pieces of wisdom I’ve been given by you. In your workshop, part of the first module really tucks into the why question, and I’ve found it’s been a useful and grounding question that I return to again and again. When it comes to growing, there are so many different combinations of flowers to try, so many colours to choose from, and the timings of a whole season to think about. It can easily become overwhelming before you’ve even begun. If you’re growing for pleasure, the things you choose, how and when you sow, will differ greatly from if you’re growing for market. And again, growing for market might require different ingredients than if you’re growing for weddings and events. If you have a strong sense of why you’re growing flowers and what for, the planning stages of gardening suddenly become a much easier and more simplified place to navigate.

From Seed to Bloom includes such a wealth of information on growing on a scale between what you call “big gardening and small farming.” When you lived in London, I know you used to grow solely in window boxes and containers on balconies. Do you have any advice for those that don’t have a traditional garden space but still want to grow their own cut flowers?

Grow something that you completely love would be the first thing I think of for advice. Growing in containers is much more difficult in many ways than growing in the ground. The containers require much more of your care to keep them hydrated and fed, so tending to a plant you feel real affection for or affinity with will help make the process feel less like a chore and more like a joy. But having said that, if you want to use the flowers in your floral design work, it’s worth growing things that are generous, like cosmos or sweet peas, or are hard to source at market. 

Violas and pansies are container classics, very easy to grow, and there are some varieties, proved by your trial in 2019, that work brilliantly as cut flowers. If you don’t have access to a traditional garden space, try planting a layered succession of spring bulbs in a big pot with violas or pansies planted at the top. Keep picking the pansies and violas to encourage more flowers, and once the bulbs start getting underway, they’ll force the stem lengths on the violas and pansies up. By the time the last bulbs are in flowers, your pansies and violas will have beautifully long, workable stems, the likes of which are impossible to purchase at the market.

A central theme throughout the book is slowing down to notice the subtle changes in the natural world around us. With a floral design business, a seed shop, a new book, and your job as an actor, how do you prioritize that way of thinking, and how does growing and arranging with seasonal flowers play into that philosophy?

Slowing down isn’t necessarily about doing less, I think it’s more about noticing and savouring more. I’m sure we’ve all experienced those moments when time feels fast or slow—and sometimes it’s hard to put a finger on why. I find when I pause for a moment and intentionally make note of the shifts and changes that time brings, it’s easier for me to comprehend what and how long time is. If I’ve not marked time in any way, I think back to the last big occasion and all the blurred, busy, in-between time can feel like it went in a flash. By noticing, celebrating, and giving occasion to the small things—the changes in the light, the lengthening and shortening of the days, the new shoots pushing up, the first warmth in the air, the fruit setting, or the first leaf falling—when I look back on my time, it’s full of these little, savoured moments that can help it to feel more expansive. 

From Seed to Bloom includes so many stunning seasonal arrangements. I especially enjoy your sill projects. You use a lot of unusual and foraged material for the supporting, textural, and filler elements. Can you share a few of your favorite unexpected floral ingredients to work with?

It feels lucky to be living in such a seasonal climate where the landscape offers up new, interesting things throughout the year. Growing up and living in a city, a lot of my connection to the natural world was through cracks in the pavements, local parks, or along railway lines, and I still get a kick out of the plants that are heedless and grow where and how they like across the seasons. Over the years, I’ve ended up inviting many of them to grow in my garden (it’s wise to check it’s not an invasive species before doing this), from the campions and cow parsley that come to the ditches in spring, to the abundance of wild grasses in summer, the fruit and hips in autumn, to the catkins of winter, there’s always something beautiful that might not necessarily be overtly showy, but instead will have an interesting form or texture that’s firmly rooted in our landscapes to take inspiration from. 

I love your note on creativity when discussing floral elements and style in the book. You say, “There is no right or wrong way to be creative, and each and every one of us is capable of creativity.” What advice would you offer to someone who’s just starting to create arrangements with the flowers they’ve grown and might be feeling overwhelmed? 

Simplifying is always a good idea. If I’m feeling the overwhelm that can often face us when starting a creative project, I find it freeing to set myself limitations. For example, I might limit the colour palette, using only one colour in different hues and tones, or I might limit myself to just three ingredients. By setting limitations you’re also limiting the number of creative decisions to be made. When there are too many problems for us to solve creatively, the overwhelm can come in really quickly. 

Another way to simplify when working just for practice or play and without a brief, is to use your time to explore just one thing. I might give myself one problem to solve, which might be, “How can I work with the form of these branches to make them the most dynamic?” or “How do I make these little, blue muscari the stars of an arrangement?” It’s another form of limitation but can allow lots of fun, free curiosity and creativity to happen.

We both had grandmothers that fostered our own love of flowers. Can you tell us a little bit more about how the time you spent with her ultimately led you to the path you’re on now?

My grandmother GJ taught me so much about plants, not in any formal way, but in the way in which she loved and respected them. When she named the plants we passed in the garden and on walks in the wild, she would introduce them as if they were old friends. She loved all the gardens she tended throughout her life, and my memories of her at her happiest are when she was in them. The palpable joy that she felt when she was among the plants she cared for, showed me the power flowers can have to enhance a life. I count myself lucky to have witnessed that from an early age. I think we have all borne witness, at one point or another, to the ability flowers have to make a moment better, or soften the blow of life’s hardest times. 

Working with the land never seemed like a job prospect or an option when I was growing up in the city, but with GJ still tending her garden at the grand age of 92, and having watched her over the years, her back bent and working, she had made growing plants seem like a do-able, knowable thing. So when the time came and I moved out of the city with no education in horticulture, it didn’t feel like such a far-fetched change to become a grower. GJ came to live with me during the first lockdown of Covid and she was the one who encouraged me to send out the flowers in the field, the ones that had been destined for weddings and events, to whoever wanted them or needed them. She knew that people needed hope at that time, and she knew hope can be found in flowers. She saved my business in that moment and I’ll be forever grateful to her for it. We lost her last year. I miss her every day, but I know I’m drawing on so much of the wisdom and love she passed down—and for that, I’m hopelessly lucky to have had her as my grandmother.

Your ‘Windowsill Wednesday’ series on Instagram gained some notoriety last year and is such a fun and beautiful way to document and showcase your seasonal arrangements. What led you to start that and why do you think people have connected with it? 

Yes, the series made it into a magazine last year! I still can’t believe that! It’s a project I’ve been doing every week for five years now, and I was surprised even early on when people seemed to enjoy it and connect with it. When I started growing flowers, I wasn’t confident in designing with them at all. I had been going to the flower market in London for years and had interned at a florist shop, but had always held a feeling of being a bit of a floral intruder wherever I went. My skills were just simple bud vases when I started ‘Windowsill Wednesday’—low-key pairings and combinations of a few stems. The flowers I grew behaved so differently from the imported market flowers I was used to. They had so much more life in them and you could feel the magic left in the stems from being touched by the weather—some with gorgeous curves where they had longed for more sun, or beautiful, mottled petals from being out in the rain. I just wanted to learn and understand them as an ingredient better and I knew that to do that I would need to practise. So I set myself on this project and vowed to show up to practise it at least once a week. 

Each week bought so many beautiful new flushes of flowers to work with that I was itching to create with it all and the project was easy to commit to. Here’s a little bit of life coming round in a circle—the very first ‘Windowsill Wednesday’ I did was with ‘Earl Grey’ larkspur I grew from Floret seeds! That is the flower that sparked the project—so thank you for being a part of it! By the end of the first summer season of ‘Windowsill Wednesday’, I’d been entrusted to do my very first wedding by a friend because of the series, and buoyed on by that vote of confidence, I carried on with the project through winter. I had initially thought I wouldn’t be able to manage to find ingredients every week in winter, but that limitation asked me to look more closely at what was on the plot, and that in turn has totally influenced the way I look for ingredients and plan my season to this day. 

The other part of ‘Windowsill Wednesday’ is the words. I started putting words with the flowers early on, little observations about the weather, and the changes in the landscape. I love words—I had been writing plays and short stories all the way through drama school, but when I left I had written and put on a not very good play. And after it was done I hit a long writer’s block, I was so nervous about picking up a pen again, and didn’t trust anything I put to paper. Once I started making the windowsills, the words joyfully started coming back, and it felt like a huge relief. It still surprises me that people connect with the project, but it makes me so happy! Perhaps the connection is something to do with what we talked about earlier, in the marking of time and savouring of the little moments. It’s sort of like a weekly news bulletin about the subtle seasonal shifts, an antidote to the more difficult and challenging news we are usually bombarded with.

What else are you working on this year? Do you have any new projects coming up that you’d like to share?

The formidable Sarah Raven has invited me to do the flowers at her press days this year, which for me, is a dream job. I’m so excited to work with the ingredients grown at Perch Hill—a garden I have long admired and taken inspiration from. There’s also something big in the pipeline—I’m about to become a mother. I feel very, very lucky. It’s something I’ve wanted for a long time. I don’t know yet how it will change the course of what I do and how I do it, but I’m already having to function on a different level that I’ve found challenging. I’ve downsized the number of weddings and events I’ve said yes to this year, I have a brilliant team of freelancers who will be at the ready to help with the ones I will be doing, and I’m stocking up my little online shop with the most useful tools and design mechanics, things that I love that won’t perish in the same way as the flowers, which helps me feel like I’m able to slow down a little. It feels a little nerve-wracking to be downsizing and pivoting again as an already small business, especially when it’s still in its infancy, but I want to be able to honour this time of change and turn my focus back to growth when it feels right. I’m sure I’ll grow and gain a lot from this experience too, and as I’ve said before—I find the best creative solutions come out of limitations, so I’m excited to see where this next bit of the journey takes me.

Thank you so much, Milli, for taking the time to share about your new book (and your exciting news!) with Floret readers. I can’t wait for the release of your book here in the states and it will be so fun to see this next chapter of your life unfold. 

To celebrate the release of Milli’s new book, From Seed to Bloom: A Year of Growing and Designing with Seasonal Flowers, we’re giving away five copies. In the book, Milli encourages us to slow down to notice the subtle changes in the natural world. For a chance to win, simply post a comment below telling us about a beautiful thing you’ve noticed recently. Winners will be announced on June 28.

UPDATE: A big congratulations to our winners: Robin Lamb, Marila, Annie, Erin J. and Jenny Negrey

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His newest book, Containers in the Garden, is filled with creative ideas for small garden spaces. It is one of the best I’ve seen on container gardening and is packed with stunning displays of texture and color. If you’re pressed for garden space, you’ll definitely want to pick up a copy! I asked Claus to share more about his book and some tips for growing in pots and planters. 

You’ve written more than 30 books and I’m so excited that your latest, Containers in the Garden, is the first to be published in English! Beyond the incredible photos, it offers such an honest, behind-the-scenes look at how you craft your beautiful garden displays and takes so much guesswork out of the process. With so many topics already covered, how did Containers in the Garden come about and what are some of the ways it differs from your other books? 

Containers in the Garden differs from some of my other books in that its entire focus is on this particular type of gardening. 

I find it a fascinating way in which to garden, as you can make something beautiful whether you have a balcony, a small garden, or whether you garden on a larger scale.

As you so rightly point out there are what you call behind-the-scenes photos in the book, because my aim has been to take the reader through the entire process. To make it not just a beautiful book, but also a practical book that people can learn from.

When thinking about container gardening, so many people are used to using multiple plant varieties in a single pot that would typically last throughout a season. Can you talk more about what you see as some of the benefits of planting just one variety in each container and grouping them together? 

One of the biggest advantages of growing just one variety in each pot is that I can always keep all my displays looking at their best. By this, I mean that as soon as a plant starts to fade, I can replace it with a new one. 

If I were to compose a group of approximately 20 pots, I would not use the same number of different plants, but perhaps use 3 of each plant, so I ended up using 6 or 7 different varieties. This way there would be a form of repetition in the grouping that I find very pleasing. 

Another important thing is that I use a lot of foliage plants. I am very aware to have one type of plant take centre stage. In the spring that is all the daffodils and tulips, and in the summer many annuals are the main focus of attention, to be replaced during late summer by many dahlias. 

Around these ‘main actors,’ I place a lot of plants with smaller flowers and as already said a lot of foliage plants. 

I would like to mention what is perhaps an obvious fact, but container gardening allows you to move your pots around, and in this way, you can keep on fine-tuning and perfecting your displays.

Can you share a few tips on how you keep your containers looking their best for the longest amount of time? 

Adequate water is very important. I very often get asked, if we have an irrigation system in the garden, and we do not. Everything is watered by hand—we use a hose—and I am asked if that does not take an awfully long time. It does take time, yes, but if you make sure to thoroughly water each container every time, many of the plants can actually tolerate to dry out slightly between each watering.

A very useful tip to always have your plants look their best is continuous deadheading. Doing so has two huge advantages—firstly, it keeps your plants looking tidy at all times, and secondly, it encourages the plants to keep producing new flowers. Once a plant has set seeds, it has secured the next generation, so to speak, and then it will stop flowering. 

Your book takes us through all the different stages of each season and shows readers how they can create their own container displays all year long. You share such inventive and well-composed groupings. Do you have a favorite right now?

It would probably be more accurate to say that I have some all-time favourites, amongst which you find plants with lime-coloured foliage, and to name but a few I am very fond of, the perennial Aralia cordata ‘Sun King’—especially because it keeps its fresh colour all season long—and the shrubs Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Dart’s Gold’ and Philadelphus coronarius ‘Aureus’.

An annual I would not be without is Agastache ‘Golden Jubilee’, also because of its lime-green foliage.

Most of your displays achieve a wonderfully grand effect that makes use of stairs or benches to provide varying height. What are some other ways to create this impression if you don’t have these things or might be putting something together on a smaller scale?

You can use anything, really, to achieve a similar effect. If you have a row of apple crates or any other very sturdy boxes you could use those, and if you do not like the look of your boxes, you could cover them in sackcloth or some such material. 

I have also seen pallets used to create a tiered display. 

Over time, you could perhaps build some sturdy benches in varying heights and place them in front of each other to imitate stairs.

It is important to remember that a garden evolves over time. Very few people go from having no containers to having several hundred or even several thousand in one go. I still add pots, bulbs, and plants to my garden too. 

I know your passion is color and Containers in the Garden is filled with it. When you’re dreaming up your arrangements, do you typically get inspired by a single flower and build from there? Are you influenced by current trends? I’d love to hear more about how you “paint with flowers.”

My focus is on colours, shapes, and textures, and my work already begins when I order my seeds and bulbs the previous autumn. I always keep my eyes open for new ways of combining plants, and I actually keep a notebook with me, when I am in the garden, and here I write down any ideas that I may get. 

As already mentioned, I always keep my focus on the entire composition. If I use a plant with variegated foliage, I make sure that the colour in that variegation corresponds with the colours in the surrounding flowers.

Your gardens are absolutely breathtaking and there are so many ideas to take from the pages of your book. I notice you thoughtfully tuck containers into and around your permanent garden areas. Do you have any advice for working pots and boxes into these spaces?

I always place my containers on the hard landscaping in the garden. We have a lot of paved areas around the house and here I fill every nook and cranny with my displays. If you live in a house, you will typically have some nice corners—and maybe stairs—where you can make your displays, and even on a small balcony you can probably find room for a grouping of pots.

Like many of your books, almost all of the inspiring photography featured in Containers in the Garden is taken by you. That’s quite a feat! What’s the process of both writing and photographing a book like?

Because I do my own layout on all my books, this is where the process begins. I am very aware of the importance of showing varying spreads to create a nice visual experience. I make sure to show both close-ups, wide shots, and semi-wide shots. Also when making a book, my focus is very much on design, so I make it a priority to include quite a few wide shots. 

What led you to start taking your own photos? Can you share any tips on how to best capture the magic in the garden? 

Light is (of course) so important for taking good photos, and I soon realised that it would be difficult for me to get photographers to come here at all hours, at the exact moment when the light was perfect, so I thought—why not do it yourself? 

Now photography has become a great passion of mine, and I grab the camera whenever the light is there. 

It seems like you always have a new project or two in the works. What else are you focused on or looking forward to this year?

I am always keen to see the results of the previous autumn’s efforts. Here I plant a lot of exciting new tulips from Holland, and I am of course looking forward to seeing how they turn out. 

I often go to Keukenhof in Holland twice a year but due to Covid, it has been impossible the last two seasons. This year, however, I will be going in April and in May. I go both for inspiration, and also to find new bulbs for my selection of plants and bulbs that are sold in my name in garden centres here in Denmark. I have a really good connection with the Dutch growers.

Dahlias are another of my great passions and I am always testing new varieties here, too. I am very fond of dahlias, and I have gathered quite a few over the years. They add so much colour to the garden in late summer and early autumn, and they keep on flowering and flowering. That is such a treat …

Thank you so much, Claus, for taking the time to share about your new book. I know so many of our readers will be inspired by your approach to gardening and just how much can be achieved in a very small space. 

To celebrate the release of Claus’s new book, Containers in the Garden, we’re giving away 5 copies. For a chance to win, simply post a comment below. In your comment, tell us what you’ve enjoyed growing in containers in the past or what you’re excited to try this season. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, April 19.

A big congratulations to our winners: Violet Garson, Kathleen Jackson, Jennifer Shuler, Jessica Antonyuk and Michelle Garcia.

Learn more and connect with Claus:

Book: Amazon, Waterstones, Book Depository

Website

Instagram

YouTube

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The post The {Farmer} & The Florist Interview: Claus Dalby appeared first on Floret Flowers.

Felicia is a powerhouse and such an inspiration to everyone who knows her. Over the years we’ve become good friends and always call each other whenever we’re taking on a new project to compare notes, ask questions, and share advice. I have learned so much from her and I’m excited to share more about her story, her business, and her wonderful new book all about roses that will be coming out soon. 

I hope you enjoy this interview and be sure to read all the way to the bottom for a chance to win a signed copy of her book and some bare root roses! 

Erin: You’re a third-generation farmer and your whole life has been connected to the land. Can you share a little bit more about your farming journey and how you came to roses?

My journey as a farmer has truly been a lifetime in the making and one that is a curvy road with many detours along the way. I was raised on a French prune farm in the Sacramento Valley of California. I spent my early years toddling behind my mother and grandparents around our family farm. Under their guidance during my childhood, I learned how to grow a number of production crops from dry beans, walnuts, rice, processing (canning) tomatoes, and other fruits and nuts we grew in our farm portfolio. 

My favorite memories of the farm are not ones in our production fields but those in our farm gardens caring for the roses and flowers my grandmother lovingly curated. I worked on the farm from as early as I can remember doing everything from hand-harvesting fruit to running a production line on our commercial prune dehydrator. 

I eventually left the farm, went off to college, and studied crop science and agricultural business, knowing I wanted a career in agriculture but not knowing exactly where I could fit in that world outside of my family’s farm. 

During university, I worked in vineyards and floral greenhouses on the Central Coast of California and landed a multi-season research internship for the University of California Cooperative Extension with a regional Integrated Pest Management advisor. Through these work opportunities, I found my niche and passion—entomology. 

I was slated to attend graduate school to study “bugs” when my path took a turn. In the final semester as an undergrad, my mother was diagnosed with melanoma. It was aggressive and unrelenting. I wrapped up my last quarter of undergraduate studies, deferred enrollment to graduate school, and moved home to care for her full time. From diagnosis to her passing was a short four months. My life was turned upside down in what seemed like a blink of an eye. I never made it to graduate school to study entomology and who knows where my academic career would have taken me.

Fast forward, I spent the next 15 years in the vineyard and wine business eventually starting a winery with my husband, serving as the primary caregiver for my aging grandparents and manager of their farm. I was in and out of hospitals and doctor’s offices, taking weekend trips to manage the farm and like a hamster on a wheel trying to keep it all together. 

Even on the busiest days, I treasured the time I spent during those last years with my grandparents. They passed away within a few years of each other. I was left emotionally and physically exhausted. At the first point in my adult life, I was able to get off the wheel and finally had a moment to think about what path I really wanted to take. I knew there was more out there for me. 

As the universe likely planned, I found out I was pregnant with my first child just before my bi-monthly trip to my grandparents’ farm, my childhood home. The moment I arrived something was different about that trip, as I drove down the driveway for probably the millionth time in my life, I knew I wanted to move “home”. I blame the pregnancy hormones for deciding to uproot my life and sell a successful winery. Everyone said I was crazy but it was the perfect decision for me. I was able to convince another family member to sell the farm to me. I just couldn’t let it go. I moved back home and took over full-time operations of my own portfolio of farm properties. With a new baby in tow, I was back to driving a tractor and mowing weeds just like my childhood. I felt that connection to the land I had always been rooted in—my forever farm.

While prunes, rice, and nuts are the backbone of the farm, I knew the land was meant for more. Every moment of free time I had was spent rehabilitating the farm garden that had fallen into disrepair after my grandmother became no longer able to care for it. I’d deadhead the roses and wander around the lavender and citrus groves with my little guy in a playpen nearby. It was the place I could feel the spirit of my mom, grandmother, and grandfather. 

One day a business acquaintance of my husband’s, a florist, came out to the farm. We chatted and he was enamored with the old garden roses. He said they were all the rage at the San Francisco Flower Mart and asked if I would sell some to him. Well, that was the idea spark I needed and the rest—as they say—is history. I started growing garden roses for cut flower production. Again, everyone said I was crazy to grow roses in a region that is not known for cut flower production. I’m glad I didn’t listen to the naysayers and the old know-it-all farmers at the coffee shop. 

I now have a more than 100-acre farm I manage, including 3 acres of garden rose production, 3 acres in bare root and research production, and a nursery. It truly has been a curvy journey to get to where I am today, with way more twists and turns than anyone would want to hear in an interview (this is the abridged version of my long story), but I am finally at the place where I feel I was always meant to be growing roses, food, and flowers to share with the world.  

Erin: You don’t just specialize in roses, you have an incredible operation. Can you tell Floret readers more about your business and all of the amazing things that you offer? 

I always joke that I’ve never met a plant I didn’t like and want to share everything I know about them with anyone and everyone. I know that’s where we are kindred spirits, Erin. The flower farming part of the business has three main components: a plant nursery, commercial cut flower and food production, and farm and flower education. 

My farm nursery specializes in garden rose production and sales, offering bare root and potted roses seasonally. Bare root roses are shipped all across the United States and our five-gallon potted rose collection is available exclusively for pick-up at our farm nursery. Our big rose sale is this coming Thursday, January 20. 

The garden roses in my collection are roses that are my tried-and-true tested varieties for cut flower production. I also have a research and breeding division to identify and bring new garden rose cultivars into commercial production. In 2021, the nursery started offering a special selection of companion plants to roses as well as pre-chilled tulip bulbs. We also offer a selection of rose and flower care products that are all of my favorite things, from fertilizers and gloves to clippers and compost. Every year we add more things to our nursery offerings and I am excited to introduce even more new items in the coming year. 

My commercial cut flower production also specializes in growing garden roses as well. I sell wholesale to the floral trade and retail to anyone and everyone that wants to enjoy fresh cut garden roses in their home. We ship all across the United States as well as pick-up at our farm nursery. We also offer specialty cut tulips, peonies, flowering branches, and other assorted cut flowers seasonally, as well.

The education spoke of our farm services, The Menagerie Academy, is one that I am the most excited about. For the past 7 years, I’ve offered on-farm workshops a few times per year, inviting other farmers, gardeners, and floral enthusiasts to learn about a number of topics, from rose growing to floral design. When the pandemic started we had to cancel our 2020 workshops but there was still so much interest from people wanting to learn about how to grow garden roses as cut flowers. Our inboxes were flooded with questions as people were home and the interest in gardening exploded. I did what many people did while isolated, I pivoted and took my farm workshops and education digital.  

The Menagerie Academy is now both an online and in-person learning community. Through the Academy, I offer three different options to learn with me and my team.

1.  An online monthly membership subscription service with three levels of service to fit any budget providing rose, flower, and farm business education through video lessons, weekly Q & A sessions with me, and downloadable educational resources, tools, and guides.
2.  In-person workshops at the farm.
3.  1:1 consulting/coaching with me, either virtually or in person on the farm.

Expanding my educational offerings from a few on-farm workshops to an online community and an upcoming book on growing roses as cut flowers has truly been one of the bright spots of the last two years. Being able to connect with more people across the globe virtually to help them with everything from growing great roses, insect, and disease management to farm business development and planning has been an amazing experience.

Erin: Mastering any crop takes a tremendous amount of trial and error, especially when you’re trying to figure out what varieties grow best in your specific climate and also what customers are looking for. I’d love to hear more about your process when it comes to roses for cutting and how you choose which varieties make it into your lineup.

I love research and this is truly the area where I feel the most at home. I dive in with two feet, notepads upon notepads, and spreadsheets upon spreadsheets. My process is a little bit different depending on the crop. I’ll walk you through the process I go through to evaluate cut garden roses I receive from breeders. 

1. The first step is to identify roses that have colors that are desired by the floral design or garden trade. Even if a rose has the most amazing characteristics like disease resistance, vase life, stem length, etc… if it doesn’t have a color or unique characteristic that is needed in the market it doesn’t make my cut to move forward. I try not to fall in love with roses that won’t sell. I move them over to my private collection so I can fawn over them there in hopes one day they will be popular. 
2. Step two is to then plant the rose in my trail field to evaluate. I usually plant a minimum of five plants to evaluate the first year. 
3. Step three, I run the plant through what I affectionately call “rose hell”. No disease or pest control measures with minimal to no weed control. I evaluate the plants bi-weekly and take notes on their performance like disease resistance, insect damage, heat tolerance, bloom cycle timing, foliage color, and more. If it can make it through this it usually can make it through anything. 
4. Step four is harvest. I harvest cut roses and evaluate the average stem length, bloom size, petal count, number of cuttable stems per plant, fragrance, uniformity, post-harvest vase life, and post-harvest storage. 
5. Step five, I repeat this process throughout year one every bloom cycle. If a rose passes my gauntlet with flying colors, I will plant a larger quantity the second year – usually 20–40 plants and repeat the process again (this time with standard pest and disease control measures and cultural practices in place.) The second year I will give the cut stems to floral designers to try and get their feedback on the variety including how well it survives after different post-harvest shipping methods. 
6. Step six, If the rose checks all of the boxes and my customers love it too then it goes into a final trial year. I then plant 100–200 plants and repeat the process one more time. Then by year four, the rose goes into regular rotation in my cut flower production, and by year five, if it is a very desired and popular rose I will increase planting numbers in both my cut flower field and bare root rose production to meet the market demand.

I know five years sounds like a long time but since I grow garden roses in open field production, not in a controlled greenhouse environment, I am at the mercy of Mother Nature. One year the rose is subjected to flooding, the next drought, and weeks of wildfire smoke. I need to put it through the wringer to see how it performs in all matter of conditions over a period of years to truly see if it will stand the test of time for field-grown cut flower production year after year, regardless of the environmental conditions it endures. 

There are always exceptions to almost anything I do at the farm and research is one of them—predicting future trends and demand is the less scientific part of the evaluation process so occasionally I will fast track this process and skip a year or two if the rose is exceptional in its initial year and the demand for the variety/color is high.

Erin: I know readers are dying to know what some of your favorite varieties are by color. Would you share some of your must-haves with us? 

Blush

Evelyn

Beautiful pink to apricot petals adorn this hard-to-find lady. Evelyn is in a class all her own and a true classic from the David Austin collection of roses. Named for the iconic perfumers Crabtree & Evelyn, who used it in their range of rose perfumes. She thrives in warmer climates. A glorious choice as a cut flower or in a garden landscape.

Francis Meilland 

A cream rose hybrid tea named for an iconic rose breeder. Very fragrant with peach to blush tones that give way to soft white as it opens. It’s a rose that checks all the boxes as a superb cut flower. 

Moonstone  

A classic hybrid tea with big, beautiful, blush blooms that give way to white petals when opened. Wonderful for cutting with strong straight stems and a soft mild fragrance.

Burgundy & Wine 

Munstead Wood 

A dark and dreamy David Austin rose, Munstead Wood is my go-to for burgundy cut roses. Plump round buds open to a burgundy stunner with velvet-like petals. One of my favorite producers for fall bridal bouquets. 

Darcey Bussell  

A robust grower, Darcey is a classic David Austin stunner. Beautiful burgundy to crimson ruffled petals have a strong old rose fragrance. A lovely rose for Fall and Winter arrangements.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles   

This rich velvet stunner is one of my favorite burgundy roses here on the farm. A perfect David Austin rose that pumps out blooms all year round. Long canes make this rose a wonderful climber and perfect rose for cutting nice long stems.

Crimson & Red  

Lava Flow

Rich, deep red, ruffled clusters adorn this compact bush. An eruption of color and a beautiful rose for red lovers. Petite clusters of blooms make this a perfect spray rose for cut flower lovers with exceptional vase life.

Rouge Royal 

This very large blooming rose is unique with its petal shapes. It opens to a bright, red raspberry color and sweet citrus fragrance.  

Sedona

Strong stems and continuous blooms throughout the season make Sedona a beautiful garden rose. A unique color that has shades of red fading to a burnt orange like a sunset. 

Deep Pink

Dee-Lish 

With a deep pink color that is perfect as a cut flower, Dee-Lish has excellent disease resistance and tall stems.

Grande Dame 

A glorious fragrance exudes from this bright hybrid tea rose with large, gorgeous blooms. While Grande Dame is a modern rose, it performs like an old-world classic. It’s a perfect addition to your cutting garden with minimal thorns and nice long stems.  

James L. Austin 

A stunning deep pink rose that is sure to bring brightness to your garden. James L. Austin is a versatile shrub with an upright growth habit and a light to medium fragrance with hints of blackberry, raspberry, and cherry. 

Golden & Butter 

Charlotte 

A lovely yellow shade that will brighten any garden, this David Austin rose is a classic that performs well in both warm and cool climates. With cupped blossoms, Charlotte stays rather compact for an English rose. 

Golden Celebration  

A true-to-type David Austin, this vibrant yellow rose is a classic English garden rose. With large buds and a rather upright stance, it fills any garden like a shining star. 

Moonlight Romantica  

A vigorous bloomer, this Kordes bred rose is the perfect shade of buttery yellow. Very fragrant and disease resistant too. This rose hits all of the marks as a superb cut flower. 

Lavender & Purple 

Celestial Night 

Dark purple abounds with exceptional disease resistance and vigor. I’m totally crazy for this color! With ‘Ebb Tide’ and ‘Grande Dame’ as its parents, it has an exceptional pedigree.

Love Song

Ruffled lavender buds give way to soft gray petals when open. A bushy round plant with clusters of large blooms. 

Queen of Elegance

What happens when you take ‘Koko Loco’ and ‘Life of the Party’ and put them together? You get ‘Queen of Elegance’. She has the most beautiful fading color like her mom Koko and is a rose fit for royalty. It’s a new addition to the rose community with a unique color, making it a must-have addition to any rose collection. 

Light Pink

Elle

An exceptional rose that thrives in warmer climates. Elle is a beauty all her own. A soft pink blend with hints of orange and yellow as the weather changes with the season. Deep glossy green foliage makes this a top performer in humid climates. 

Princess Charlene de Monaco 

One of my all-time favorite roses! The ruffled Princess is a wonderful cut flower with an unforgettable fragrance and long straight stems. She is the epitome of style and grace in the garden and my top pick for a pink to blush cut flower. 

Queen of Sweden 

A David Austin rose with long straight stems that channel a classic hybrid tea. Petite cupped blossoms are the perfect fit as an accent in any bouquet. 

Multi & Taupe

Distant Drums

A beauty of an ombre rose, this is a favorite of floral designers and gardeners alike. Flushes prolifically throughout the season and is one of my all-time favorite roses. Everyone who meets this beauty falls in love.

Koko Loco 

She almost needs no introduction—a crazy rose that goes loco with shades of lavender to taupe while blooming. The darling of floral designers and trendsetters. 

Honey Dijon 

As the darling of floral designers for weddings and events, this rose almost needs no introduction. Honey Dijon’s unique mustard color with pink-streaked tips puts it in a class all by itself. Its parents are two exceptional roses ‘Stainless Steel’ & ‘Singing In The Rain’. One of the most popular cut garden roses here on the farm.

Peach & Copper

Carding Mill 

Beautiful pink to apricot petals adorn this David Austin garden rose. Carding Mill is a wonderful repeat bloomer and loves a warmer climate. From a deep coral in the cooler weather to a light peach in the warm summer sun, it’s a glorious choice as a cut flower for your kitchen table. 

Crown Princess Margareta   

One of my favorite peach roses here at the farm. This David Austin stunner has beautiful rosette-shaped blooms and a pleasant fruity fragrance. With nice long canes, this rose can be grown as a climber or cut regularly for shape making a wonderful shrub. 

Mother of Pearl

A beautiful bloomer throughout the season. Pearl adds a simple elegance to any floral arrangement with petals that are almost iridescent. An exceptional performer in cooler climates and resistant to blackspot in humid locales.

White & Cream

Crocus Rose

A lovely light peach to cream shade, this David Austin rose is a classic with layers of petals. It steals our hearts with every glance. Beautiful rosette blooms open as this rose turns from soft yellow to peach and cream. It’s a true chameleon and a must-have for any rose garden.

French Lace 

French Lace is my favorite cream rose grown here on the farm. Beautiful petite blooms that change from ivory to light apricot with the seasons in a perfect shade of porcelain. Everybody falls in love at first sight with this compact floribunda. 

Tranquillity 

An almost thornless rose with a bright cheery disposition. Its cupped-shaped blooms will flush from summer into fall with nice long stems and lush glossy-green foliage.

You have a new book coming out next month called Growing Wonder: A Flower Farmer’s Guide to Growing Roses. What inspired you to write this book and can you tell us a little more about it? 

The pandemic made me step out of my comfort zone and do something I would never have imagined—write a book. In the middle of the full-blown lockdowns of 2020, the publisher contacted me asking for a meeting and pitched me the idea of writing a book about growing garden roses for cut flower production. I’ll be honest, it took some convincing and a few more meetings to say yes. I, like the rest of the world, had two small kids now at home full-time while I was trying to navigate running a business amid lockdowns, making sure my family and employees stayed healthy, all while doing a 180-degree pivot in my business model when weddings and events were canceled. I honestly didn’t know how or where I was going to squeeze in the time to write a book. Luckily they were very persuasive and I dove into the deep end of the writing pool headfirst.

The inspiration for the book came from all of the wonderful people I’ve met throughout my career in agriculture and more recently in my Menagerie Academy learning community who just want to learn to grow beautiful things. From the home gardener to the aspiring flower farmer I wanted to share all I could so they could make their world more filled with wonder and beauty. I approached the book with that ethos in mind and wanted to give sound advice to people whether they have 10 minutes a week to spend with their roses or 5 hours a day tending to them. 

Every chapter there are tips for my three “rose growing” archetypes: The Weekend Warrior, The Everyday Gardener, and The Aspiring Rosarian. So even the person who thinks they don’t have a green thumb and zero time to spare but has always wanted to grow roses can find information to start growing their own roses as cut flowers. More experienced growers can science geek out with me with more advanced content learning how to use soil tension to guide their irrigation and improve their cultural practices to get those coveted cut flower blooms.

The book covers everything from how to select varieties, the best way to plant, basic insect and disease care, soil evaluation and irrigation methods, how to harvest for cut flower production, proper post-harvest care, my favorite tools of the trade, and more. It’s everything I wish I knew when I started growing garden roses for commercial production. Thank goodness for editors or I may have ended up with War and Peace! I didn’t realize how much I wanted to share until I started typing. 

My hope is that readers, wherever they are in their rose growing journey, will be able to gain the knowledge and confidence to grow their own beautiful garden roses to snip and share.

Erin: I know firsthand how important pre-orders are for the success of a book, especially for first-time authors. We want to help you get Growing Wonder into as many hands as possible. Can you share how readers can pre-order a copy of your new book? 

I will be offering signed copies from the very first print run through my website and these special copies will be available sometime in February. If you are eager to get your hands on one, pre-order from the Menagerie Shop here. 

Growing Wonder will also be available through all major booksellers later in the spring. Right now it’s looking like late March. You can pre-order a copy from Amazon here. It’s also available from Barnes & Noble and Target. 

To celebrate the upcoming release of Growing Wonder, Felicia has given us five deluxe rose goodie boxes to raffle off. Each box will contain a signed copy of her book and three of her favorite bare root roses!

This giveaway is open to residents in the U.S. only. To enter to win, please tell us your experience level (Weekend Warrior, Everyday Gardener, or Aspiring Rosarian) and what you’re hoping to learn from Felicia’s new book or your biggest area of struggle when it comes to growing roses. The five winners will be announced here on Wednesday, January 26. 

Update: A big congratulations to our winners Crystal, Lindsay, Bob Morris, Lynn and Romana Wahid!

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The post The {Farmer} & the Florist Interview: Felicia Alvarez appeared first on Floret Flowers.

In addition to authoring more than a dozen flower- and food-focused books, Sarah teaches cooking and floristry courses at her farm, Perch Hill, and also operates an incredible online garden seed and supply company. Her work has been widely featured in the press and on television, including an appearance on BBC2’s Big Dreams, Small Spaces. I first spoke to Sarah in 2016 as part of the The Farmer & the Florist Interview series after the release of her book, Good, Good Food. I’m thrilled to catch up with Sarah about her newest book, A Year Full of Flowers: Gardening for All Seasons, her collaboration with photographer Jonathan Buckley, and her next creative projects.

Erin: You have multiple talents, having studied history then trained as a doctor, hosted your own television program, written many books, taught gardening and cooking, and of course operating an internationally known business. What led you to really focus on gardening? 

It’s growing stuff, rather than gardening, which is my passion. My garden is my shop, stocked with as many of my favourite food and flowers as I can grow easily here. I love the process of selection, and then growing things from seed — it’s optimistic, future-looking, and almost always rewarding, and all the more so if you trial the things carefully over the years as we have, so you know the time you spend is going to produce exactly what you want. 

Then I love watching the seedlings settle in after planting, growing week by week, with every 52 weeks offering something different if you really look, even the winter. That’s what growing does, gets you out there every day — and as you do, you’ll see things come and others go over. I love noticing that seasonal shift from one week and bout of weather to the next. 

And of course, I love the harvest, picking food and flowers from outside my door. I love cooking too, but as I get older and the family has mainly dispersed, I’m less interested in day-to-day food.  

Erin: Please tell our readers about your new book, A Year Full of Flowers, and the process of putting it together. 

I love teaching, using photographs of the garden Jonathan Buckley and I have collected over 25 years, to show people what you can do with a plot of even the heaviest Wealden clay. That is what we started with at Perch Hill. I love seeing that spark in someone’s eyes that they’ve suddenly clocked into the whole gardening malarkey — how creative, how rewarding, how much fun it can be. 

With lockdown preventing me doing face-to-face teaching, I really want to carry on showing people the best plants I’ve come across in our trials over the last couple of decades, moving through the year to show what we can all have out there. I don’t like tricky, stamp-collector plants. They’ve got to be easy to look after. 

And as well as showing what I think are the best, through the year, I want to teach people the quickest and easiest ways to grow the plants we have here, what our main tasks are month by month. 

So that’s what the book does, with 10 chapters. January/February and November/December are blocked together, but all the other months have a chapter to themselves. And in each chapter, there are my favourite plants for that moment to start each section, moving on to the jobs we’re doing to grow all the plants included in the book. 

Erin: This is another project you’ve done with Jonathan Buckley, your longtime collaborator. I wonder if you’d talk a little about the importance of working with partners who really get your vision.

It’s such a privilege working with people who really know who you are, what you like, love, and want. It means you can really crack on without having to say too much and leave more time and headspace to be creative — to invent new combinations, move on to new ways of doing things and embrace new varieties. 

Jonathan (@jonathanbuckleyphotography) and I have now worked together for 25 years — and on three different photographic themes — gardening, cooking, and wildflowers. They’re related but very different, and he has kind of reinvented how he photographs each, but above all I feel Jonathan has perfected a whole way of getting close-up plant portraits, so that they look glamorous and beautiful and yet are true, without nifty wide-angle lenses and pulled focus. This is one of the cornerstones of our mail-order plant and seed business. So even though our shoots are exhausting, I love them. 

We now also have my friend and colleague, the florist and gardener Arthur Parkinson, helping us on all our shoots, Covid allowing, and he just knows what I want and like, so has hugely helped lighten my load. 

And we wouldn’t have incredible plants and flowers to shoot without Josie Lewis, our head gardener, who leads the growing and gardening team. 

My husband Adam has helped me style the whole place, much better at materials, interiors, and the organisation of space than I am—he has a brilliant eye.

We all work together really closely and have done so now for years. 

Erin: You and your husband spent eight years living at Sissinghurst Castle, your husband’s family home. I wonder how that time, and your study for your book about Vita Sackville-West’s garden, inspired your own work as a garden designer and as a teacher? 

I love Vita’s vision of faded grandeur, and it informs what I do every day. I love the abundance, the on-the-verge-of-chaos-but-not-quite-there-yet look she did so well, as well as the faded tapestry colours with sharp highlights of cobalt blue or brilliant turquoise. 

Sissinghurst is one of the most beautiful built places in the world, I think, with the tumbling, full, romantic garden within its red brick walls, and apparently slightly softly crumbling buildings. They’re not really crumbling at all, of course, because it has been perfectly restored by the National Trust. I absolutely love visiting Sissinghurst — we share one part of the house with our extended family now — particularly when the light is fading or at first light. Then it looks its best.

Erin: How did you choose your farm, Perch Hill, and how has your vision for its design and its function as a teaching center evolved over the past 20 years?

When we left London, Adam was keen to find somewhere quite near Sissinghurst, where his father Nigel lived. We came on lots of trips to look at farms, barns, and bits of land. We had a second viewing of a place up the road from Perch Hill, which was in the end too small. Adam already had three sons when we married, and we had a new baby, and much as we liked that place, there wasn’t enough room for us all. We really loved the spot it was in, very wooded and hilly with a sort of hidden, private feel. It reminded me of the valley of the Lot River (France) where I’d spent holidays. I asked the guy selling the first house where he’d go for a walk and he recommended Willingford Lane. Adam had stayed in London, so I went for a walk with the baby and saw the for sale sign on the road. That was it. 

We didn’t have the money to do the place up straight away, so little by little we’ve made the garden, and restored the buildings, with only one building now left to go which we hope to do this autumn. The place has evolved with us and around what we need. Corona has changed things here — with very few courses now possible, but we open the garden and serve people lunch in an open-sided marquee on the lawn and in the barn, all pre-booked. It feels like a mini festival each time, and we all love it. 

Erin: Could you talk about how your business has evolved over the years? Are there specific periods of growth or experiences, particularly recent ones, that led to key shifts that you’d like to emphasize and discuss?

My business truly is a kitchen table start-up. I took a maternity break from medicine 25 years ago and started to experiment with a childhood passion, growing flowers I could pick for the house. I chose annuals because they were cheap and easy, as well as dahlias — which were then quite tricky to find. There was very little written about growing flowers for the house then, so I started doing my own experiments, comparing square metre patches of 10 different varieties each season, and seeing how long and how much I was able to pick from each one. 

This led to me writing my first book, The Cutting Garden, and then doing my first seed catalogue with 32 varieties of cut flowers. The key thing with growing a business is to recognize where your strengths and weaknesses lie, and as you can as the business grows, recruit to fill the gaps, not to double up on your skills. 

Covid has been hugely challenging for us, with massive growth in our customer base and the problems with stock — and then dispatch with lack of staff through sickness or self-isolation — that goes with that, but I think we’re coming out the other end of the worst of our troubles with all of this now, and the future is exciting. We are hoping to move into glass and pottery, lovely things to live with, as well as grow. 

Erin: What are some of the flower varieties you’ve recently trialed at Perch Hill that you’re excited about?

I never tire of our ever-expanding range of dahlias. We are involved with both tulip and dahlia breeding programmes now and selecting ones that we — and we think our customers — will love, but it’s been so exasperating not being able to travel. I love and am inspired by trips to the trial fields, mainly in Holland, that I go on with my business partner, Lou Farman, in spring and early autumn. I hope for those again this year.

I’m also excited about chrysanths, ones that we can ideally pick from outside right into November. 

We did a big nerine trial here this year, new varieties which you can plant straight into the ground and which flower their first year. That’s exciting. 

Erin: I know color and scent are super-important to you and that you emphasize these characteristics in flowers for gardens. What are some of the flowers you find people are most excited about right now? 

The annual phloxes are huge at the moment — and rightly so. If well-grown, up through double layers of jute netting, we find these brilliant here. 

Roses are increasingly fashionable too, particularly the not just pinks, but the richly scented and coloured forms and the washed-out oyster colours and browns. 

I’ve grown groves of sweet peas here for years, and the tall-stemmed floristry varieties, which have a less powerful scent, are all the rage. I still love the less showy but massively perfumed ones such as ‘Matucana’, and that’s our best-seller. 

Erin: Who are some of the floral artists and gardeners you are following?

I sat in on a web conference last weekend of the European Association for Flower Growers (@euflowergrowers). That was fun to come across: meet, be taught, and shown farms by growers from not just the U.K., but the USA, Chile, Spain, Belgium, and Holland. It was very confirming hearing what flower growers such as Anna Jane (@littlestateflowercompany) and Krishana Collins (@tealanefarm) had to say. Krishana has done lots of experimenting with postharvest conditioning, and even though I’d never heard of her before, we had concluded just the same. 

I also love the no-nonsense teaching style of the three U.K. flower farmers, Rachel Siegfried (@gandgorgeousflowers), Cel Roberston (@forevergreenflowerco), and Roz Chandler (@fieldgateflowers). They all gave inspiring talks last weekend. 

Here, at the moment, I particularly love Anna Potter’s (@swallowsanddamsons) arranging style. And I adore the crazy abundance of Arthur Parkinson’s arrangements, which he does on a weekly basis here when the garden is open. They often stand 5 foot tall. 

Erin: We hear from so many people who are just getting started with growing flowers and with gardening in general. Do you see the trend toward buying local flowers and growing flowers in gardens continuing to go up in the U.K.?

Yes, yes, and yes. This has changed totally since I started 25 years ago. Then everyone thought home-grown or local flowers wouldn’t last, that things such as cosmos, love-in-the-mist, cornflowers were not substantial enough and would be over in a trice. It’s true, annuals don’t last as long as lilies, but if you can get them grown locally outside, not flown or trucked in from thousands of miles away, that doesn’t matter. People are increasingly treasuring their delicate beauty and garden style, not polytunnel/monocultural style.

Erin: What advice would you have for someone starting a flower garden for the first time?

Choose annuals which are cut-and-come-again. You’ve only then invested in a few packets of seed — and with these long-cropping plants (such as cosmos, zinnias, and sweet peas) combined with a good range of shapes and colours of dahlias, you’ll have an easy flower shop outside your door. The more you pick, the more they flower. It’s an ever-filling cup, easy to do, and hugely rewarding. 

If you have the time and room, to these, I’d add a handful of your favourite coloured tulips and a few long-season roses with good vase lives. 

Erin: What are you excited about and inspired by these days, and what new projects do you have on the horizon? 

I want to do more and more writing, recording the trials of the edibles as well as the flowers we’ve grown here over years, so that’s my next project — which I’m working on now — writing A Year Full of Vegetables. 

I also enjoy telling the stories of what we do here, with little films and daily posts on social media, and Arthur and I are just launching a podcast of our favourite plants we’re sowing or are flowering that exact week. 

Our third lockdown has been hard for everyone in the U.K. because it’s winter — grey, wet, and pretty gloomy here in Sussex. One of the optimistic things I’ve been enjoying is posting (@sarahravenperchhill) a photograph of a bunch or mini vase of flowers I’ve picked — from the greenhouse or garden — every day since January first. I’m going to try to keep going till we’re let out! 

Erin: I love this photo series, Sarah, and I’ve enjoyed this interview immensely. I can’t thank you enough for so generously sharing your knowledge and experience with Floret readers.  

To celebrate the release of Sarah’s new book, A Year Full of Flowers: Gardening for All Seasons, we’re giving away 5 copies. To enter, leave a comment below. In your comment, tell us what plant you’re loving most in your garden or neighborhood right now. Winners will be announced on Friday, July 23. 

Please note: If your comment doesn’t show up right away, sit tight; we have a spam filter that requires we approve comments before they are published.

Learn more and connect with Sarah: 

A Year Full of Flowers: Gardening for All Seasons by Sarah Raven (Bloomsbury) with photography by Jonathan Buckley

Sarah’s new podcast: “Grow, Cook, Eat, Arrange” with Arthur Parkinson.

Website: www.sarahraven.com 

Instagram: @sarahravenperchhill

Photos © Jonathan Buckley

Congratulations to our winners: Caitlin Richardson, Patricia Clark, Debbie Piper, Sara and Marcia Pangburn

The post The {Farmer} & the Florist Interview: Sarah Raven appeared first on Floret Flowers.

My interview with Becky a few years back helped to spark a wild idea I had: to one day create some sort of farmer-florist-in-residence here at Floret. Incredibly, that dream eventually took root, and Becky has spent the past year helping us design and plant an English-inspired cutting garden here at the farm. It was Becky who first mentioned Cel in a conversation as we were working in the garden together last summer, and I’m thrilled to introduce Cel to Floret readers here today. 

Cel grows flowers on a 1-acre plot in North Norfolk, England. She brought a background in landscape design and horticulture, along with a deep dedication to protecting the environment, to her business, Forever Green Flower Company. 

Cel’s commitment to sustainability is at the core of Forever Green Flower Company and is reflected in every aspect of her business. She recently created the Sustainability Series, a thought-provoking sequence of Instagram posts that dig deeper into some of the ecological and climate impacts of the flower industry, on both a global and local level. Her educational posts explore global supply chains, chemical use, and greenwashing, as well as the use of plastics and peat in the floral trade.

Erin: You’ve been working in the horticulture industry for more than 20 years. Would you share with Floret readers the story of how you came to create Forever Green?

Horticulture was not on the curriculum at my high school, and to be honest I had never considered it as a career path in my early life. At the age of 16, I became involved in environmental activism in my local community in East London, and it was here that I met a group of people who cared deeply about our natural environment. It was through them that I made my first visits to farms outside of the city. 

I went on to study the history of art and architecture at university, but really my heart wasn’t in it. I dropped out of uni and went to work on an organic farm in Kent; the ethos of this farm was to produce local food for local people. They grew fruit and vegetables that were supplied to customers in local villages on an old electric-powered milk cart via a “veg box scheme,” which was a pretty new concept in the late 1990s. At that time organic agriculture, food provenance, and environmental issues weren’t part of mainstream culture, but now, more than 20 years later, organic food is on our supermarket shelves and is part of everyday life. Food provenance is something that everyone knows about. That shift in understanding about our food systems is what is happening now with flowers.

After spending a couple of years training at different farms, I decided to go back to school; I enrolled at Capel Manor horticultural college back in London to train as a garden designer, bringing together my love of horticulture and creative design. It was there that I met my husband, Robert; we had both enrolled on the Organic Horticulture course as a subsidiary course to our main areas of study. We went on to run our own garden design and landscaping business in London for a number of years before deciding to relocate our family from the city to rural North Norfolk. We have two children, Leia, 23, and Rowan, 19, and we wanted them to grow up somewhere green and safe. 

There isn’t much trade for a garden designer in North Norfolk, and I have always wanted to work for myself rather than be someone else’s employee. I’ve always been driven to work outside, and with my work as a garden designer I wanted to work with flowers rather than go back to growing veg! The British flower movement was gathering pace at around the same time I was considering setting up the flower business, and when I discovered other growers across the U.K., I knew that this wasn’t just a wild idea, but something I could actually do! I found some land to rent in 2013; I developed a business plan, started work on the field, and Forever Green Flower Company began trading in April 2014. I joined Flowers from the Farm at this point too; this is a national network of cut flower growers which offers support and networking opportunities to flower growers in the U.K.

Erin: What led to your decision to focus on flower growing exclusively? Did you have key mentors or others who influenced you?

When I went back to study at horticultural college, I decided to train in garden design rather than practical horticulture because I loved working with colour, texture, light, and movement — just as I did with art and painting. I use plants and flowers in a garden setting much as you might use paint on a canvas. The flower business isn’t just about growing plants for me; it’s also about producing beautiful material in a sustainable way for floral designers to create with. Over the years I’ve moved right away from growing vegetables to growing flowers because that excites the designer in me. 

I’ve been inspired by many fantastic flower growers on my journey — there are a number of growers in the U.K. who are quietly working away, selling amazing flowers and really beginning to build an industry that is going to make a difference. You’re also one of my biggest inspirations, Erin! As well as the gorgeous flowers, you’ve shown us how effective and powerful we can be as a group if we share resources and work together in the spirit of collaboration over competition! This mindset is so at odds with how business usually works, especially the floristry business, but I believe that we will need to work together if we want sustainably grown flowers to be a permanent fixture in the future of flower farming. 

Erin: With your wealth of experience in growing and garden design, you could operate a much larger flower farm. What are the advantages to growing on just 1 acre?

It’s a dream to be able to farm more land! I have been limited by what’s available to rent in my location and the high cost of land here in the U.K. I certainly have plans for what I would like to do in the longer term with a larger acreage that I own myself. 

Starting out on 1 acre has been a really beneficial learning experience for me, though — it means that I’ve had just enough land to grow intensively at scale and prove to myself that I can make a living doing this before making a more significant investment. I’m making my mistakes at a manageable scale! I’m particularly interested in the profitability of smaller, hand-scale farms, and I’ve learnt that bigger doesn’t necessarily equate to “more profitable.” Everything I’ve learned since I started the business will be invaluable going forwards when I finally manage to acquire more land.

Erin: How much assistance do you have with your growing operation and deliveries?

I have to give my husband Robert a shout here. I don’t drive at all — I know, it seems like madness in this day and age — but Robert has been here right from the start with his van delivering flowers for me! He started by running flowers to the farmers markets in London for our first four years, and now he makes local deliveries to customers and farm shops here in North Norfolk during the course of his own working week. I wouldn’t have been able to get this business off of the ground without his support! 

I also employ a driver on a Wednesday afternoon who runs flowers and foliage between my farm and Julie Clark at Hillcrest Flower Garden. He is a grower who is located closer to Norwich, which is the big city in our region. We work together to supply wholesale flowers to florists in our area. 

I have additional help one day a week in the field, but for next season I’m looking at adding more hours for help with cutting as we are so busy. 

Erin: You offer flowers for direct sale to consumers through both delivery and on-farm pick-up. What does your weekly schedule look like, and how do the farm pick-ups fit in? Do they take place within set hours?

I work long hours through the growing season; I’m usually on site by 6 a.m. and finish for the day between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. 

I am open for general sales Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and customers can place bouquet orders for collection direct from the farm through the week. I don’t operate an honesty box or farm stand sales at all. Florists can collect their wholesale orders from 7:30 a.m., and most florist orders are collected from the farm on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I supply four shops with mixed market-style bunches, and these are prepared, delivered and ready for sale in the shops every Friday morning through the growing season. DIY wedding orders are usually collected on Thursdays or Fridays. Flower subscriptions are delivered on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday — I have to be very organised!

Flower club takes place on one Saturday morning a month, and any growing workshops or farm tours scheduled through the year usually take place on a Monday. 

Before the pandemic I would usually spend most of Monday and Tuesday out on the field doing the growing work, with cutting starting on Tuesday evenings through to the end of the week. Most of my sales take place from Wednesday to Friday. This year has seen a shift in my weekly schedule with cutting and selling taking place right from the beginning to the end of the week, and I know that lots of growers in the U.K. have struggled with the necessary growing tasks and having to shift towards running a bigger retail operation in order to get their flowers sold.

With the pandemic our selling schedule has evolved in order for us to maximise sales to mitigate the loss of most of my wholesale flower trade this year. A gift bouquet delivery service was never part of my original business plan. My husband runs his own gardening business, and he travels in a different direction for work each day of the week; we decided to offer a delivery service along his route to work in order to keep the number of journeys we have to make to a minimum and, of course, keep our costs down. Our delivery area is strictly limited, and it has been useful for us to offer this service this year. It has been very hard to keep up with the field work though whilst having to spend so much time making up retail orders through the week, so I’m not sure that I will continue to offer this in the future. 

Although I have a very busy week, I’ve organised my time so that for the most part, I can keep my weekends free. I don’t work on Sundays at all, and I make sure I have at least two free Saturdays through the month as well — I’ve learned that it’s so important to make time for yourself in a labour-intensive business like this!

Erin: How would you describe your typical direct-buy customer?

I work in a coastal/rural area which has an older, more affluent demographic. I sell flower subscriptions and bouquets mainly to female customers. I mostly have female attendees of 40-plus years at the flower club. The common link between these local customers and the couples who buy flowers for their weddings is that they love the seasonal nature of our flowers and they are increasingly concerned with the carbon footprint of their purchases. More and more I hear from my customers that they are actively looking for a local, sustainable alternative to imported blooms. Customers are beginning to think about the provenance of their flowers in the same way as they consider their food, and I really want to encourage this conscious consumerism moving forwards.

Erin: Tell us about your Seasonal Flower Club. Do you have regulars who come to those gatherings year after year?

Our Seasonal Flower Club usually runs on the third Saturday of the month between April and September for up to 12 people. For a couple of hours, you can come to the flower farm and experience the joy of cutting flowers from our field to make your own arrangements at home. It’s a curated cutting experience; I guide our attendees around 10 different varieties from which they can cut stems and then I show them how to strip and prepare each variety for conditioning. I stress the importance of proper conditioning and the effect it has on vase life, and each attendee takes their bucket of flowers home to condition before arranging the blooms later themselves. At each session I demonstrate a different simple, foam-free arrangement technique so that the attendees can see what can be created with the floral material they take home. 

I have a few attendees who return as often as they can; I think they take a lot of pleasure from being able to actually cut blooms straight out of the field. When attendees return for sessions throughout the year they get a real sense of seasonality and a completely different palette of flowers to create with each time they come. It’s a challenge to your creativity to cut whatever is at the perfect stage in the field and make a seasonal arrangement, particularly when you are using floral material that you may never have come across before. It’s a unique experience for flower lovers that you can only get from a visit to a flower farm.

Erin: You also offer business workshops for other flower growers, both on your farm and at other farms who host you. What advice do you have for new growers or those interested in pursuing flower farming?

I really identify as a grower and not a florist, so when I saw the need for more educational courses for growers it felt like a perfect fit for my business. I usually run business workshops at beginners and advanced levels on the flower farm, and I have travelled to other flower farms across the U.K. to deliver my advanced grower’s course. Many people love growing flowers, but being able to run a business that is going to earn you a living whilst providing consistently high-quality product for sale is a real shift from growing a few beds of flowers in your garden. 

My advice for new growers is to invest some time in proper market research about the industry, your customers, and how you plan to market and sell your product. Developing the selling side of your business is crucial — growing the flowers is easy in comparison! Understanding your production costs will be critical to ensuring the difference between running a profitable business and having an expensive hobby. Don’t let your heart rule your head when browsing the seed and bulb catalogues either; it is so easy to get carried away and end up spending your profits on tons of seed you don’t have room for! Proper planning will save you both time and money.

Erin: Your advanced business course and one-to-one business consultations take place via Zoom. Have you had a lot of interest in these offerings this year, when so much of our interaction is taking place online?

Teaching workshops via Zoom is a very different proposition to having personal interaction in a room with course attendees. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed it, and how well the workshops and consultations have been received. One of the great things about online learning is that distance isn’t an issue; I’ve had attendees sign up online who wouldn’t have been able to travel to my location, and I’ve even been consulting with a grower across the other side of the world in New Zealand! With an increase in interest in flower growing over the past year in particular, the workshops often have a waiting list. My beginner level workshop has been suspended due to the pandemic, but I’m looking forward to welcoming new growers back to the flower farm when we are able to at some point in the future!

Erin: You also provide flowers for weddings, including bouquets, boutonnieres, and buckets of loose flowers. Have you been tempted to do more extensive wedding work?

I love seeing florists use our flowers to create wonderful wedding florals, but I must admit I am in no way inclined to take on that floristry work myself! I am quite comfortable providing the wedding party bouquets as part of our DIY wedding offering, but I always pass on enquiries for full-service weddings to florists who are working in my area. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all, and I’m happiest out in the field with my plants! I want to spend my time growing even better flowers for our florists to create beautiful weddings with! I’ll leave the wedding floristry to the experts!

Erin: What factors have been key to the visibility and success of your business?

This is such a good question — what does any business need to do to succeed? For me, the production of high-quality product with consistency is key, as well as clear communication with my customers and showing the knowledge and passion I have for my field of work; all of these factors have been vital to building this business and moving it forward. Every day is a learning opportunity. As a business owner of colour who wants to be part of a sustainable future I must not be afraid to speak up and talk about the wider issues that concern all of us. Social media is my shop window, and the medium fits so well with the visual nature of flower businesses; learning how to use it effectively to reach my customers and tell my story — without it becoming a chore — has made a world of difference to my visibility in the marketplace.

Erin: What do you enjoy most about your business, and what do you find most challenging?

I love the process of growing plants for a purpose: starting with a seed or a perennial division, nurturing the plant, and producing gorgeous flowers that bring so much joy to people. Handing over a bouquet filled with blooms that I have grown knowing they haven’t been flown in or sprayed with chemicals through their production. I know that I am very lucky to be able to just stop in the middle of my day to watch the dragonflies flitting by in the field, or watch a flock of finches settle in some seed heads to feed. 

In my 20-plus years in horticulture, one thing in particular is making growing flowers for a living quite a challenging task, and that thing is our changing climate. I talk to small-scale flower growers all over the world, and the changes to our weather as a result of climate change seems to be a worrying challenge for the future that we are all facing, wherever we happen to be located across the globe. I’m committed to working in a sustainable way to mitigate the effects of my own footprint, but it is certainly a challenge to understand the complexities and nuances of all of the purchases and decisions we make. There is a constant process of learning and engagement required which will be an ongoing challenge for me. 

Erin: What new projects or ideas are you working on now, and what would you like to pursue next?

I’m always trialling new varieties on the flower farm, and at the moment I’m working on widening the range of perennial varieties I have for sale. You know yourself how long it takes to trial varieties to add to the production schedule, but it’s a process that allows me to indulge my love of plants! In the longer term I would really like to concentrate more on wholesale supply of flowers, but that depends on access to more land which is the next step for me. 

I’m also developing new workshop courses at the moment. I’d like to offer a couple of courses that go into a little more depth on specific topics. I’m undecided as yet whether to put the new workshops online, but working in person with the restrictions due to the pandemic does make things more complicated! I hope to offer a mix of online and on-farm workshops if circumstances allow. 

One thing that is always at the forefront of my mind is how growers can sell more flowers locally. I work in collaboration with Hillcrest Flower Garden to bring a wider range of flowers to our florist customers, and the idea of developing local wholesale hubs or flower markets is a perennial topic of conversation! I think that it’s so important for growers to build relationships to sell directly to floral designers just like the co-ops we see in the U.S. Groups of growers across the U.K. are starting to try to get local hubs going; there are a number of challenges with this approach to selling, but I really hope that dedicated local, wholesale, sustainable flower markets are something we can develop in the future — watch this space! 

Erin: Cel, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today and for sharing your experience with us. I’ve really loved having the opportunity to learn more about you and your farm and business. Next time I get to England, I hope that we have the opportunity to connect in person. 

Be sure to follow Cel on Instagram if you aren’t already. In addition to sharing beautiful photos of her farm and flowers, she recently launched a series of educational posts focused on the environmental benefits of locally grown flowers. 

Connect with Cel: 

Website: https://forevergreenflowerco.co.uk  

Instagram: @forevergreenflowerco

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forevergreenflowercompany/ 

The post The {Farmer} & the Florist Interview: Cel Robertson of Forever Green Flower Company appeared first on Floret Flowers.

Erin: Thank you so much for taking time to share your story with Floret readers. For those not familiar with your work, can you share an overview of your story?

Frances: I’ve been a potter for over 30 years and did not begin until I turned 30, though I’ve made art since I was young and originally aspired to be a printmaker. When we moved out to Weston, Connecticut, with a newborn daughter, and I felt completely overwhelmed, I signed up for a throwing class at a nearby art guild. I knew immediately that pottery was my métier, and it combined all the things that I love to do. I am fascinated by the process from start to finish. My work is primarily functional, formed on the pottery wheel and thrown in mainly three clay bodies: white earthenware, terracotta, and high-fire translucent porcelain. In the early years, I worked in the house while our three children were growing up. Now, I have a barn next to the house and spend most of my time there. There are two gardens next to the studio where the flowers are grown for my photography.

Erin: Your career began in arts administration, but you left that behind decades ago and have worked in the creative arena yourself ever since. Your new book, Life in the Studio, is such a rich record of your path and also your day-to-day process. Is the book a project you’ve wanted to do for a long time?

Frances: My literary agent urged me for a long time to do a book, but I felt that I wasn’t ready or clear about what I wished to say. Then, Artisan Books asked me to write about my studio philosophies in order to inspire others. In general, I prefer my art to speak for itself, so it was challenging to put down on the page principles that I have held since the start of my career. Most of the time, because I am in the studio alone, my strategies live in my head and go no farther than family and friends. Some essays were easier to articulate than others, but I wrote for two years to explain my creative path, and it has been a worthwhile experience.

Erin: So many of our readers are yearning to express their creativity and might be waiting for certain things to fall into place first. But in the introduction to your book, you talk about unpredictability, and also about how following artistic dreams doesn’t mean you have to completely change your everyday life. Can you talk more about balancing creative intentions with unpredictability and less-than-ideal circumstances?

Frances: I was trying to say that even if one can’t afford to give up a means of support in order to fully follow a creative desire, small steps can be taken, allowing space to start. A table in a room, a special chair, a wheel at a communal pottery. One or two hours a week. It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition, and gradually, the balance will start to shift. It takes time and patience, and sometimes one’s in the middle of change before it is acknowledged. Mostly, just keep at whatever inspires you, and even a little is a movement forward. Just knowing that you are allowing yourself that creative time makes a huge difference.

Erin: Your book has an entire section devoted to dahlias: their history, your favorite varieties, and how you care for the tubers and plants throughout the year for a season of blooms. Clearly you’ve been bitten by the dahlia bug! Can you say more about what these blooms, and gardening in general, mean to your work and your inspiration?

Frances: I’ve been growing dahlias now for over 26 years. I first spied them in a book and was immediately obsessed. When I began, they were out of fashion, and gardening friends were dismissive of my enthusiasm. But I was and still am captivated by their exuberance, color, and form. I love that dahlias bloom from late summer through to frost and get better and more eccentric as the season moves on. I am also fascinated by their provenance and how they are bred. Heirloom dahlias have a lot to say about the culture of their time, depending on origin. I am an art historian by education. I love to study the history of plants, as well as ceramics, and how the two intertwine in my craft. It is not just about planting a flower in the garden. I do a tremendous amount of research on all the flower types that I select.

Erin: You cover so many themes that have come up in your years of creative practice, including believing in your intuition about whether a potential commission is a good fit or not. Can you share more about learning to trust your gut?

Frances: I give each project complete attention and only send out work that is my best effort. At the start of my business, I accepted all opportunities, even if the job was something that did not really align with my design aesthetic. Over time, I realized that, if possible, it was most important to only undertake collaborations that I could be enthusiastic about. Fortunately, I’ve had only a few requests that I’ve turned down, but it is important to ask yourself a few questions before moving forward. If you listen to yourself, that is the best guide, as instinctively, you know if something is right for you. It is when you don’t listen that things can go awry.

Erin: You also write about how you initially bought ads to get word out about your pottery but eventually found that photography—which you have taken time to learn yourself—was the best tool. Would you recommend that other creatives learn to photograph their own work as a way of telling their story?  

Frances: Yes, I think that it is important for an artist to learn photography for a number of reasons. Photos keep a record of your work, showing evolution. No one will see your art the way that you do, so hiring a photographer can be expensive and unsatisfactory. At the end of the day, you will know best how to interpret your ideas and give the best expression. In the age of social media, it is important to be able to capture a spontaneous moment, and if you always have a camera or phone with you, this is easily accomplished. In these times, many digital and print magazines request you to supply your own high-resolution photos because they are unable to send a photographer. It is crucial to know how to provide these, which increases your visibility editorially. Finally, taking photos trains your eye to see things that are happening visually around you. Once your consciousness is raised, it is exciting to find new ways to capture the world.

Erin: I was really struck by the part of the book where you talk about your creative community, about how you wanted your daughter to be around artistic, accomplished women—and about how she has so many “other mothers” she can rely on. You write, “As much as I love my family, there is no substitute for having another woman to talk to about anxieties, fears, triumphs, tribulations, and the day-to-day job of being female.” I love this! Can you share more?

Frances: While there is much to admire in the accomplishments of famous women, I am most inspired by the women I know personally and witness their courage in facing the challenges of daily life. As mentioned, I work alone, so my friendships are tremendously important. Everyone needs empathy and support, yet also truthfulness. Having my women friends to talk to makes all the difference. But it is not a one-way street—I am glad to hear their thoughts equally, and we talk about politics, gardens, making things with our hands, children, and on and on. If we all lived in a communal village and sat around while we worked, that would be wonderful. But as that is not the current mode of things, get-togethers and conversation are gifts and highly cherished.

Erin: Who are some of the artists or people working in other arenas who are inspiring you now?

Frances: I am reading the biography of Ruth Asawa (Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa, by Marilyn Chase), a Japanese-American artist (1926-2013) who as a teenager lived in the Japanese internment camps during World War II. She had an indomitable spirit in spite of this terrible hardship and went on to be an incredible artist of elegant wire mesh sculptures, as well as a community activist in the San Francisco school system during the 1960s. The USPS has just released a stamp collection of her sculptures. I recently finished reading a book by Isabella Tree called Wilding, about returning her family’s land that had been farmed for over a century back to the natural landscape. As a result, all sorts of plants, insects, and animals that were on the verge of extinction reappeared and flourished. Tree describes how interwoven and integral each aspect of nature is to the other and how this needs to be preserved for the health of the earth.

Erin: What are some of the projects you’re currently working on that you’re most excited about, and what are you dreaming of doing next?

Frances: I am very excited about the release of my book, as it will be the culmination of two years of writing and photographing. I also am having a photography exhibition at Wave Hill, a wonderful public garden on the Hudson River in the Bronx, New York. My photos are in Wave Hill House September 12th through to December 31st. Additionally, my wood-fired pots are part of an installation at the Eliot Noyes House in New Canaan. I am looking forward to making and firing new pots in my wood kiln that I had built last year near my studio. Creating the glazes for this is fascinating, and then to see how the ash from the wood transforms the pots is magical. It takes time and focus, and I love moving my work in this direction.

Erin: Thank you so much, Frances, for taking the time to share your story with Floret readers. I continue to be inspired by your work, and I know so many of our readers will learn from what you’ve shared. 

To celebrate the release of Frances’s new book, Life in the Studio: Inspiration and Lessons on Creativity, we’re giving away 5 copies. Winners will also receive Frances’s beautiful new 750-piece dahlia puzzle. For a chance to win, simply post a comment below. In your comment, tell us what inspires you most about Frances and her work. Winners will be announced on Friday, October 23rd.

A big congratulations to our winners: Victoria Summers, Melinda, Christina, Olivia Josephine and Angie Choly!

Please note: If your comment doesn’t show up right away, sit tight; we have a spam filter that requires we approve comments before they are published.

Learn more and connect with Frances Palmer.

Book: https://amzn.to/2F8pxFS

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/francespalmer/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/francespalmer

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Frances-Palmer-Pottery

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/francespalmer/

Website: https://www.francespalmerpottery.com/

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