Everyone loves a just-plucked bunch of seasonal flowers – and these creatives have made beautiful blooms their way of life.
The garden retreat
For Alison Hayes a pastel coloured wooden workshop at the bottom of her garden is a treasure trove of treats for any would-be florist.
It’s the HQ of Flowers from the Garden, the green-fingered enterprise that was an escape from Alison’s previous career as a disability nurse.
‘It was by accident really’, laughs Alison. A keen amateur, she had enjoyed floristry courses and growing her own flowers. One day someone knocked on her door – looking for a neighbour.
They noticed that she grew her own flowers and asked if she would sell them at the Green Valley Grocer cooperative in Slaithwaite.
‘I started by selling small bunches of cornflowers, then started to do little posies and as people got to know about me, they asked me to do other things’, explains Alison.
Demand grew and Alison to expand into wedding flowers, creating natural-looking bouquets for brides. It also prompted her to get further training with a highly trained florist on a one-to-one basis while also going round the country doing intensive workshops and flower courses to help her hone her skill.
‘I did it in an organic way. I’ve developed with the business depending on what people want, but done this in my own way’, she says.
Deciding to teach her own workshops on an occasional basis, and calling on her teaching experience in nursing, she saw the business grow as people sought out the escape of creating with flowers.
All the flowers used in Alison’s workshops are grown in her garden, with the posy workshop being her favourite.
‘People go out into the garden and it’s so lovely watching people’s faces deciding what they want to pick, it’s like watching children in a sweetshop.’ Wreath workshops are also a joy to her as she’s noticed many people come back year-on-year to do them as part of their Christmas tradition.
But these days the wreath is definitely not just for Christmas - with Easter, spring and summer versions highly popular, as well as too dried flower versions.
This year Alison will be introducing a new workshop called ‘Thoughtful Flowers’ which will be a day dedicated to the meaning behind flowers. Clam and mindfulness is at its heart as participants head to her garden hideaway for a few hours’ escape.
There will be a mindful arranging session, as well as a meditation in the garden.
‘The day is all about going away and feeling really relaxed and at one with yourself.’
It’s a feeling that Alison is only too aware of, working daily with nature and the cycle of growth.
Sustainability is important to the way she works, a message she is keen to pass on during her courses.
‘I don’t use chemicals, I compost, I save water, I invite creatures in by having insect houses’, she says.
The workshop she teaches from has even found a new life – it once housed various animals. Now it’s a haven to all things floral, a place, she has noticed, that is a refuge of sorts.
‘Some people who come breathe a sigh of relief when they walk through the door. They leave their worries behind and feel a sense of achievement when they do something they didn’t think they could do.’
Check Alison’s website for this year’s workshops.
flowers-from-the-garden.co.uk
The farmer florist
Suzie Rush was always destined to do something creative. Having originally gone to art school to study 3D craft design, she tried her luck as an artist, but found it a struggle to find paid work.
She thought retraining as a landscape designer might be the answer; ‘but I didn’t want to do it as it wasn’t dirty enough!’. It turns out that flowers, or at least growing them, is a dirty business, so she followed the garden path and that’s where she ended up – in a countryside plot in Kilburn, North Yorkshire.
For seven years she honed her gardening skills through a tenancy tending the walled garden at Thirsk Hall. When that ended in 2020 a friend suggested she farm her own flowers in their field. She moved the whole thing up to Kilburn and started work on her 1.5 acre patch, redesigning the field from hay so it flowers progressively to make for productive picking.
Picked at Dawn was born – and does exactly what it says, if not on the tin, then certainly on the gardeners’ trug. Suzie grows all her own flowers for her floristry arrangements and workshops, anything she can’t get she will source from a fellow Yorkshire grower and, ‘has never imported a single stem in my life.’
Her hands are definitely dirty these days, sowing, pruning, picking and preserving her flower harvest. Running a variety of workshops from spring through to winter, Suzie’s workshops can be just a couple of hours on a Sunday through to a full day, but each student will not only come away with a beautiful arrangement, but also techniques that are transferable.
You’ll know at what stage to cut flowers, right through to pollination.
Suzie recognises that there is a lust for a life in flowers and one of her favourite workshops is called, appropriately enough ‘I’d love your job’.
‘Participants do everything from sowing the seeds, working with plants that are further established, and arranging flowers, so in just one day they get the full circle of what I do’, says Suzie.
For her, the best part of running workshops has to be seeing the faces of participants when they see the field; ‘It’s such an expanse - and also their expression when they see a flower or something they love.’
Suzie likes to believe the workshops give everyone more than just a nice day out surrounded by beautiful flowers. ‘I hope it gives them a different outlook so they look at nature differently and notice what goes on.
‘I also think it helps people’s confidence grow; they come thinking they can’t do it, but the confidence come from letting people explore.’
She loves to see people discover themselves through flowers -people can do what they like, take what they’re drawn to and pick something for them.
‘It’s lovely to see what people make, it reflects them as a person – part of you comes out in the creation’, she adds.
Growing and nurturing are what Suzie loves the most. ‘My biggest buzz of the year is when the seedlings pip through. I come up to the field with a cup of tea in the morning to see what’s germinated overnight. It’s watching the tiny seedlings grow to then be in a wedding bouquet – that’s the real magic.’
Workshop: ‘I'd love your job’.
A day for those who want the full floral experience.
April 22, £170.
pickedatdawn.co.uk
The artistic flourish
Sarah Statham swapped the sterile surroundings of court rooms for the more fragrant and flourishing landscape of flower meadows and her business, Simply by Arrangement.
The former lawyer turned to a more natural way of life after a 20-year career when, ‘one day, I found I needed to grow more flowers and to teach others how to use them to bring lightness, depth and soul into each day,’ she says.
Her career change saw her retrain to qualify as a florist and life changed forever.
No two days are the same for Sarah now. Each day brings a new armful of blooms and new people who love them.
Located just outside of Hebden Bridge, Sarah spends most of her time growing flowers and making floral designs that are wildly abundant - full of texture movement, and life, so they look as though they are still growing.
Sarah’s workshops can be about creating designs that looks like Dutch masters with their own story to tell and many feature a photographic tuition element too.
It’s important for Sarah to only use the flowers she’s grown, or sourced from other growers, as long as they are British-grown flowers.
Her philosophy is a natural one, ‘seeking to capture a floral moment in time, using the gentlest of techniques, from growing our own flowers organically or sourcing them locally, to creating designs in a naturalistic way’, she says.
During her workshops, or teaching people her way of ‘doing the flowers’, she encourages others to pursue their own dreams and their own way with flowers. In many ways Sarah’s approach is not only enjoying watching flowers grow, but people as well.
Teaching a variety of workshops, not just in Yorkshire, but around the UK, her favourites are one-to-one sessions. She often collaborates with other florists, too and runs The Knackered Florists’ Retreat at Middleton Lodge near Richmond for a day of relaxation after a busy season.
Tulips are one of her most loved flowers to grow.
‘I see them almost as collector’s pieces’, she says.
‘They’re always new and unusual and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, plus it’s so cool they just keep growing’, which is why her tulip workshops, which start in April, are so popular.
When asked what people get most out of the workshops she thinks it’s the escape from their day-to-day routine. Instead of dealing with life’s trivia, they get a day of joy and relaxation while making something beautiful.
Workshop: The Tulip
April 12&14
Half day, six people, includes lunch, a vessel and flowers to take home, and photographs. £150.
simplybyarrangement.co.uk
