If you're someone who has a pressure for cut flowers, our environment and wants to make
the world more beautiful, you're in the right place.
Whether you're growing flowers for pleasure or profit, I'm on a mission to empower flower
enthusiasts and professionals to help change the world around me.
Whether you're just starting out and needing help in hand or looking to scale a substantial
flower business, I'm your cut flower woman.
Welcome to the Cut Flower Pods.
So Jo, thanks very much for joining us on our podcast today.
Both of you do.
Tell us about yourself, tell us about your journey and how you come to be doing what
you're doing today.
Take a little bit about you.
Okay.
Well, I would say that I always love flowers.
Even when I was a little tiny, tiny tote, I would use to, I'd go for all with my mum,
I'd always come back with a bunch of something from somewhere, even if it was weeds off the
road or just always love them.
And then I grew up and moved to London, didn't know what I wanted to do, ended up doing nursing.
I did my training at Charing Cross Hospital, met my husband, always continued to love flowers
and wanted to do something more creative.
Never really felt like nursing was my calling, although I did it for about 12 years.
And I enjoyed it.
It just never felt like exactly the right place to be.
And then when my son was three and I was kind of thinking about going back to work, I had
a kind of chance meeting with somebody at the school gates.
She was a florist and cook.
And she was going off to New Covent Garden the following day.
And I'd never been.
And I said, I'd really love to come.
That would be great.
And she said, oh, come, come, come with me.
So she picked me up at four in the morning and we went off to New Covent Garden when it
was still, I mean, that was, you know, 22 years ago now.
So it was still at nine alms in its bigger, kind of slightly messier state.
And it was so busy then, you know, it was really busy.
There was lots of trolleys going.
It was just a really fantastic place to be.
And the kind of market calf was, you know, out and it was just full of, it was brilliant
anyway.
So I was kind of, I was addicted basically from the first moment that I put in the place.
And then she said to me, do you want to do some jobs with me?
So I went to work with her and they were big corporate jobs really.
So we did lots of stuff with the Dorchester.
Did lots of charity events, Lord's Crickett Ground, London Zoo, all sorts of, you know,
massive kind of.
So that was kind of a bit of a kind of, yeah, a really kind of fun introduction to floristry.
But I think even then, you know, I just, I knew I wanted to work with seasonal English
flowers.
And I went to do the first or the kind of, when Sarah Raven first set up her kind of
cutting garden courses.
I went and did one and we literally had lunch in the kitchen in her kitchen.
So I think she'd been doing it for about six months.
So that was brilliant.
And I thought, right, that's it.
I'm going to grow.
I'm going to grow my in.
And then we left London, moved to Devon.
And I had small children.
And it kind of was this continuous kind of, I kept trying and failing and trying and failing
and then I'd find somewhere that I could grow.
And then it would all get out of hand.
And eventually, when the children were kind of teenagers, I finally kind of got myself
to, I committed to growing at home, which I'd struggled with because home's quite shady.
We're surrounded by massive beach trees.
So we have a very small area that, so I think I needed to feel confident in my ability
to grow, to actually kind of commit to growing at home.
So that was it then, really.
Then I kind of got cracking and started growing at home.
And then once I'd done that, then I was very happy to kind of drop Dutch flowers.
And then I became a kind of purely British flower florist and continue to do events in
Devon.
Big step.
A big step.
It was nerve-wracking.
It took me a long time to really kind of, I knew I always wanted to do it.
But it was the confidence to know that I could get the flowers that I wanted to do the job
that I, you know.
But it's got easier.
I mean, it's so much better now than it was.
And there are so many more growers.
And I now have five or six brilliant growers who are all within 40 minutes of me.
So I know that I can go and get a bucket of British flowers, you know, in season, whenever
I want them really, which is fantastic.
Changed my life, really.
I think it's definitely worked.
I've talked to a lot of florists.
I think the thing that we haven't really sorted out yet is the whole British flower movement,
really, is the whole supply chain.
So it's all right for a florist.
So just so you've got a big event at the Dorchester and you want to do it with the flowers.
The biggest issue you've got is that not really many growers have everything you could
possibly want.
So you might have to go there for the roses and some roses.
That's it.
It's the time, absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And there are people trying to, you know, there is one.
Near us called the Southwest Flower Hub or something.
And that's exactly what they tried to do just outside Bristol.
And they were trying to kind of bring growers together and then get people to kind of commit
to, and I don't know how they're doing actually.
And truth is I haven't used them because it still involved me driving up to Bristol
to go and get.
And I've got people who are closer to me.
So it's easier, you know, but yeah.
They do that in the States.
They have, I went last year to a conference in August to Boston and they do that, they
do that cooperative themselves.
So either it's a profit making cooperative and somebody sets up or it's a cooperative
with all members and they have a central point where all the growers take all their
stuff to that central point and then all the florists go online and buy what they want
in the same way as the Dutch.
And then the florists goes to one place and picks it up and the story.
That's fantastic, isn't it?
So really that's what we've got to do because you can't ask the florists to try more than
30 minutes to collect her stock.
Well no, because everything is so time sensitive when you're doing an event.
You know, you've only got a certain amount of time.
You've got to be in and out of your venue.
You know, all of those things that kind of stack up against you mean that you just don't
have the time to kind of travel, you know, to several different.
So if we could get that set up, America's always a bit further ahead than us, aren't
they?
Well, I went and I spoke to a few co-oxins, really interesting.
And they are, they have a more cooperative nature as well.
So it's sort of a bit more, it is easier and a bit work where we tend to be a little
bit too competitive with each other rather than going, okay, how can we make this all
work together?
And until we crack, I mean, I talk to florists all the time who buy from me and it's like,
oh, it's all right, Rose, but you know, I can come and get 50% of what I want, but
then I need to go here, there, there, and after I've driven all day, yes, it doesn't
make financial sense for me.
So I'd love to be able to find a way of cracking that.
But I think it would be brilliant because I think we're now over the hump, you know,
now people are understanding that, you know, just because you have, if you have British
flowers, they will last as long, they will, you know, all of those things, you know, people
are educated, more educated than they were, definitely.
I'll probably go last very long, or they're difficult to work with, or all of those things,
exactly, which kind of seem to have fallen a bit by the wayside really, which is good,
really, really good.
So yeah, so that's kind of where I got to.
And up until about two or three years ago, I was just a Devon events wedding florists,
really, using British flowers.
I'm busy and happy.
Whereabouts?
Whereabouts in Devon are you, babe?
So we live on Dartmoor.
Yeah.
And we are literally kind of, we can see the high moor from one part of our garden.
So we really are, you know, kind of on the moor.
And we love it.
It's an amazing place to live.
Have a look at Beck's part, she obviously made the move out of London, and it's kind
of like, creative types tend to move out of London eventually.
And one of my, I think it's a degree in Plymouth, actually, my father lives in London.
So I spent my field trips on Dartmoor.
So I kind of know the area quite well.
So you know, yeah.
It's quite remote in some parts, which is obvious.
It is.
And I really struggled with that for a long time.
You know, having, you know, we lived in London for, I think I was there for about 17 years
before we came to Devon.
So it was kind of in my blood.
And literally about, you know, kind of three or four years ago, we tipped into having lived
on Dartmoor for longer than we lived in London.
And that was really weird because I was thought of London as home, which is ridiculous.
So but I could, I don't think I could leave now.
I think I love it that much.
It's, yeah, it's absolutely in my blood.
It really is.
I love the other thing I find is a lot of freelance florists work for me, are ex-nurses.
Ex-nurses are ex-ts
I think I always want to do something creative.
I did my nursing when I was, I was a bit lost, I think, actually.
I was a bit kind of, I didn't really know what I, what I wanted to do with my life.
And my mum had been a nurse, you know, that kind of classic, you know.
And you know, I don't regret it for a minute.
It was a, it was a brilliant, brilliant thing to do.
And it gave me a really good training.
And it gave me all those years in London.
And I specialised, I did ophthalmology and I went to more fields and, you know, I still
look back on it with great fondness and loved it.
It was great.
But, but the whole time I was there, I kept trying to leave and I left and I did things
like I went to work to inhabit X, I thought I wanted to dress windows and then I left
and went and worked in a cafe and I kept trying to kind of, and then I, and then I just kind
of rolled back into nursing.
I just think, oh, I know I can, you know, I can earn more money.
I can, yeah, yeah.
So it was, it was having children and having that force break and stopping.
So I kind of left the NHS and then I was like, right.
Okay.
Now, now's my moment.
So yeah.
That's got a team here at Moment doing Mother's Day and they're all nurses.
That make you laugh.
That's really funny.
That's really funny.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ex-nurses.
Yeah.
Well, I would be really interested to maybe it's something we come to a bit later in life.
Yeah.
Maybe.
I kind of regret that in a way.
You know, there is a little bit of me that kind of thinks I love this so much.
I wish I'd been doing it forever.
And I, and I do quite often think that I kind of think, oh, all those years that I was doing
other things that I could have been working with flowers.
If only I'd known that this is what I, you know, that I could have a career in it maybe
or, but anyway, we are where we are.
We are where we are.
Yeah.
That's where you are in your current business.
You know, what inspires what you do on a day to day basis.
So I decided about kind of two or three years ago, we had a few kind of major life changes.
I decided that I didn't want to be doing event floristry anymore.
And I didn't feel as excited by it as I had done.
And I kind of thought having got to a place where I loved working with flowers, I wanted
to continue doing things which inspired and excited me.
So I started to move away from it and then COVID happened.
And again, another enforced break.
As you can see, I'm not very proactive.
I'm a bit reactive.
So it pushed me into kind of making some decisions that I was kind of teetering on the brink
of anyway.
And then, and then after that, I kind of, I would kind of say I was a bit lost for a
little while.
I was really kind of floundering around.
I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do or where I wanted to take my business.
I knew I wanted to continue to arrange flowers.
I knew I wanted to continue to grow.
But I just, I was just, you know, working out how I could make some money out of it,
really.
And I continued all the way through COVID.
I did, you know, as many arrangements as I could, I continued to arrange and photograph
and post on Instagram and talk to people and, you know, think really about where I was
going.
And then I did a days, kind of a floristry day with Lucy Hunter and Gabriella from La
Musse de Las Flores in Wales last year.
And it was amazing, as you can imagine, because Lucy's studio is absolutely beautiful.
And I came away from that feeling like I'd learned a lot, but not necessarily about the
things that I thought I would learn a lot about.
It's weird how that happens.
And I kind of thought I'm not very good in a position where somebody says to me, here
are some flowers, this is how you do it.
Now you go and do it.
And but I love being with people and taking inspiration from the people that I'm with
and the places that I'm at and the chat.
And I kind of thought I would really like to set something up where people can come and
feel less pressure, but can be given this amazing kind of creative space just to do exactly
what they want and all of the flowers and all of the.
And so that was kind of what I started, I started to think I'd like to do some workshops
and I'd like to do collaborative workshops.
And then Bex very sweetly asked me to her book launch in the summer.
And I hadn't met her before we chatted on Instagram and I went along to that.
And again, I felt massively inspired by the people that I was surrounded by and I chatted
to people and I thought, right, that's it.
I've got to be brave and do this.
And then it was just a matter of finding a venue.
And so I kind of, as you know, that's where Beltane came from.
And I have, I went down to Cornwall last summer on holiday and we stayed in a cottage at Prussia
Cove and while we were there, these barns were being done up, which were previously the
studio of an amazing artist called Romy Beren's.
And I kind of walked into them and I was like, this is it.
It was just, it was just like everything kind of dropping into place.
It was lovely.
It was a nice feeling.
And then I started to talk to Grace and Bex and, you know, eventually Brit and lovely
Jackie and we put together a team and that was it.
And it is just about exactly that.
And we all feel exactly the same way.
We want to invite people to this space to understand their creativity, what it is that
makes them want to create.
And obviously Flowers are at its heart and the natural world and the inspiration that
we draw from that.
But just to give people the kind of, the gift of time with some gentle tuition so that if
anybody wants to, I mean, there will be demonstrations and there will be some tuition, but really
it's about giving people space and time and inspiration really.
When is it?
When is Beltane?
When is it?
When is it?
When is it?
It's the last weekend in April.
Yeah.
It's very soon.
Yeah.
So, which is, Beltane is a pagan festival and it is the, you know, beginning of May so
it's the kind of spring.
So, and Cornwall's amazing at that time of year.
It's so beautiful.
Yeah.
So, so yeah.
And from that, I'm also, I'm just beginning to start to write a little bit and my, and
I've also found a printer in Exeter, so I'm having some of my photographs printed out
to sell.
So, I think I'm changing, I am definitely changing what I do, but it still has Flowers
very much at its core and I'm still.
Yeah.
And I think collaboration, it sounds like to me.
Yeah.
And, because Beltane may be the start and might be things after that.
And I think probably Instagram does that, doesn't it, allows you to collaborate and meet
the...
Does.
And then who knows where it's going?
None of us know where it's going, do we?
No.
Absolutely.
But if you just open up, just podcasting, actually, just opening up and interviewing people and
chatting people.
Well, I imagine for you, chatting to people, all sorts of different people all the time,
that must be fantastic, sort of inspiration.
I love it.
Yeah, I bet you do.
I'm really inspiring.
Yes.
And, like you say, set up a journey of podcasting, if you are Canadian then, but it wasn't what
I expected it to be.
No.
And then the other thing that I didn't expect was when I set up online courses doing COVID,
to teach people to grow their own cup flowers, which I do, and I predominantly am a lot of
my business now.
So I teach people who want to grow cup flowers for themselves and then people who want to
do it for profits or flower farmers.
And then also I teach flower farmers how to seriously make profit in their business because
a lot of them don't.
Yeah, I'm sure.
And I'm all about that.
And my background as a marketing director and a sales director, so it's kind of a little,
I put flowers and lots of marketing together and how you know, kind of works.
I was teaching people doing COVID, how to grow their own cup flowers.
Just normal people who nurses, people who are in the NHS, all sorts of people signed
up to this course.
And then what I discovered halfway through the course was actually all these people doing
it for loads of different reasons.
You know, some were doing it for bereavement and some were doing it because their jobs
were really stressful and some were doing it because they were signed off work and some
were doing it loads and loads of different reasons.
And then when I interviewed all these people, I think they were 20, I wrote a book about
them.
I was really humbled by it and I thought, oh my goodness, if I grow in flowers, it's kind
of changed their lives.
And that's like one big statement you think, well, how can that possibly have happened?
And then it did.
And so there is a book on Amazon called Seed Deviles, All About the Changing of People's
Lives.
And then I spoke to somebody on a podcast and they've done something similar, a lady called
Alice Vincent.
Oh, I know Alice.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know her, but I just ordered her book actually.
Yes, her book.
Yes, her book.
Why Women Grow?
The podcast.
And I'm going to listen to that while someone, I go away next week, I've got downloaded it
ready.
And she's phenomenal and she went all over the country doing COVID and interviewed women.
And it was all about, and she said she was completely humble.
You know, she interviewed refugees.
She interviewed all sorts of people.
And she was really humbling about why the women grow and what is it about doing that
makes us all connect together and honestly.
And then that's what I get from podcasting is you interview so many amazing people that
you think, wow, how did that happen?
And yeah, so I think Alice is really, I think it's really today, Alice's podcast.
She was brilliant, really brilliant.
Yeah, I'm sure she was.
I'm sure she was really interesting to talk to.
So why women, just about to have a baby.
Like I mean, literally, I know she's so close, isn't she?
I know.
Very impressive.
I know it's me, they said, well, I do drop any time now.
I'm thinking, yeah.
But she was really interesting.
So I love that part of my job in meeting those other people and being inspired in the same
way you do that, the collaboration of it and how, what that looks like.
I mean, Bell Tainte will be amazing.
Yeah, I mean, it is, I think, I think when I go and do courses and I've done a few of
them, because I can't resist going and seeing, it is exactly that.
It is that, it's that kind of, it's being with other people who love the same things
as you do and seeing how they think about it and how they do it and just chatting to
them really.
Yeah.
And the space that you're in and the drive that you take to get there and going and seeing
someone, I mean, I'm curious, I suppose, I'm, you know, I'm interested and yeah, that
is what inspires me, you know, or one of the things, one of the things that inspires
me to kind of do what I do really.
It's a collaboration.
I'm being an event florist is hard work.
It is hard work.
It is.
It is.
It is.
And I had done it for a long time, you know, I've done it for 20 years and I hadn't thought,
I think I'm allowed to stop this now.
I think I'm allowed to go and do something different.
Yeah.
I mean, I, my previous career was I was an events manager, if you like, for a, and we
used to do events all over the world and take corporate people all over the world.
So I organized the event rather than the floral side of it.
And I have to say, yeah, it's hard.
Yeah.
I think it's the frantic nature of it, isn't it?
Really?
It's that the truth is it doesn't matter how well prepared you are, you know, at some
point you're going to have to hit the ground and you're going to run and you might have
to run for five days and you might have to run for three days, but you are going to have
to just keep on going.
And I think I got to a point also where I just got very stressed doing that, you know, and
I thought actually I just, you know, I don't want to do this anymore.
No, exactly.
It's mad.
Not when you're going to abuse the place like that more.
I want to carry on working.
I don't want to stop.
I definitely do, but I just would like a more steady pace rather than that kind of like
accelerator break, accelerator break, that kind of, you know, I just can't just don't
want to do that anymore really.
So, yeah.
Who do you feel inspired you to be where you are now?
I mean, you've gone through a career change, massive career.
You've gone through a life change and moved to Dartmoor.
You're now going through another career change, which I have, you know, I've talked to a lot
of people.
This is about the time when they've changed again.
Yeah.
And just do something different.
Who's inspired you?
Who do you think so many people are?
I don't, I mean, the list is so long.
And I think with Instagram and, you know, kind of being part of that and meeting people
and that was an amazing thing for me, really.
You know, literally I was doing it all on my own in deepest, darkest Dartmoor and people
were encouraging me to use Instagram and I just was thinking, you know, it's a modern
thing.
I'm not going to, I'm not going to, which is ridiculous.
And then as soon as I started, it was like this kind of door opened and I'd started to
talk to people, other people who were doing similar things to me and who were, and I mean,
you know, I suppose I was really inspired by Sarah Rahelin in Sappua in America and her,
I mean, I love her writing.
I loved her style of arranging.
I loved her kind of very naturalistic, not adhering to any rules or, you know, if a
leaf was kind of half dead or mottled or had an amazing shape or a branch was, you know,
that was what she want, you know, it wasn't about this, it wasn't about neatness or it
was about a general kind of ambiance of arrangement and really feeling that, you know, deeply
seasonal, you know, colour was very important to her, all of those things.
So I was massively inspired by her undoubtedly.
I loved what she did.
And it felt very new when she started.
And then I met a lovely Fiona Pickles, who was friends out, who was lovely.
And he's very lovely.
And again, she embraces all of those things too.
And Bridget at Moss and Stone, who was so encouraging of me when I was really kind of,
I was slightly floundering in that I knew, I had an idea of how, of the florist I wanted
to be and I couldn't quite get myself there.
And I wasn't had a day with Bridget and she was brilliant.
She very gently kind of nurtured me and helped me understand how to, you know, get that
best bit out of myself really.
So that was fabulous really.
So I, yeah, I'm an aspit.
It's a long list.
It's a long list.
I know.
I know.
No, it's brilliant, isn't it, how that can all work and how the Instagram works.
Fiona Pickles, I remember going up to her place and going on, I think I'm on the train
and then I got this taxi and those sort of quite remote.
And I did a day on photographing and a bit about social media.
And Instagram was when I was using it well and it was a great day and again, a collaboration
of women and we were going, right, by Christmas, we're going to have that many followers.
And it was a great point.
And that's the other thing about, that's the other thing about being with other people.
And you know, it, it makes you say, I'm going to do and then you think, okay, well, maybe
I will then or it makes you like, speak a dream, you know, and sometimes you have to
say the words to make you believe that you can actually do it, which I know sounds a
bit cack-handed, but yeah, it's, it makes you braver maybe when you're with people and
they encourage you people are all, you know, all and certainly within this world, you know,
within a growing flowery world, I feel that people are very nurturing, very encouraging.
And so that's lovely, that's lovely to be surrounded by that and to be encouraged by it, really.
I agree, it's a big community.
Yeah, yeah, because confidence is a huge, huge part of doing well.
You know, if you feel good about yourself and what you're doing and you've got somebody
that you may be admired, standing in front of you, telling you that you're actually doing
this really well, then you start to believe in yourself a little bit more and then that
takes you onto the next step, right?
Next step, next step, yeah, it's a very good thing.
Next, we're going to be in a blooming business course, we call it, because it's about marketing
and sales and competition, and the biggest problem isn't pricing competition, but isn't
any of that, although we teach all that, isn't that.
The biggest issue is confidence and worse than that in post-to-syndrome.
I can't do it, why can't I do it, what would happen if I did do it?
Well, what happens if it goes wrong and what happens?
And so now we introduce into the course in post-to-syndrome lessons, which we don't tell
them about beginning, because we know this is going to be the biggest problem.
And then at the end of the course, they form a community and it carries on, which is great,
this is like a membership group, because otherwise they're a bit lost, they still need that community.
Yeah, yeah.
It doesn't mean that I had a price of wedding and what do I do about that?
Oh, someone's asked me to do that and I'm not sure how to do it and still it's the whole
I'm not really confident, because they say, well, what happens if my flowers don't grow?
And I say, we can always buy them from somewhere else.
Well, what happens if they haven't got what I need?
Well, you can always replace it with something else.
Absolutely.
Exactly.
There's always a solution.
I know.
There is always a solution.
It's just, it's really just about kind of going out there with the confidence to know
that you will find the answer, you know, and not panic about it, that I think that does
come with experience, doesn't it, I suppose, as well.
It does come with a kind of, you know, sadly.
I was talking to a career changer, like the other nurses or the teachers or the public
health service or, you know, pharmacists or something and they're a doctor recently and
now they're going into throwing things.
So it's kind of because they've not done any of that before and not run their own businesses
before.
So it's like an important thing.
I always, I've read a book recently that I would recommend to anybody to read by a
rock scene, Nafuci, have you ever read it, seven habits of manifestation?
No.
Not a manifester.
I'm definitely not a woo person.
So I am so far removed from being woo that, but some, I heard her on the radio again,
quite interesting.
I thought, oh, I must get her book, the seven habits.
And I kind of thought, ah, you know, this is a little won't be very careful.
Yes.
You've already told us it was brilliant.
Because it was about, it wasn't about manifesting as people would think that was.
It wasn't saying, oh, I need a Ferrari on my drive by Friday and it's been all right.
And it's not that at all.
It's about, well, if you want a Ferrari on your drive by Friday, how are you going to
get it then?
And what are you going to do to change and what habits are you going to put in place?
And how are you going to do that?
And what goals are you going to set yourself?
And it's all about manifesting the future, but not necessarily what people would think
manifesting was because it's kind of quite a broad term.
Okay.
I really recommend it.
If you haven't read it, I really, really recommend it.
Yeah.
She was really brilliant.
So in it, she talks about envy and she talks about Instagram.
What you can do is you can go through, you can, all of us have done it and go, oh, I'll
try, I had that many followers.
Or why are they doing that better than I'm doing it?
Well, their style looks much nicer than mine.
And all of a sudden you've got this envious situation.
And she turns that on his head and says, what you should really do is go looking for
inspiration.
So you should say, I'm not envious of you.
What you're doing is brilliant and I'm really inspired by you.
Yeah, but I mean, and I would totally agree with that.
And I would also say, I think I've kind of, I think I've kind of got there in that I
don't feel, I don't, I think, I think you have to feel happy with yourself, don't you
really in kind of way and totally, unrockable in that and know that what you're doing and
what you're delivering is good, you know, and, and, yeah, it did take me some time.
It does take time.
It definitely does.
It would be my, it would be my biggest piece of advice for anybody starting out would be
to find that little bit of self-belief or find, you know, there's that little nugget of something
that you know that you do well and build on it.
And try not to do, you know, certainly as far as your style is concerned or your floor
is free, try really hard to be true to yourself because you will do your best work doing that,
you know, don't, don't be inspired, but don't be pushed or don't feel that you have to do
it this way because somebody else is doing it that way and they're doing very well.
Well, that's great because that's what they're doing because that's who they are, you know,
you have to find out what is, what it is in you that can thrive and achieve and, and
then just, and build on that.
So yeah, that's, that would be my, my biggest, yeah, absolutely.
That was one of my questions.
So I'm going to give you a quick fire ground.
What's your favourite flower?
Do you know, I thought about that one and I, I don't think I can, I don't think I can
give you a favourite.
Do people have favourites?
I don't think I can answer this.
Do you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So maybe it really goes what it is and it's undiscovered and it's quite shy, but actually
it's an amazing, beautiful bloom.
I think it's undistated.
So I quite like that.
So my favourite is...
Yeah, yeah.
I think my, my, I think I love the seasons.
And so I am seduced by a new flower every season.
You know, it's that kind of, and also, you know, sometimes there might, if I kind of
said, I really love a snake's head for a tillerie, which I love, I do.
And then one comes along, which is a particularly beautiful, you know, sometimes they're just,
I've got, got on in the studio at the moment and all its petals have kind of done this
like a kind of pagoda.
And it's so beautiful and you can see the statement.
It's kind of hanging out at the bottom.
My mother said to me, is that a special?
You know, I said, no, just, it's just, so it's so sometimes just an individual flower
that I just completely fall in love with.
So yeah, sorry.
That's a bad answer, isn't it really?
But...
You can have them all.
I love them all.
Yeah.
How would you describe your style then?
Well, I think it's fairly unstructured.
It's fairly wild.
And I would hope that it's the kind of, the merging of wild and garden.
So I am particularly interested in native plants and foraging and what I can do with
what I find.
So I'm actually go out of my gate, turn left, walk down the lane and I am inspired a million
times literally by what's growing in the hedgerow.
And that is summer, winter, you know, any time really at the moment.
I'm really loving the all of the dog roses, which are completely, they have no leaf on
them.
But when you look through them at the sky behind, they have the most beautiful shapes.
They're just making all these really lovely kind of curves and bends and you can see all
of the thorns against the sky and they're really...
So my style is that really.
I'll always have something from the wild in my arrangement.
Just a little nod to where I am and the season and where...
Yeah.
So I don't know.
I don't think that's a particularly 16 answer, but come and try it.
The wild seasonal nature is quite important, and just going with the flow really.
Yes.
Yes.
Low rules.
I love that.
I don't think I do have any particular rules.
So if you weren't growing, I'm producing these amazing pieces of art.
What would you do?
You know, obviously you would nursing.
Is there something else you had in your life that you were...
Oh, I think I'd be photographing.
I think photography.
That's another thing that I've always loved.
And I'm trying to bring that more into what I do.
And I would like to...
I mean, you know, in a fantasy world, I would really love to do a book which is about seasonal,
native arranging and photographing.
Why is it time to see?
Why can't you start tomorrow?
You're the South public.
No, I don't.
You see it.
That's the thing, I said it, didn't I?
I said it out loud.
I shouldn't have never done that.
No, I'm going to hold it to this one.
It's not that...
Nice mistake.
I am the accountability coach.
I'll be coming back to your side.
That book you talked about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I am very slow.
That's the other thing about me.
I'm a really slow burner.
So it's all kind of ticking around in the back of my head and I won't start it until
I have a very exacting plan as to exactly where I want to go.
So the bell-tane thing, it's been banging around in the back of my head for about three
years and it wasn't until I got to that point where I was like, I knew who I was going to
ask, I knew where it was going to be, I knew then I pressed go on it.
So I'm a bit of a kind of...
Well, I'm a perfectionist is the...
What is it?
I'm just thinking of gardeners.
This won't be perfectionists because nothing is...
All of it is out about control.
So the only thing we can do with gardening is go with what we've got.
Yes.
And I like that.
I do.
Yeah, I do.
And I like imperfection in flowers as well.
In fact, more...
If you're going to ask me what my favorite flower is, I probably would say the one that
doesn't look the way it should.
The one with the slightly yellowing leaf or the slightly nibbled petal or so in that,
I don't.
I'm not a perfectionist.
I'm just maybe a bit harder myself.
Maybe it's...
Yeah.
I think I can see this book.
I think it's just...
I mean, I have to say, have I written two, it's not easy.
No, exactly.
And you know what the process is like, but you set yourself a timeline.
I self-published mine, but I use something to help me.
I have copywriters reading the copy and all that kind of stuff.
It's not an easy experience.
I'm glad I did it.
I've got another one brewing now.
And I will do another one.
But I know almost you need to take yourself up through a retreat like Beltane.
Yes.
And you have to sit there with a pen and paper and you just need to pay more.
I think exactly that.
Yeah, absolutely.
You need to give yourself time, don't you, really?
And we're always battling for that.
There's always something else in the corner of the room winking at us, telling us we should
be doing it.
And...
But, you know, I am a great believer in that once it becomes important enough and it's
big enough in the room, it's going to make you pay attention to it.
And then you get on with it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You stop procrastinating.
I think it's a definite room for it.
And it's not as you give to budding flower growers and florists.
I think probably what I said, be true to yourself.
You know, absolutely.
Don't try and emulate anybody else.
Don't try and take inspiration and talk to people.
Yeah.
And, you know, I get messages from people and they're so apologetic and they kind of
say to me, I hope you don't always message, always ask me.
If I...
I will always answer.
I will always do my best to...
So...
So that, really.
Yeah.
True to yourself, I think, is the biggest one, really.
Yeah.
So anything our audience wouldn't know about you, any little secrets you've got?
I thought about this one when you sent it to me and I thought, I love vintage cars.
Oh!
I do.
My grandfather was a racing driver and he had a garage on the Gold Hawk Road in Shepherd's
Bush and he built a car which is still knocking around somewhere in Germany.
Wow.
Built in Elvis and he used to race at Silverstone and I absolutely...
Yeah, I love them.
I mean, literally they make their hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I see really
beautiful or hear the engine turned on or, yeah, love them.
So...
I have a little Morris Minor pick up called Millie.
But we deliver all our powers and she was renovated, Millie the Morris and she's lovely.
My husband's quite into vintage cars.
That's quite interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, thank you.
That's like...
It's like a creepy final sorts of things.
Yeah.
Oh, perhaps we should go off and tangent and talk about vintage cars.
So any thoughts after bell-tane, any obviously bell-tane is fairly soon, any thoughts...
Cheers.
Cheers.
I'd like to do...
In a perfect world, we'll do another and if bell-tane is successful and I think it's
crossed, it will be, there will be another bell-tane next year and then I'd like to add
to that.
So this is very much about spring.
Well, wouldn't it be lovely if we could do one about autumn as well and high summer
and I could look at...
Seasons are very important to me.
They sit squarely in the middle of a lot of what I do, my inspiration, my...
So that...
More photography, definitely.
I'm going to do more of that.
And I have thoughts about...
I would love to photograph my very kind of local environs and find a way of doing it.
Maybe take A field and photograph that field in detail and not just photograph it, but
take things from it and make arrangements and photograph those and talk about those and
just literally have like a square patch.
And say, with this square patch, you can do this, you have this, you have this light
in the spring, you have this in the winter.
I don't know.
Again, it's all in there somewhere.
I'll do a little bit of that because what I started doing on the first of each month,
although Alice said, I shouldn't do it the first, I should just do it when I wanted
to do it, is take the same shot, and then you could speed it up and you would have the
season, you would see my good...
Fantastic.
It looks like because I think you get very wrapped up this time of year, I think it's
very cold and dark and wet and it's quite brown.
And we're so desperate for spring now, aren't we?
We are so desperate.
I mean, it's coming, it's here, it's like everything you can feel the energy and you
can feel it all getting revved up.
But it's just, I'm still putting two jumpers on in the morning.
I just so badly want to stop doing that.
Me too.
I'm also, I'm also, we're sitting on a point, it's a seed sowing.
We're sitting on our hands because it's too cold.
So you can do sweet peas, but really anything else at this time of year?
It's funny you should say that because I am literally, I've been out to the greenhouse
so many times to get going and I'm slightly panicking and thinking, I really need to get
going, but actually it does feel cold, you know?
And that's bad, see that's bad about Instagram because of course you watch everybody else
and everyone else has got a greenhouse full of stuff and I'm thinking, I haven't got that
much and you know, and I just need to, I need to make myself not do that.
You know, I've got to do it my way.
We won't, I mean, even as professionals, we won't start seed sowing.
We did all our annual hardy animals in the winter.
Yes, in the winter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now, absolutely categorically not, unless it's going in the propagator, we are not doing
it.
It's not warm enough.
And to be honest, you know, things like dahlias will get frost, you know, even the ones you
lifted last year are going to get frosting things and start looking after those.
There's always loads of other stuff to do.
Yeah, there is.
So, I'll tell every cycle to sit on their hands.
I say, please, please, please, please, please.
Not yet.
Please.
Do it.
Yeah.
I said, do you know what I do it?
Then I'd let you know.
You're just setting yourself up for disappointment, aren't you really?
Yeah.
I think I'm the victim, you'll become dampened off, they'll become that.
Yeah, don't do it.
Nature is telling us not to do it.
Yes, yes, that's very true.
That is very true.
That's the other thing I'm doing.
So I'm getting rid of some of my raised beds and putting more native stuff in, leaving
the grass to grow longer, definitely embracing that side of the garden in a really, yeah,
it's very beautiful.
I don't mind a few nettles.
No, I told my husband to be sitting outside the front of the house where the bird's coming
and we're going to rewild it and he said, and what does that mean?
I said, it means we're just going to leave it.
So we couldn't really get that.
But we're going to be asking people, it's kind of like, whatever.
Well, it's lovely, Joe.
Thank you for coming over.
I could talk all day.
Oh, so lovely.
Thank you so much for asking, Ross.
It's been a real treat.
And all the show notes and everything we would talk about about tellings of people who interested
they come across some twirl.
That's brilliant.
And I have to say that the topic on the website is amazing.
You get all absorbed in our, gosh, I have a photo shoot.
Oh, I could have a show of photo shoot that would look like that.
That's just like it is.
They are sensational imagery, images, sensations.
Thank you.
And so I hope people can hold up and keep in touch.
Oh, no.
Definitely.
Definitely.
It's all about collaboration.
So I want to thank for joining us.
Do take my pleasure.
Let me know how you get on.
Thank you so much.
Bye, Ross.
Lovely to chat.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
I look forward to next week's episode.
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Bye.
Come here.
Thank you.