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 Podcals.
So, Bex, thanks very much for joining us on our podcast today.
I'm very excited having read both your books and an avid fan of yours.
I can call myself a fan and my groups of people who I've already told you're coming on today
are really excited.
So tell us about your journey.
Where did this madness all begin?
Well, I think madness is probably the right word.
But yeah, thank you so much for asking me to be on your podcast.
Really happy to be here talking to you.
So I don't really know how it came about.
I definitely didn't have a business plan and I don't even really still have a business
plan, although I'm getting better at trying to be a bit more structured about what I do.
But honestly, it just came out of a passion, I think, really, and a sort of passion that
came into my life at a moment where I had space and time to kind of explore it.
So I'm a career changer.
I have had a sort of very long windy road to get where I am.
But up until about four years ago, I was working in corporate, so marketing, project
management, all of that kind of stuff basically, for big FMCG companies.
And prior to that, I was a trained chef.
I mean, I've done so many things for women, traveled the world, all of these kinds of
things.
But I've always had a constant thread throughout my life in my own personal sort of spare time,
if you like, which is I've always gardened from, even when I was still living at home
with my mum, I was helping her in her garden and spending my pocket money on plants for
her garden.
And my husband and I lived in our twenties in a town actually where we lived for all of
our life until a couple of years ago.
And we used to go up to London and do all the clubbing and all that kind of stuff, but
we would always come back to Farnham.
And we would always be on our allotment or, you know, I'd be growing sweet peas in my garden.
And so that thread has always been there.
And then I think after my second sum was born, I just sort of came across dried flowers by
accident by literally having a vase in the house that had sort of dried out naturally.
And it got me, it kind of sparked a memory of mine, which is of my grandma, who always
used to have straw flowers and status and just all these beautiful blooms, no matter
the kind of time of year, she would always have them in her house.
So it kind of dropped my memory.
And then at a similar time, I'd started to set up an Instagram accounts, which is my
Instagram that you see now purely with the purpose of just sharing beautiful images of
flowers and things like that.
That's all I kind of really had in mind.
And those two things morphed.
And I realized actually that people quite liked dried flowers, not the people I hung
around with on a day to day basis, mind you, but some other people out in the wide world
seem to also appreciate their beauty.
And it kind of went from there.
But I just want to say that it wasn't an overnight success.
I mean, I've been running botanical tales as a proper business for four years now and I
only quit all other work.
So all other freelance work, et cetera, two years ago.
Yes.
And then, yeah.
So it's taken a long time and it has felt sometimes like a real struggle to get people
to kind of see the beauty of them.
But whereas four or five years ago, I would have to convince people, now I have people
coming to me who've seen them elsewhere and just love them.
So it's definitely becoming much more of a kind of accepted element of the British flower
movement really, isn't it?
I mean, it's definitely definitely definitely.
I've definitely seen with people that the trend is definitely there and that they are
looking out there for dry flowers and that they have found your books, which we'll talk
about in a minute, and that it's probably in the last two years, I would say, that people
have started really taking on board dried flowers before that.
I don't think so.
But now the movement is definitely in the right direction.
Absolutely.
I would say you're about right there.
It was for me, my business really took off in lockdown when I think lots of...
So that's when my first book came out, which I think could not have been better timing.
I mean, I was on like in the throes of homeschooling my two children and having to do a book launch,
having not really knowing what I was doing.
So for me, it was actually a really stressful time.
But now I look back, I just think there were so many people at home.
So it came out in May of that first lockdown.
So that first year when we were all kind of locked at home.
And I think people just bought it because they just had time on their hands and they
wanted to try something.
And that first book was quite simple, not basic, but the projects are things that you
could easily do with bits and bobs you might have around the house.
You don't need to invest in lots of amazing equipment or anything.
You could just go for a forage, dry some bits and then make a beautiful wreath or wall
hanging or whatever it might be.
And so that, I think for me, was a real kind of benefit of the book coming out then.
But then it was also that people were at home sitting, looking in their surrounds, often
with a lot of money to spare.
And I know lots of people lost their jobs and I know for a lot of people it was very
hard.
But for many people, they were still working but with nothing to do.
So they had a bit of excess cash and they were spending it on basically making their
surrounds look beautiful.
That's why people went crazy for the gardens.
That's why people just wanted to have something joyful in their home because the rest of the
world was just hideous.
I know it sort of seems like it didn't really happen now.
It's a weird situation.
I wish I'd journaled my journey through the whole every day.
I wish I'd written down every day.
Because if you look back now, you forget when we locked down and when did we come out?
I know.
And it's madness.
But for people like you and I, it was our business is thrived in COVID because obviously
7 million people took up gardening during COVID.
So everyone, it was growing a couple hours.
So for me, it was brilliant.
And then for you, obviously from the dried plant, people became interested because they
had the time and space to do it.
They did.
And they also, I think what was quite interesting about it was when people would email me and
say, you know, often they would buy things that I made to gift to someone who had either,
maybe it was their birthday, but also if they'd lost someone.
And they would say to me, I don't want to send fresh flowers that are going to die in
a week's time.
I want to actually watch death around.
I want to send something that's going to last and be memorable.
And I think that shifted people's perception a little bit of the way that you use dried
flowers, which is that, you know, they're not a replacement for fresh.
They are a completely different thing.
So you can love fresh flowers, but then you can use your dried flowers for something totally
different.
And I really think people now are seeing them more as an interior design option.
So I've just been doing an installation today for this lady who lives down the road from
me and she wanted a dried flower, basically like a dried flower chandelier in her kitchen.
You know, you would never, that's not, she didn't come to me looking for a flourish.
She came to me looking for, actually the images she shared on her sort of mood board were
from interior design companies, where she'd seen something similar, but she just wanted
it made up dried flowers.
And that for me is how I now talk about them being included in people's homes and people's
lives, and they are very different fresh.
So 100%.
I am rented a house in Somerset recently, for a birthday party and there was 26% of
the big long table where you had dinner was a chandelier.
And above it was this dried flower arrangement, which I fell in love with.
I looked at it and I thought, I want one of those.
Yeah.
It was a statement piece for sure.
Yeah.
It was a design piece.
It was the first thing you saw when you came in the room.
And it, and for me it was stunning.
I just sort of love this.
So having taken lots of photos of it, I thought, hmm, I wonder where I can fit that one.
It was brilliant.
Yeah.
And the beauty of it is they will last for years and years, you know, that's the thing.
So yeah.
Watch this space, I'll be talking to you.
I just loved it.
Like I said, I did take photographs of it.
And I noticed you've moved to Devon.
When did that all happen?
Because obviously, I know my father lives in Devon and my best friends live just outside
Exeter and, you know, I really well.
And what made you go to Devon?
Except that I'm jealous.
Oh yeah.
Well, I mean, because it's wonderful.
But honestly, lockdown, I think we, my husband and I, we've been together for a long time.
And we have lived in the same town for a long time.
And we earlier, so about kind of probably nine years ago, we moved to Amsterdam for a
couple of years when I'd had my first son with my old job when I was working in corporate.
And I think that fundamentally changed us as a couple and really kind of shaped our values.
I don't know if you know much about the kind of Dutch way of life, but there is a very
egalitarian system.
So everyone's equal.
You know, every job is cherished and relished, no matter what you're doing, whether you're
a gardener, a CEO, you know, a bank or a barista, everyone is on the same level.
And they really value family time.
And so moving there and experiencing this and kind of experiencing the communities over
there was amazing.
But when we came back to our old town, I was just pregnant with my second son and we thought,
we thought what you do now is you go and be by your family and you go and be safe.
And we did that.
And we spent four years there.
And then COVID happened.
And I just suddenly realized how unhappy I was there, not, you know, not sort of on a
day to day depressed basis, but just very unfulfilled and not really very happy with
where we lived.
It was a very busy town.
I was more and more, my work was becoming, you know, this kind of nature-based thing that
it is now.
And I couldn't marry up the two together.
I was really struggling with that living sort of so closely amongst traffic and buildings
and shops and, you know, having to seek out my quiet time alone in nature.
And then COVID hit and our town basically closed down.
We could cross anywhere.
We could cross the A-31, which is one of the busiest day roads in England.
We could cross that without seeing another car.
So we could walk for miles and miles.
And we did with my boys.
Our low was only three and Henry would have been, no, six.
And we, you know, we literally used to just walk and walk and walk.
And so that was amazing.
That was the first part of lockdown.
And then things started to pick up again.
And I just had a realization.
I said to my husband, I can't, I don't want to do this anymore.
I don't want to be here.
And we were just in the cusp before everyone decided to move.
Yeah.
It was something in my gut that was literally pulling me.
It was just...
We brought everyone else in.
Yeah.
And we took, we went for a one-day visit to Lyme Regis, which we lived just outside Lyme
Regis on the Devon Dorset border.
Yeah, I know as well.
Yeah.
It was a beautiful sunny day.
And we swam in the sea and my husband had his first pint on the beach.
And we drove out through Upline, which is where I live.
And it's a very wooded area.
And I said to Ed, if I could live here, I would be happy.
And he was like, we can't move.
We've only visited once.
We don't know anyone.
And I was like, okay.
All right then.
But we did.
I mean, you won.
Yeah.
And I mean, he's a very different character to me in the sense that he likes status quo.
And so I always have to give him a bit of a nudge to kind of get him to, yeah, to take
the plunge.
But he's very happy that we did now.
And I am as well.
And we've got more space.
My boys have an amazing life and we're very outdoors all the time.
And that's just kind of perfect.
And it's been so good for my business because I am so immersed in the natural world that
all of my designs, if you look at what I was doing three years ago, it's totally different
to what I'm doing now.
And I really kind of attribute that to being here and being so immersed in nature and,
yeah, so close to what I'm doing.
Having the most amazing workshop.
I've seen it.
Yeah.
I wish it was bigger, but I have to be grateful.
They're never big enough.
I know that's why they're a bit.
You could have a, you could have the size of a multi-story car park and it still wouldn't
be big enough.
Yeah.
Every single workshop I've built an outdoor space I have built, you know, we've just built
something outside again.
It's never big enough.
So if that makes you feel any bit, it's never big enough.
That doesn't, that's what my husband said to me.
It's like, even if I did pitch the roof, you'd still want more, you'd still fill it.
And I was like, yeah, that is true.
But I'm trying to become much more
pretty extension on it.
Yeah, exactly.
But it's such a beautiful old cabin that I, if I changed it, the windows are lovely.
If I changed it, I think it would completely change the feel of it.
So I'm quite conscious of that.
Yeah, it's a lovely space.
Yeah, you're very lucky.
It's lovely.
So your current business, tell us a little bit about what your business is and what inspires
you because you've obviously moved to Devon to tell our listeners what your whole business
is.
I know you're from the books and I know you're following you on your workshop and your products.
But it's much more than that.
It's much bigger than that.
I noticed you were doing some workshops somewhere else which I might slide into.
But tell me what you're doing.
Well, I, so I have a multi-faceted business, which is very much probably the same as you.
So I have, I guess the, the sort of heart of my business, which is where it all started,
which is products for your home, which you can buy online.
So I do seasonal wreaths, bouquets.
I've got some beautiful products that I'm going to be launching this year, some, you
know, kind of innovations and things that I, all with dried flowers that I've been working
on.
And I'm going to be moving to a setup this year where I only open that shop seasonally
to allow me a break and to, to allow me to really kind of focus on new things and creativity
rather than just always kind of doing the same, which is what I've struggled a little
bit with the last two years, you know, just constantly making the same thing all the
time.
And I really want to push the boundaries a bit.
So that's my shop.
Then obviously I've got my two books, which are amazing and have been a real privilege
to kind of put together.
I run workshops, which I have been focusing really well since we moved to Devon.
Obviously we had a whole year of lockdown, which makes it really hard.
And I do run some here, but I'm really enjoying going to other places to run this work as
well.
I mean, obviously we live quite remotely, so it's quite hard for people to get here.
But I just find that there's such a different mix when I go to other places.
And that's really good for me as well as for other people as well.
So I did some in Bristol in October too, wreath workshops.
And there were so many young people.
And I was like, this is amazing.
I got so much energy.
You know, young people who were doing either corporate jobs and wanted a little break to
come and do a workshop or they were gardeners or they were just starting out their cut
flower growing or whatever it might be.
So I really like to kind of visit places throughout the country to go and run workshops.
So I'm going to be doing a lot more of that this year.
And then I have a Patreon page as well.
So that's the subscription basis.
It's a bit like Substack, but you get, you can do a lot more with it.
So you can do videos, you can do blog posts.
You could do a podcast as well.
If you want that kind of thing that's for creative people and basically it's subscription
based and I have a number of different tiers and people can come and join me for as, you
know, as long as they want one month or a year or whatever.
And they get access to me, access to my knowledge.
I do a monthly live for my patrons who are on a certain tier so they can come and talk
to me about anything.
And I'm really, really enjoying that because because I work on my own so much, I like to
have that community side of it on a day to day basis.
And I think social media used to do that, but it doesn't do it for me anymore.
And so I find that that's kind of my happy place there basically.
Yeah, and I think, and then I do installations, which is the direction I'm sort of pushing
my business into, which is, you know, installations for either retail spaces, shop windows, restaurants,
maybe the one I was just talking about for this lady down the road for people's homes.
And that's the direction I'm really kind of keen to explore a bit more on because I find
it really, really exciting.
And to have a big brief like that is, yeah, it's just a dream, really.
Yeah, like you say, it's very multifaceted.
And, you know, patrons are sort of almost because obviously I've got a paid membership
and paid Facebook.
So I run a membership scheme through a portal and so on.
And I love it actually to be honest with you, that feedback both ways.
And it's a bit like Patreon.
It's just a different platform.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's exactly.
Yeah.
So tell us about a project you're most proud of then.
Oh, I think I was most proud of, and it wasn't a paid project.
So but then I think that's often the way, isn't it, when you don't have someone to kind
of answer to and you can be completely at your own creative whim.
I was part of the Strawberry Hill Flower Festival last October, I think it was.
And yeah, and I did a really lovely, beautiful kind of ethereal installation in one of the
rims at the Strawberry Hill House, which was a bit like a walking into a kind of woodland
glade, which is what my vision for it was.
Really tall branches, sort of towering overhead and then lots of honesty strings and old man's
beard kind of fed through it.
And the way, the room that I was in was just, it just fitted it absolutely perfectly because
it had sort of rounded ceilings, which were gilt edges with gold.
And then these stained glass windows where the light just kind of flew, you know, came
in through the windows and then shone through all of the kind of branches and bits and pieces
I had woven together.
And yeah, that was, that was something that I really, really enjoyed doing last year and
wouldn't have normally had an opportunity to kind of create something on that scale yet.
I was going to say yes, because my mind works at three million to the dozen.
I'm thinking, sitting here thinking, you know, some of those big weddings, just producing
something woodland and natural and beautiful.
I know, yeah.
And certain times of the year when you can't produce that naturally, yeah, would be amazing.
It's almost like, for me, it's like a secret garden or anything.
And I think to be able to create that is amazing.
I'd like my whole house down actually, that would be fine.
I know that's kind of what I say when people ask me what my work is like.
I like to create something magical where, but magical but immersive.
So you feel like you are sitting in an experience and that's exactly what this did.
You know, you could walk in it and it was above you and it just married so perfectly
with the rest of the room, which is also something that's really important to me when I do my
installations and other workers that I always want them to kind of intrinsically fit in
with the space in which they sit.
So yeah, more of that, please.
Fingers crossed.
More of my way.
I'm hopefully paid.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So tell us, you know, about growing.
You've got your growing, obviously there.
Yes.
Tell us just for our cupflower listeners, what would be your top five flowers to grow?
Okay.
I am going to let you into Little Secret, which I hopefully might be inspirational for your
listeners as well because so I'm trying very hard to become a grower, but essentially
I'm a gardener.
And I've got a lot of land now, which is incredibly overwhelming.
And basically for the last two years, I have been growing really inefficiently, really
badly because I've been taking my gardening approach to my growing cupflower's approach,
which is just absolutely the right thing to do.
So I'm on a mission this year to become much more organised with the way that I grow.
And I think I'm there.
I've even got measured out beds, which I've never really had before, which probably is
going to make you just go, Oh my gosh, back seriously.
But yeah, so, but the things, the five things that I love growing, I would never, ever,
ever be without straw flowers.
I think they are beautiful, actually fresh as well as dried.
And the colourways now are just astounding.
I mean, when my grandma used to have them in her house, they were all of those lurid
yellows, oranges, and reds quite quite.
But now you can get to such beautiful, beautiful colour.
Salmon, one of the salmon.
Yeah, the salmon, for the salmon.
And they are so prolific in their flowering.
And I think people don't really realise how much you can get out of one plant.
You know, I can plant them in kind of June and they'll still be giving me the oxflower
by the end of September, October.
So for me, you know, they are a kind of no brainer.
I am trialing for the first time this year, and I've actually bought some plug plants
from Farmer Gracie for this because I wanted to get them kind of sooner rather later, is
the perennial gypsophilia, gypsophila.
Oh, are you?
Okay, that's interesting.
Because, so there's a pink variety and then obviously the normal white one as well.
And it dries absolutely beautiful and works really well if you're doing like wedding
things or you want to make a nice flower cloud, just really kind of breaks up anything else
that you've got in there.
There's a lovely plant called Zoranthum Anum.
So I don't know if you know that one, but that's...
It's another type of everlasting and it's...
You can get a couple of different varieties.
The double variety is definitely my most favourite.
What you want to do, well, what I do anyway, so you can grow them and they're available
in either the white or purple.
The purple is quite...
Well, I find purples are very polarised in colour anyway, but it's not really my cup
of tea.
But if you wait just a little while and just wait for the flowers to go over ever so slightly,
they basically get this amazing patina effect all over them.
So they kind of go this gold, silver, like beautiful and you can then dry them like that
and for Christmas wreaths and Christmas displays, they're gorgeous.
So I would say those and then a couple more.
I think if I just say grasses without specifying because there's so many, but I talk a lot about
this in my second book particularly, which is you can have all the flowers in the world,
but if you don't have the bits to support them, particularly with dry flower arrangements,
you're going to really struggle to make anything because...
I mean, it is sometimes the same with fresh, but I think you can still just use flowers
and create something beautiful, but it's those soft flowing bits when you're working
with dry flowers that kind of give you the gentleness that you want in a display.
So if you think about a straw flower, for example, and how dead upright straight is once
you've dried it, if you've dried it well and it's not flopping, you need to have something
gentle in there to kind of break up some of those sturdy stems.
So I would say any grasses and a few of my favourite are the breezer midia.
I love maxia, but midia for me is where my heart is.
It's so beautiful.
I've got both of those this year.
That for me, they're just absolutely gorgeous.
And some of the more ornamental ones that you get in the garden, so there's one called
the... I can't remember the exact word, but the fountain grass where you get lots of
those kind of flowing out stems.
But any grasses, even the wild grasses, so when we moved here, we didn't mow the lawn,
we just wanted to let it go wild and see what came up.
And the flowers that came from the lawn grass were just beautiful.
So those... and then I think I've probably got one more left.
I would maybe think about seed heads.
So something like Atroplex, a beautiful, beautiful seed heads, another one I'm trying
to think of the name, LeCandra Shoefly.
If you know that.
Yeah.
I mean, it's pretty insipid as a plant, as a wild flower, as a sort of fresh flower,
isn't it?
Yeah.
A bit nothingy.
But once those seed buds come, it's just beautiful.
And so that as well probably bells of island as well.
If you basically, what I do with bells of island is wait for them to basically turn.
So they've gone kind of golden brown and then cut them and pick them and they are absolutely
stunning as well.
If you can get bells of island to germinate and if you can get it to grow, it's one of
my memories.
I know so.
Yeah.
So I'm learning.
Another thing I'm learning about my space here is that I do not have ideal growing conditions
at all.
Basically, we are at the top of a hill.
We've got lots of westerlies coming through and we're surrounded by trees.
So my growing space here is I'm actually not limited, but I'm learning what I can use
and grow there.
And one of the things that I think are going to do really well at bells of island because
I actually like it a little bit cooler.
So those and Larks bar and sweet peas and things, it does get full sun, but it's not
full sun from morning till night.
So I'm hoping I've got about 40 that I managed to germinate in September, October.
I should be climbing your fence for your bells of island.
It's still there.
Larks bar this year brilliant.
Bells of island is a disaster.
So it's that and yeah, that is definitely my nemesis and Larks bar has been but we've
done well this year, but it is right plant, right place for sure.
Yeah, yeah, right plant, right place.
And I also think I really think that I'm what I'm learning as well is right seed, right
time.
So lots of things definitely just germinate better in the autumn if you've got that fluctuation
of temperature, which you tend to get then.
So that's how I germinated my bells of island.
And I've just overwintered them in my cold greenhouse.
So yeah, all these things I'm learning now that I'm trying to be a grower.
I already grow out.
But I mean growing cut flowers or growing for drying is intensive farming.
Yeah, it's basically I've got a plot here.
It's this size how much can I fit in.
Yeah, you know, everything it says on a packet, you go from massive intensiveness of it because
the more, you know, they could cope with that.
And annual for instance, doesn't need a lot of nutrition.
It can cope with it.
It can go close together.
It doesn't need and the degree does not need three foot.
No.
So I ignore all advice and I know much closer.
Much closer.
Yeah.
Your creative process we've described is lovely.
Tell us what in sort of three words, what would you say your style was and what's your
process?
Do you come out with, do you go for a walk and then come up with something?
Or do you think you're, it's quite just naturally you would put something together in a certain
way?
Or is it, it's style is really hard because yours is, I would say it's beautifully naturally
elegant and a kind of, it's hard to put a name on it because it's so beautiful.
It is beautiful and it's very real and very, like you say, it's a piece of art for me.
It's a piece of art.
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
But I, how would I describe it?
I think, I was thinking today when I was doing this installation actually, I would say that
I would find it very hard to create something that didn't feel to me like you could have
potentially plucked it from the wild.
So, you know, I would never be making one of those flower clouds, which is, I would never
use dyed materials anyway, but I would never be creating something that was just full of,
you know, I don't know, for example, imagine it was, yeah, the middle of the winter and
someone said to me, can you make me a flower cloud for my living room, which is blue and
purple?
I would just find that really at odds with where we are in the season.
And the one that I was making today is just all whites and greens, which is obviously
right now before the yellows come in a spring is exactly kind of replicating what's outside.
And I don't think it's so much that I step outside and look at something and go, that's
what I'm going to make my next thing look like.
But I just think if you are constantly exposed to the natural world and the beauty of the
natural world, it just infiltrates the way that you think and the way that you make.
And you know, I obviously have my garden here, we have local woodlands that I walk the dogs
in most days.
I cycle down to the beach and swim.
And on that cycle, I'm like head height with the hedgerows.
So every day I'm cycling back up our extremely steep hill very slowly.
I height to the banks and I'm able to see everything that nature is doing.
So right now the honey suckles going wild, all of the fresh suits, shoots of the honey
suckle.
So it's just there as a constant background and I think when I look back at my work three
years ago when I was living in that busy town, there was definitely beauty there.
But if I compare it to what it is now, it's a completely different thing and that is entirely
nature inspired and my surroundings inspired.
And I would say what I create is delicate but that doesn't mean that it's not stunning
or it's not going to grab your attention but it tends to be quite delicate and what I
do.
Ethereal and magical and yeah, always led by the seasons and wild, it's not going to
be a tight and compact little thing.
It tends to be lots of kind of tendrils and stuff like that.
So it's perfect.
As far as I'm concerned, it's perfect.
You know, when we're working with a couple hours, that would, we would say our star was
naturally elegant, which is exactly that.
It's not tight, it's quite loose.
Yeah.
It goes with the season.
We'll not do anything out of season.
We won't touch any door.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, we know if somebody's right for us when they come to us by what they're requesting,
you know, and then we say, look, honestly, that's not our style and we're not right for
you.
And that's fine.
But it's all for me, it's all about the nature and the outdoors and your right going for
walks and I would not be swimming in the sea.
I am going to find it for water.
I am going, I was booked to go today, actually, honestly booked to go and try it for the first
time today.
And any of our listeners who've done it, maybe you'll let us know what you think.
But going in the sea at Lyme Regis.
I know somebody who's just moved to Lyme Regis, who is a triathlon who swims in the sea at
Lyme Regis.
You might come across her, she's very fit.
And I mean, she's probably in her early six days, but she runs the London Marathon every
year.
And so she doesn't see a Lyme Regis.
So you'll probably come across her at someone else's.
I'm sure it's a small place.
Hello, it's Fran.
Have you come across her?
So who's inspired you?
Do you think in your career, who inspires you to keep going and do different things?
I think my, honestly, probably my customers and the, yeah, and the people that encourage
me whether that be through social media or buying my book or coming to my workshops or,
you know, ask me to do an installation or something like that.
They are the ones that really push me to kind of go beyond the boundaries of what I have
already in my business.
And I think from a more personal perspective, now that I'm running this business kind of
full time on my own, and I've obviously got my two boys and my husband, like, I have
to make it work because they're, you know, I've got to support them as well.
And I also really want to show them that work is not just sitting at a desk in an office.
You know, it can look different to what they probably tell you it is at school, you know.
And so that really encourages me as well to keep going when I feel like I don't want
to.
There are moments like, I know, I know that.
So what about future plans then, Becks?
What comes next?
I mean, the world's your oyster really, isn't it?
Because you've done workshops and you produce installations and you can do massive things
inside and you've written some books, any more books coming or what would be your advice?
If you were a year from now, or even two years from now, and we were having a chat and you
were looking back.
Where would you want to be?
What do you want to be doing?
Oh, good question.
No more books.
That's clear.
I don't want to do that.
It's so hard.
And my last one I had to write in lockdown with the kids at home.
And I really would love to be telling you that it was a joy for sort of magical experience,
but it was very, very, very difficult.
And I think I'm just about over it now, which sounds awful.
So no more books.
Also, I don't know, I don't have an idea of what one could be.
And I've got lots of other things that I want to try.
And the thing that I think people don't kind of realise with books is you probably know
is that they take up so much of your time, which is fine, but they take up time that
you then can't be spending on other things.
And my coach sends me, every time you say yes to something, remember you're saying no
to something else.
And yes, it's not to say that you're not going to say yes, but you also have to think
if I'm spending all that time doing that, what are the things that I then can't do?
And is there something actually over there that is more appealing?
And so that's definitely out of the picture for me.
I've recorded a course with Create Academy, so they're an amazing online, basically like
it's an online book, so a visual kind of book.
And I'm going to be within that.
We recorded it last year, so it's all about growing and drying.
And then I've got kind of five or six makes in there that people can do and that's their
courses are visually beautiful.
Beautiful.
So I'm really, yeah, absolutely stunning.
So I'm really excited that that's coming out in I think June or July.
So there's that.
But really I would love to be doing, I think I mentioned before, but pushing my work and
doing lots more installations.
So I've got some really exciting projects coming this year.
I'm going to be at the Garden Museum for their kind of, yeah, for their flower week, which
will be fantastic.
And then got another big project in Chelsea in kind of June, July time.
And I would just like to be doing more of those, just bigger projects that I can really
kind of get stuck into and focus for an extended period of time and kind of give it my all.
So yeah, big, big installations is what I'm hoping for.
And then, yeah, and I'm doing a couple of retreats this year.
So not running them myself, but as a educator.
So I've got one in Tuscany, which is in July where I'm going to be teaching about growing
for dried flowers, but then also creating installations.
And then I have another one in April with Joanna Game Flowers.
She's organized this and that is again, I'm going to be doing an installation piece there.
And I would love, love, love to do more of that.
I think retreats where people get an entire period of time out of their immersive is so
important, so important.
I'm doing well myself in September that I'm doing for myself, not going to teach on,
which is basically a wellness.
So there'll be cold water swimming, breath work, all of that kind of stuff.
And I just can't wait to have four days where I'm just like, can forget about life.
Yeah, I think everybody should do a retreat for sure.
Yeah, I did.
Where's your one in April?
Where's your one in April?
So it's down in Cornwall, it's near Pentance.
Yeah, so I think she's got a few spaces left and it's over three days in this most amazing
building that is an old artist retreat basically.
And she's got these beautiful barns and there's going to be a lady doing illustration.
Grace Alexander is there from kind of creation coach perspective.
And then Brit Wilder is also there from a photography perspective.
And yeah, I just can't wait.
So more of that, more getting people together and celebrating creativity and nature and all
that.
In email with that and I'll share that.
That would be lovely.
I can't see that myself.
Because I honestly am a great believer in a coaching and I have a coach myself and obviously
I coach people too.
So if you coach people here having a couple of hour gardens and a couple of hours, then
you yourself need to get inspired by quite a lot.
I go to the US when they do flower conferences and I tend to bring that back.
But go on a retreat.
Yeah, I mean, our retreat last year with my mentor was in more turn.
It was great.
So I'm not going to jump out, work on your business, do something different, come back
all inspired.
And so I'm a great believer.
Can't do July because I'm in province in July, but hey, April, Paul sounds attractive.
Yeah.
Well, I think that's the thing.
And also what we've been speaking with Joe who's organized the one in April is that there's
a real magic when people come together that I think we've all missed so much because of
COVID.
And, you know, of course, I'm going to be going there teaching an installation piece,
but I'm also so excited to be around all these people that are coming who are probably
going to teach me stuff themselves as well, you know, because that's the magic when people
come together.
And yeah, I just think we all need a bit more of that in our life.
Absolutely.
It's a mini mountain.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today.
And thank you for coming out to my podcast and we'll put all the links in the show notes.
I mean, I could talk to you forever.
Yeah.
Because I'm sure, you know, we've got sort of joint, I could go on up the retreats and
I could read all the books and I'm a bit of a fan.
So yeah, I'd like to thank you for coming out today.
I'm really honored that you joined me.
Thank you so much for asking.
And yeah, it was been so much fun.
Really good to talk to you.
Take care.
Bye.
I look forward to next week's episode.
Please don't forget to subscribe and rate and review on your podcast app.
We do have some wonderful free resources on our website at the cartflourcollective.co.uk.
We also have two free Facebook communities, which we'd love you to join.
For farmers or those who want to be from our farmers, we have cut flower farming, growth
and profit in your business.
And our other free Facebook group is Learn with the Cutflower Fletive for those starting
out on their flower journey.
All of the links are below.
I look forward to getting to know you all.
Bye.
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