Very excited to have had one of our weddings featured on 'Style Me Pretty'
Filming with Gardeners’ World
I was very honoured to be invited to Vauxhall Barracks to film with Gardeners’ World today. There has been an ongoing project to build a community garden on the base, which has been featured several times on the show.
Today the group were throwing a lunch party to celebrate the garden and show the results of all their efforts. I was asked to come along with Rachel de Thame to help the ladies arrange their garden flowers ready for the event. It was great fun and lovely to see how everyone had pulled together to create a fantastic space for all to enjoy.
The ladies had cut buckets of flowers the previous day. We had sweet peas, ammi, scabious, larkspur and lavender to play with. There was a bright mix of colour and enough to do 10 jugs, several posies and a flower ball, which took pride of place hanging in the centre of the tent.
I’m told it will be screened in a couple of weeks, so we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime here are a few snapshots.
Rachel De Thame helping create a hanging flower ball
Inside the army tent with all of our creations.
Me with some of the ladies from Vauxhall Barracks.
Jo Wise
Rain Rain Go Away
It’s getting tough out there. This prolonged wet weather has had an effect on the flowers, but it’s more evident to me in the strain on Rachel and Ash. We grow enough flowers here to cover ourselves and can supply everything we’ve committed to, but it’s certainly a lot tougher than it was last year.
Crazy to think how we prayed for rain back in March, ‘be careful what you wish for’ springs to mind. We always knew building a business around the British weather would be a challenge, but this is certainly testing our metal now. My heart really goes out to all the British growers and other small businesses that are finding it hard. I've heard some sad stories from farmers, marquee companies and boat yards alike. Guess umbrella sales are up.
As the florist here, I don’t get too involved in the growing side, but I’ve learnt so much over the last few years I really appreciate what goes into each flower I use. It’s hard to see a lot of Rachel and Ash’s hard work come to nothing because the weather has been so unkind.
Thankfully, there are a lot of flowers in the garden and the ones we can use are looking as radiant as ever. Here are a few colourful shots:
Flower crown of nigella & sweet william and a bridal bouquet of nigella, sweet william, sweet peas, alchemilla and apple mint.
Bridal bouquet of roses & knautia and a bridesmaid bouquet of roses, peonies, stocks and alchemilla.
This beautiful shot was taken by wedding photographer Matt Davis.
If you are planning to come along to our open day on July 15th (1pm to 5pm) maybe you'd like to join me in a sun dance?
p.s whoever said "there is no bad weather, only bad clothes" was lying!
Jo Wise