I've had a lovely flowery weekend so I thought I would share my flower filled antics with you. However, as a self employed florist there's really no such thing as a weekend! I had a wedding on Saturday so I spent some of Friday making up the bouquets and buttonholes - I just made the bride's bouquet, a flower girl bouquet, 10 buttonholes and 2 corsages. The flowers I used were all peonies and roses - 'coral charm', 'sarah bernhardt', 'duchesse de nemours', 'miss piggy' and 'avalanche'. After a bit of drama with the eucalyptus I wanted not being available (apparently it's something to do with changing their growing seasons?!) I had to settle for a different variety and some salal tips. I still think the bouquet looked beautiful but it wasn't quite what I wanted. The bride was really happy with it though so that's the main thing.
I took a break on Friday evening to head over to my friend Emily's house to bring her a belated birthday present - you guessed it, it was flowers! After a lovely catch up I headed home to make up the buttonholes, then I was up early Saturday morning to finish them off and pack up the car. After dropping off the flowers and wishing my wedding couple well I went home and took a nap! Glamorous life of a florist...it's very tiring! Saturday afternoon I [sort of] helped my dad extend the patio outside my workshop. My contribution was mostly bringing cups of tea and taking the dogs for a walk to get them out from under his feet. Digging and hard labour isn't really for me. But I have a lot more outside space now which I'm going to largely fill with lots of plants and maybe a little seating area for my bridal consultations. Saturday evening I spent with the boy - we went for a drive and ended up on a road with the worst potholes I've ever seen. I dubbed it the "road of death" and we couldn't even make it to the end it was so bad - we had to turn around and go back. Not going there again! On Sunday I headed into work to order the flowers for my next wedding next week and then finished the weekend by relaxing in the garden with a hot chocolate and enjoying a vase of giant peonies! The peonies in the garden are getting bigger and should bloom soon and the wisteria is almost out. We also have our first flower in the cutting garden - a cosmos - which is really exciting. So that's my weekend for you!
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My workshop is in the garden of my parent's house and my mum has the most wonderful garden. We're currently planning a cutting garden and she has planted a load of foliages and other plants that I will eventually be able to cut (I’m so impatient waiting for them to grow!)
I thought it would be nice to give you a tour of the garden in all four seasons, starting with spring, so keep your eyes peeled for the other posts over the rest of this year. I love the garden in springtime (it’s my favourite season) – seeing all the new growth and watching flowers pop up all over the place. The garden looks its best in the summer when all the beds are full but there is still plenty of interest at this time of year. We currently have tulips in bloom and blossom on the fruit trees, as well as bluebells and forget-me-nots, although the daffodils and narcissi have now run their course and the muscari is on its way out. This is also the time of year when the peonies are growing – there are four plants in the garden and they’re my favourite flower, so it’s really exciting to watch their progress! We’re growing all sorts for the cutting garden – ammi, cosmos, zinnias, delphiniums, larkspur, sweet peas, clary, nigella, bupleurum, penstemon, antirrhinum – by the summer I’m hoping to sell some little posies from a stall outside the house. I'll provide more details on my plans nearer the time. I thought you might like a peek inside my workshop, which is at the bottom of my parent's garden. The workshop has already changed so much since I first turfed my brothers out of it and moved myself in (they were using it as a games/workout room but I figured they no longer needed it after they left home.) I'm constantly inspired by other florists' studio space and images I see in magazines or online, so there's always things I want to change or include in my workshop. It's quite busy with a lot going on but that's the way I like it - I've never been one for simplicity! As it is still my parents and I don't think there's ever been the intention for me to stay in here forever they haven't allowed me to change anything permanent, such as the walls or the floor (I can't tell you how annoying it is to have a carpet when working with flowers) but I've been allowed to attach things to the wall and ceiling. I'm sort of dreading the time when I eventually do move out of it because I haven't exactly held back with the staple gun! So I have a couple of feature walls - I have a wall of paper flowers, a wall of individual silk flowers and my new "wall of love" to showcase my wedding work. I’m fast running out of shelving and storage space though so I’m planning a smaller, storage shed for round the side of the building. We're also planning to lay some more slabs out the front so that I can have an outside consultation area for in the summer and I can grow more select foliages in pots. My workshop is my happy place. There’s no Internet and very little phone signal so it’s a great place to get away if needed, and it’s a great space for meeting couples and working on weddings (I’ve even worked on a big wedding outside when I ran out of room, in December, and partly by candlelight!) Here are a few photos of my workshop – enjoy!
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