The Lonely Bouquet

Sunday 25th June was International Lonely Bouquet Day and the end of British Flowers Week. The idea of the lonely bouquet initiative is to dedicate one day a year to making strangers happy, and this is done through flowers! Florists around the world put together little bunches of flowers which they then leave around their local villages/towns/cities. As villages go Tiptree is quite big but it still has that small village feel so I could leave the bouquets around knowing they'd go off to a good home.

British Flowers Week is fairly self explanatory - it celebrates British flowers! Here in the UK we don't quite have the same growing power as Holland or other African/South American countries that have big flower industries, however it is quickly growing so it's great to be able to celebrate all things British. And Florismart (who I use to provide the majority of my flowers) were giving away promo boxes to florists, which meant I could make even bigger bunches for the lonely bouquets - the sunflowers and stocks in the lonely bouquets came from here. I then added to the bouquets with flowers I had grown myself in my cutting garden to give a lovely mix of fresh flowers - I used ammi, daisies, bupleurum. alstroemeria and cornflowers. 

I've heard back from three of the five bunches I put out but they'd all gone by the afternoon when I went back into the village so I hope they all made it to good homes! I took photos of each bouquet in situ, although without anything that would make it too obvious where they were! I didn't place them anywhere hard to find though - that defeats the point slightly! So I used a bench in the centre of the village, in the car park of my local supermarket, in the local park, outside the church and by the war memorial. I get such great feedback from the people who have found them, as I've done lonely bouquets a few times now not just on this one particular day, so it's great to know I can brighten someone's day. One of my July brides even sent out her fiancé and little girl to hunt for a bunch and I heard she was so excited and proud when she found one, which is just adorable!

If you missed out but are keen to get your hands on some beautiful flowers then I'll be selling bunches at HLF HQ at weekends throughout the summer - keep an eye on my Facebook/Instagram feeds for confirmation of when the flowers will be available!