During our Business of Floristry call last month, the discomfort that comes with putting prices out into the market based on their ‘true cost’, rather than what we think the market can take, came up in discussion. I wanted to expand on this topic a bit more…

We spend a lot of time thinking about what the future of floristry will look like, and whether we are teaching our students to thrive within that landscape.

This week, Cissy attended the screening of Six Inches of Soil, a documentary film aiming to raise awareness and understanding of agroecology by sharing the inspiring story of British farmers standing up against the industrial food system and transforming the way they produce food - to heal the soil, benefit our health and provide for local communities.

The start of February saw us welcome our Season Led Florist students back to the School for the Winter Season of the course. A day dedicated to floral design and being a season led florist during the winter months.

One of the first questions that we get asked about being a season led florist is ‘what do you do in the winter then?’ How can you only work with locally grown flowers during these months? How can you not import flowers to supplement your work?

The late afternoon sun was slanting across the field, cutting across plots filled with late summer flowers, a pond and a few sheep meandering behind a polytunnel filled with roses. Paula handed me a bucket of freshly cut flowers in a muted burnt orange and burgundy palette filled with voluptuous dahlias and roses, delicate, dancing coreopsis and a mixture of seed heads and grasses full of texture. And I knew. This was what had been missing. The thing that I hadn’t been able to put my finger on when I was trying to create the kind of untamed floral designs that I was drawn to.

If we could use one sentence to describe the philosophy underpinning all our teaching at The School of Sustainable Floristry, it would be ‘wait, but why?’

It goes without saying that the focus of all our workshops is on the teaching of the art and craft of floral design with locally grown flowers and sustainable mechanics. We absolutely want you to learn ‘the how’. But, critically, we also want you to learn ‘the why’.

Many years ago I visited Casa Batllo, a beautiful house designed by Gaudi in Barcelona, where I was told a story that has stayed with me ever since. Gaudi was commissioned by the Batllo family, and granted full creative freedom to renovate the property that would become the Batllo family’s home. The house is a true work of art and is considered one of Gaudi’s masterpieces.

The earthy, sweet flavour of beetroot is evocative of Cissy’s summer holidays in Sweden where her grandma would simply boil it and serve it with melted butter and fresh crusty bread. But this time she decided to elevate things a little and turned to the inimitable Anna Jones and this vibrant pink one pot dinner.

The summer season arrived with a fierce heat and a sheer abundance of roses during June when we held the Summer Season of the Season-Led Sustainable Florist Programme (although July has turned into something of a damp squib… great for the occupants of the Walled Garden, less so for brides with outdoor weddings…).

With the elderflower blossom appearing in the hedgerows, now is the perfect time to pick some and make your own cordial… (it doesn’t really work as a cut flower. We tried… make cordial instead!). And if you don’t drink it all, use it to make this delicious summery dessert.

We think it is important to understand ‘the why’ of working seasonally and sustainably as florists, and the impact that even a small change to working with locally grown flowers can have on the environment, society, local businesses and ourselves. And as we are in the middle of ‘no mow May’, we thought now was a good time to explore pesticide use within the cut flower industry and why season-led floristry is a positive choice for pollinators… and thus humankind.

April heralds the ‘official’ start of the British flower growing season, and it also means the start of our workshops for the year at the School of Sustainable Floristry. In particular, it is when we hold the Spring Season of the Season-Led Sustainable Florist Programme, our flagship professional training programme designed to take our students through the four seasons of floristry, building their skills, confidence and creativity with the flowers and foliage that each season offers.