GROWN BY SARAH HORNE / JOURNAL ENTRY 03
From the flower farm to the florist
What happens after I cut the flowers?
Freshly harvested flowers,ready for the next stage
One of the things I love most about growing flowers for Sarah Horne Flowers is that the journey doesn't finish when I cut them. In many ways, that is where another part of the story begins.
The flowers are cut straight into water, and I strip the stems as I go. Depending on the flower, I use either a knife or fine snips. If they are not being taken straight back to the shop, they are kept somewhere cool and shaded.
THE FLOWERS NEED A REST TOO
Cutting is only the beginning
Cutting and conditioning flowers ready for use
When the flowers come back to the shop, they go down into our cool cellar. They are conditioned and given fresh water, and then left to rest overnight.
It's a bit like when you go on a long journey. When you've been travelling, you want to have a bit of a rest before you get on with your day. Flowers are rather similar.
By the following morning, they are perky and upright and ready to use.
A JOURNEY OF JUST SEVEN MILES
From Moreton Morrell to Royal Leamington Spa
Flowers making the short journey from the growing area to the shop
Our flowers are grown at Moreton Morrell College, just seven miles from the shop in Royal Leamington Spa. That short journey matters to me. It helps us keep the distance the flowers travel down, but it also means something very practical: freshness.
If we suddenly need a particular flower for a customer later that day or first thing the next morning, I can go and pick it. The flower can be harvested specifically for the work it is going to do.
I can look at a flower and say: I knew this when it was a seed.
FROM STEMS TO DESIGN
Where growing and floristry meet
Farm grown flowers becoming part of the design
After more than 46 years as a professional florist, I know what I need a flower to do. I think about stem length, strength, colour, texture, movement and how it will work with everything around it.
Growing my own flowers is changing the way I design too. It gives me access to varieties and forms that I cannot always buy commercially, and it lets me work with a more natural, country-style feeling.
THE FINISHED FLOWER
From something that I grew to something beautiful to send.
A finished floral arrangement containing flowers grown by Sarah Horne
A flower can begin as a seed, be nurtured through the season, be cut by hand, conditioned, brought into the shop and finally become part of a bespoke arrangement for a customer.
The flowers are grown by us, hand-cut and individually prepared. The bouquets are bespoke. The connection between the growing space and the florist is seamless.