DIG IN / ESTABLISHING OUR CUT FLOWER GARDEN
We've been simply dying to share this with you! So remember when we mentioned (maybe just a few times) that we were working on 'plan B' behinds the scenes whilst our shop doors were closed. Well we have & it's finally time to share this project with you.
This work has been the foundation for our wellbeing & courage through the difficult days of isolation, forced to close our shop, studio & postpone indefinitely all photography & videography bookings both of us went home, it's safe to say, a little lost & heartbroken. Needless to say after a seriously boggling moment we threw ourselves into the unexpected task of building a new normal & redefining our businesses.
The first step was overhauling our online store to bring a virtual home for our beloved lifestyle store where you, our dear customer could continue to engage, shop & share in our beautifully hand crafted wares from a range of wonderful artisan makers. The second task was to invest our unspent energy & creativity into something that could grow, way beyond any pandemic lockdown. This we found in the rich soils around our home.
So it is with great happiness, tired but nourished souls we welcome you to our Travelling Baskets flower garden. That's right, we dug our way through lockdown, planted seeds & nurtured natures beauty that is happily now unfolding around us. We focused our energy on hardy perennials & varieties that can stand the harsh Scottish weather in the Pentland hills & the hard work is paying off. Already there's a small army of blooms & buds unfurling with everything from astrantia, hellebores, eryngium, lunaria, lupins, astilbe, veronica, delphiniums, foxgloves, ammi, achillea, flowering mints, cosmos, scabious, Japanese anemones, rudbeckia, amaranthus & ornamental grasses & lots of textured foliage.
We're lucky enough to be on a plot of land that is managed organically completely by hand (even the hay is scythed & baled each year 100% by hand) so of course our cut flower garden is also being managed this way, totally organic with no nasty chemicals or machines & lots of love.
We'll be cutting our own blooms for using in our fresh bouquets that will be available to buy in the shop, so why not ask next time you're in to find out which stems were grown less that 5 miles from our store in the rolling foothills of the wild pentland hills regional park.
We're also growing a lot of gorgeous more delicate varieties for our bridal work & simply cannot wait to get to work with our brides & grooms using these beautiful, eco, low mile, low carbon, no chemical blooms to design your dream bespoke arrangements for your special day.
Finally lockdown has proven to be the perfect time to experiment, having time and space away from the nine to five to try out new ideas and test the water. We've been developing our drying techniques, without using any preservatives only the sun and good ventilation so we can happily now also say these lovely local blooms will also be zero waste. We'll be drying all remaining harvests for our dried floral work, installations and workshops & composting any waste, including foliage that is stripped from the lowest part of the stems for cut flowers, this will be used elsewhere on the land to nourish new crops.
We're so excited to be launching this work and our environmentally friendly cut flower garden into the world and do hope you enjoy these local blooms & that they share as much joy, love & hope as they have fed us with through these difficult times.
Lockdown certainly was challenging, a lot was tested & even more was missed. But lockdown was also a lesson, a teacher, an examiner & time but most importantly a reminder. A reminder of the importance of nurturing what you love, those around you that love you & to share love and gratitude for everything we are so very fortunate to have. This was the landscape that bore this idea, sustained the hard work, lots of digging and these gorgeous local blooms.
So why not sign up to our mailing list to learn more, explore the flower garden, follow its progress & harvests and follow us on social media for the daily happenings.
Share our story of lockdown & share the joy of the flowers it grew. We're so grateful to you all for your incredible support throughout this time. Please do continue to support small independent brands like ours & help us climb out of this stronger & even more colourful than before.
You will be able to order flowers from our online store from Thursday 26th for local delivery or collection from the store. We're also continuing to stock our lovely range of dried flower posies, bouquets & wreaths, available for EU wide delivery.
Our heartfelt thanks & a huge floral hug from us both, Nathalie and Jacek
