January News From The Farm

January 02, 2024
Posted by Georgie Newbery

Ooh I love a new year. I do not love the dark days and so attune myself fairly minutely to the minute by minute increase in daylight. You’ll notice them first in the afternoon and then slowly you’ll find you can take the dog out in the morning without needing a torch. And then there’s the magic day when you can smell mixed in with the leafy, wet earth scent of winter, a stir of green. It’s coming, the sap rising, I promise.

We are lucky in our work in that we spend a good deal of the autumn looking straight past winter into the spring, and conjuring pictures of weddings and workshops and fun things for our students to grow and create with flowers. I’m a great fan of re-examining what a business does and what it’s for on a relatively frequent basis and it’s a very useful way of putting in place parameters within which we will function. My new year’s resolution of 2023 was to do less better. And I’ve held that in my mind throughout the past year to some effect.

One way we will continue to do less better is in refining our wedding flowers offering. We are now specialist suppliers of Affordable Wedding Flowers. This plays to our strengths as flower growers, but it also means that in our area of Somerset couples planning their wedding can source a clearly defined affordable way of having lots of flowers on their own terms. We will support people from the get go, whether they want to grow their own flowers, or buy from us and arrange their own – or a combination of the two. We love the feeling creating flowers gives, and want to encourage as many others to enjoy that too. So rather than offering the full floristry service, we are the champions of the DIY wedding, the grower, the talented arranger, the person who wants to order flowers from us to put in vases themselves. We will supply, encourage, and enable them to create the wedding or event of their dreams without it costing the earth.

We’ve also looked hard at our workshops and demos for 2024. There are always a few new activities for you to learn from us so do see our website for those. And we have taken many of the different workshops and demos and bundled them so that people can book a few together for a good discounted price.

Of course our YouTube club members always have their 10% off everything on our website, and this January they have their own discount with our friend and floral fireworks seed merchant the incomparable Ben Ranyard of Higgledy Garden. Clubbers, remember to check in on Janary’s live at fives for updates on your discount codes.

And so the year really turns and I feel renewed energy as the snowdrops push through the sward. Fabrizio and I head up the field with the hedge trimmer to prune the roses in ruthless fashion. There are three tonnes of compost to be spread on the beds. There are ranunculus claws to soak and sprout and sweet pea seeds to sow. The pressure’s on to create again a garden where weddings flower, students allow their creative urges freedom, flower farmers learn to build businesses which can sustain them for years to come. And of course 2024 is a plant sale year… but more on that in a separate email coming soon.

So happy new year one and all. We are taking wedding bookings through most of the summer. We have a whole college of workshops and classes for you to take. We will be posting frequently through the year on jolly old YouTube and you’ll be very welcome there.

Here’s to a year growing flowers and helping save the planet, one flower at a time.

Georgie x