Flower Farmer from Shropshire Isn't Just A One Trick Peony!

Transcript

00:00 Hello, my name is Amanda and I'm the owner of Gardeners Cottage Floristry

00:04 and I'd like to welcome you to my garden. This time of year is particularly

00:08 beautiful because everything's starting to spring to life. So we're now in

00:12 mid-April, a really busy time of year because lots of seeds to get planted in

00:18 the garden as well as all the little plants in the greenhouse, not quite ready

00:23 to go out yet. We might have a few more frosts but I love this time of year

00:28 because the garden starts to tell us it's waking up with tulips and

00:33 ranunculus and beautiful narcissi. But lots of flowers ready to go in the

00:39 garden, ready for weddings in the summer months, so that's really exciting. Things

00:44 like antirhinum and cosmos and all kinds. I'm going to grow all kinds of dry

00:49 flowers this year because people often like dry flowers for weddings and maybe

00:54 for to make wreaths. So what I do is I love to garden, I've always loved

01:00 to garden, that came from my lovely mum and then a friend 15 years ago asked me

01:06 to provide flowers for her wedding, which was such a joyous occasion

01:11 that it became something I wanted to do and so I set up my little business

01:15 called Gardeners Cottage Floristry. So I like to grow as many of the flowers

01:22 that I use in floristry as I can and that tends to give them a really natural

01:26 feel. Mother Nature has a wonderful way of bringing beautiful flowers together

01:31 at the right time of year. I grow all kinds of flowers and also like to try

01:36 out different seeds each year. I'm setting more perennials in the garden

01:42 too because they are less harsh on the soil and keep coming back

01:47 each year. So there's a range of perennials, I have delphiniums and peony

01:53 of course in May which are always very popular. But for cut and come again

01:59 flowers there's the beautiful cosmos, antirhinum, scabeosa, so lots of

02:06 lovely tall frilly flowers and of course amimagus which is very

02:12 much like cow parsley but that's a florist's kind of cow parsley friend

02:19 because instead of scattering all its pollen everywhere it tends to keep

02:24 okay in the vase or in a bride's bouquet for much longer. So I can provide, people

02:31 call me to provide special bouquets or of course come for meetings to talk

02:36 about what they'd like for their wedding. But also what's becoming increasingly

02:40 popular is people want to come and pick their own buckets and learn how to make

02:44 their own bouquets which is really special to be able to welcome them to

02:48 the garden. I think flowers and gardening and floristry is a wonderful

02:54 green therapy and really good for your well-being.