Sow and Sprout Flower Company

09/04/2024

We have another fantastic Living Wreath Workshop booked with Kate from Sow and Sprout Flower Company on the evening of Thursday the 18th of April!

Create a stunning living wreath with eco friendly materials that will bloom throughout spring 💛🌿

Head to our Eventbrite through the link below for tickets!
https://bit.ly/LivingWreath2

03/04/2024

The field is finally waking up.

Just look at the colour of this Wallflower (Erysimum) with its honey scent is a win for me.

The sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is budding up nicely.

Sweet Williams (Dianthus barbatus) are slow, but that is most likely down to my late planting.

I have, however, had some pretty big losses... all my autumn sown Ammi, Cornflower, and most (90%) of my Aquilegia have been eaten by rabbits.

Thank goodness for succession sowings.

I'm going to file this little setback to experience and go out to buy some netting and hoops....

27/02/2024

°° New Workshops °°

I am pleased/excited to share that I will be running two living spring wreath workshops at .leeds on the 15th and 18th of April.

In this relaxed workshop, you will learn how to weave your own wreath from Willow. Followed by a step by step demonstration on the binding and decorating techniques required to successfully attach your chosen foliages/bulbs/moss, etc, and then over to you to get creative.

You can book your place by clicking on the links in my bio or via the .leeds website.

I hope to see some of you there.

04/02/2024

01/01/2024

2024

Started the day with a visit to the field with the dogs.

Saw a rainbow.

Lots of plans.

Now home making soup.

Pretty good start to the year.

06/12/2023

Another wreath, another happy customer.

This wreath is made up of lots of textural seasonal foliages and decorated with Pampas grass, Wild Asparagus, dried Nigella seed heads, Common Ash twigs with their beautiful black buds and finally finished with a Burgundy and Soft Pink bow and trailing ribbons.

I am still able to take a few more orders. Do get in touch if you have any questions.

03/12/2023

29/11/2023

Something a little bit different from the traditional door wreath. The hooped wreaths look just a lovely hanging on an internal wall as they do on your door.

Are you still in need of a door wreath?

I am still taking orders for either these hoop wreaths or the luxurious foliage wreaths.

Can be delivered to most areas in and around Leeds. Do drop me a message if you are interested.

27/11/2023

My first two workshops are now live.
Can't wait.
If you haven't already, go and checkout Swarthmore Education Centre some great courses and workshops on offer.

Welcome Kate from Sow and Sprout Flower Company

One of our amazing new florists running workshops here at Swarthmore!
Kate is all about all things sustainable, and her first workshops with us are some beautiful 'Natural Wreath-Making' workshops on the 8th and 10th of December.
If foliage and greenery wreaths are your cup of tea, this is the workshop for you!

Book your place on our Eventbrite through the link below-
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/swarthmore-education-centre-17955555180

22/11/2023

A little life update:

Around a month ago, I went for an interview, and I got offered the opportunity to teach floristry workshops at .leeds.

Of course, I accepted.

If you haven't heard of Swarthmore, please go and take a look at their website. The centre is committed to lifelong learning and runs a great selection of workshops and courses, runs community projects, as well as hosting exhibitions.

I can not wait to get started and back in a learning environment.

My first two Christmas wreath workshops are now live and can now be booked via the Eventbrite link in my bio.

Keep your eyes peeled as I have lots of exciting workshops lined up with Swarthmore in 2024.

28/09/2023

Last Tanacetum cut off the year (one of my all-time favourites).

Here is a little interesting fact for you all about me.

I suffer really badly with facial and hand contact dermatitis, which is caused by a Compositae allergy, which is another word for the Asteraecea plant family. For any grower out there, you will know that the Asteraecea family contains 32,000 flowering species, a lot of which we grow.

Anyway, long story short, I've been told to keep a diary to see what plants affect me, etc... HOWEVER, I was told to stop using/handling/ eating Tanacetum, Camomile, and Lettuce with immediate effect (I was also told to rethink my career choices). I was beyond gutted as I love Tanacetum/Camomile and who doesn't love a good bit of lettuce.

I will carry on growing them all but might have to hand over the harvesting reins to Chris or wear a full body biohazard suit, which might attract a few funny looks from the locals.

06/09/2023

A little something I put together with all the short/wonky stems that couldn't be sold.

27/07/2023

Mid-July arrangment.

Grown and created by me.

Ingredients list:
Phlox 'Birds Of A Feather' mix
Calendula 'Cantelope'
Ammi majus
Amaranthus
Nigella seed heads
Buddleja

21/07/2023

First (well third really, but the only one with long enough stems) bucket of flowers from the field.

While cutting these stems, a group of Red Kites were graceful on the hunt for prey above me, the field felt alive from the sound of crickets and the gentle rush of the wind through the meadow grass, I knew then that I'd made the right decision and I was were I was suppose to be.

Let's hope this is the beginning of many, many more buckets of flowers (and something new and exciting next year).

Hope you all have a good day.
Kate x

12/06/2023

A very full vase arrangement I made with the flowers Sammie kindly gave me last week.

I went into the room as the sun was setting, and I was pretty mesmerised by the dancing shadows on the wall. So beautiful.

05/06/2023

We are now in June, and while I'm still low on the flower front, I did get to play with beauty locally grown flowers over the weekend that were kindly given to me by Sammie from

Soon, we will start sowing our bienniel seeds in preparation for next year's flowers. This will hopefully mean we'll have more flowerly goodness next May/June compared to this year.

22/05/2023

We have flowers.... Well, two, to be exact.

I sowed these Orlaya grandiflora seeds back in autumn, pricked out and potted on, cared for during all different types of weather (we lost a few along the way), prepared them for and finally moved them to their new home a few weeks ago.

I can't explain how I felt when I saw them; a combination of emotional and excited. All the challenges we'd come up against this year kind of floated away, and I just focused on how I felt in that moment, I was ecstatic.
MY FIRST FLOWER IN THE FLOWER FIELD!!!!

I can't wait to see what the rest of the season will look like. I'm sure they'll be ups and downs, but this doesn't scare me as much as it did prior to seeing these 2 Orlaya flowers.

20/04/2023

Narcissi 'Geranium' what a little beauty with
with a lovely scent, too. What more could you ask for.

I didn't plant any bulbs for this season at the field for a couple of reasons, but mainly, this was due to the financial outlay.

We have a long list of Narcissi and Tulip we want to grow next year and are currently in the process of collecting crates to grow the no-dig Tulips in.

I'm not sure if you can grow Narcissi this way, so if anyone has the answer, do let me know.

Anyway, off the Harrogate Flower Show today.
But be that I've got to go to the field and accept a big compost delivery.

Hope you all have a nice day.

18/04/2023

LUPINS - What a great plant.

Lupin is a member of a flowering genus group of plants that belong in the legume family Fabaceae, along with beans and peas.
As lupins are a member of the legume family, they are nitrogen fixing plants. Which means that they store nitrogen in the small clusters of nodules that grow on their roots. These nodules are created from a symbiotic interaction with bacteria in the rhizosphere.
This nitrogen can then become readily available to other plants in a couple of ways, such as, if a nodule breaks off, it will decompose in the soil, the same happens when a plant dies. As well as that, Lupins have a large tap root, which helps break up compacted soil. For these reasons, Lupinus angustifolius (Blue Lupin) can be used as a cover crop.

Other reasons to grow Lupins,
- bees and butterflies love them (so do slugs and snails)
- they produce a beautiful shaped leaf that catches rain droplets like diamonds as seen in the photo, which I took at work yesterday.

Hope you all have a lovely day.